oil on canvas · 1894 · g. mark
a brown dog, curled on a red rug by a hearth that mark did not bother to paint directly — only its light, only its warmth on the dog's flank. the dog's name is not recorded. the rug is recorded; it was the rug of mark's mother's house.
the painting is small, the dog is smaller, and the longer you look at it the more it appears to be breathing. a former custodian wrote, in the catalogue, that this is a trick of the loose brushwork at the ribs. the new custodian writes nothing about it. she crosses the room to the chair next to it to sit, sometimes, when the room is empty.
field-note the dog dreams of a garden the house no longer has. this is the only thing anyone has ever agreed about it.