Altoon Sultan blogs about the mysterious relationship between form and feeling in works by Carl Dahl, Fra Angelico, Hans Memling, John Peto, Kazimir Malevich, Philip Guston, Samuel Palmer, and Tawaraya Sotatsu.

Sultan writes: "When we are standing in front of a painting we see shape, line, color with its hues and values, but what do we feel? How much of that feeling, so much of which is inexpressible, comes from the formal qualities of the work? How much is pure mystery?… Of course, having a spirit that is more than the accumulation of its formal parts––color, shape, paint––is what makes a good painting; it's basic, isn't it? And it's essentially mysterious as to how it occurs, and why we can disagree so much about our most loved works."