[Nature morte à la raie; Chaim Soutine, 1923-24]

Some scholars have written that Soutine is dominated by anthropomorphic gestures, that he is undisciplined, hallucinated, out of control, a necrophile. To spot subliminal forces organizing in his limbo brawn is not to see him as cartoon-complexed; rather, it is to affirm the extent to which he turned the still life into life in the still. Soutine is one of the most porous painters who ever lived. In the bloodmares to be found in the oily, night hair of the Seine are hybrid consequences still-dwelling in our minds-to-be-born

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Or another ray, which appears to be disembowling itself of tomatoes, parbroiled and skinned, which Soutine cannot digest, a ray with multiple tomato breasts, O Ray of Ephesus!

--from "Soutine's Lapis"; Clayton Eshleman, 1996