Richard Britell, "Fox and Parking Meter", oil on canvas 30" x 48", February, 2010Things in this painting: A red fox, two urns, a parking meter, a fire hydrant, and a parked car. The parked car is out of focus, and the hydrant is blocked out by the urn. These are all various parts of a banister, an imaginary banister on the top of an imaginary building. Down below are crowds of imaginary people rushing too and fro, along Fifth Avenue, just two blocks south of the Metropolitan Museum.
I would like to say a few things about the symbolism of this painting. First of all there is the red fox, which is a symbol of a fox. Then comes the parking meter, which is a symbol of a parking meter. You can figure out the symbolism of the urns for yourself, but i will give you this clue. They are either very large urns in which can be grown those wonderful dwarf orange trees, or they are funeral urns.
Now I would like to say something about my procedures in doing this painting. Before I began I consulted the very best animal painting that I know of, which is Durer’s portrait of a rabbit; I am sure you know the one. I looked at this very carefully and I noted that the rabbit is painted in such a way that you can practically see every single hair on its body. This was a rabbit who was willing to spend a long time posing , in daylight, standing stock still for his portrait to be done. This was exactly what i did not want to do in my painting. I wanted my fox to look like one of those foxes you see running along the side of the road, at night, and you only get to see a little light glinting along the edge of his eye, as he bounds along in the darkness. For this sort of thing one has to consult Caravaggio, or perhaps the x-files, where things are sucked up in shadow, or obscured by mist.
