Standbeeld van Walter Scott door John Steell in Princesstreet in Edinburgh, Schotland before 1906

This photograph shows John Steell's statue of Walter Scott in Edinburgh, Scotland, reproduced in a book – probably sometime in the 20th century. The statue is grey, not colorful like a painting, but there are still lots of different ways of seeing in its careful arrangement of light and shadow, the way it models form. I’m drawn to the way the sculptor uses the folds of the sitter's clothes to convey the pose. I see how Scott's weight is distributed as he sits, how his arm is positioned, how the dog nestles at his feet. The folds communicate how the body exists in space, but they are also beautifully rendered in their own right, flowing and cascading like a river. The way this is captured in the photograph reminds me of some of Gerhard Richter's grey paintings. It's art about art, which also makes me think of Sherrie Levine's rephotographing of famous photographs: a way of reinterpreting and opening up new possibilities for an image.