An elegant bean

Ellsworth Kelly’s portrait of a beanstalk is composed of single lines of pencil. The stalk hangs in mid-space, suspended in garden fresh air. The leaves are thick at the ground, thinner at the top. Each leaf is just a slip of vegetation, triangular, pulled both by gravity downward the earth and upward the sun. The figure is simultaneously monumental – stretching past my own tallness to the ceiling – and light – transparent, unladen with shadow or shading or color.