From a notebook of conversations of a young, erudite painter

History: (circa 2001)
I might have mentioned this before, I'm trying to paint History. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes in 1866 painted a panel in a hotel, I think, called History. Now, his is an allegory, and I wanted mine to be an allegory but finally I've decided to paint the image associated with the concept of history as it is seen in the mind. When I go through the various fields of knowledge, philosophy, history, psychology, I make these little diagrams in my mind which I use to 'locate' history, say, in my understanding. I think that these diagrams are universal, and I want to paint them. I've been working on it for a month and I'm starting to think it's going to take years. I don't want to have a title, I want people to look at my abstraction and think, "Hey that's history!" So the painting has to work in the same way that history works. That's the hard part, because history isn't a simple machine. How does one paint 'research'? I know, I'm the painter, I should know. Maybe you could help me. What is history to you? How would you visualize history? I took a picture of one of my history paintings and when I develop the photographs I'll scan the picture. It'll give you an idea of where I'm trying to take this thing.
https://chumly.com/n/2714f57