Andrew Martin muses on the significance of painter Philip Guston's return to figuration: "Like Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, Guston’s figurative turn remains the centerpiece of his personal mythology."

Recounting both the severe critical reactions to Guston's rejection of abstraction and Guston's own attitude toward his figurative paintings Martin concludes: " …we can appreciate Guston’s work for the brilliant, purposeful mess of contradictions that it is… In the years since… Guston’s paintings retain a striking originality of vision, but they no longer look quite so bizarre or out of place."