Friedrich --

I've been leafing through my del Sarto book thanks to your urging.

Classy! And classic. Fascinating how his pallette tends to be either muted or outright electric-stormy. He doesn't bother much with the range in between.

I love del Sarto's shallow, sometimes indefinite shelf of space -- it makes the figures function like objects in a trompe l'oeil painting, defining their own space and world, as isolated in consciousness as on the canvas. Placement and organization, baby, not movement and dynamism! Also the care he takes with his compositions: chaste yet voluptuous. And stranger and eerier than you first think it's going to be, as classical art often is.

Speaking of classic, have you ever seen the contempo painter Raymond Han's work? Very impressive, enjoyable, and sexual. His paintings have some similarities to del Sarto's -- the shallow shelf, the sense of organization, the khaki/mother-of-pearl color schemes, and the under-the-surface, somewhat freaky eroticism.

Here are a couple of Han's still-lifes. I couldn't turn up examples of his paintings-with-people; in them, he arranges people and furniture as though they were still-lifes.

Best,

Michael