In the end, it's all about the paint

This is the phrase I used in a discussion with a Dutch painter/friend of mine about what makes a painting a good painting. He did not agree.
As a painter you cannot help but think about what defines a good painting, is it the contents (story/idea), the composition, the colors? Surely all of these elements are important to a painting, but I came to the conclusion that even if all of the aforementioned elements were there but the paint was not right or in the right place (this is a difficult definition, I know) then that would decide it to be not a good painting.
You can imagine my joy when I came upon an interview with the painter James Rosenquist (in Vogue of all magazines) and read his words: "The object is just to get the paint out of the tube and on to the canvas in the right place."
And that's it, exactly!
No matter how meaningful your idea is, if the paint does not feel right it just does not make a good painting. To me a good painting has to have a living and breathing skin, one that you want to touch (which unfortunatley is forbidden in musea and most galleries) and the paint has to have this almost sensual quality in the way it has been applied to, or moved around on the canvas or the panel.

Two new paintings that I spent quite some time on moving paint around untill I thought it was in the right place:

Low Horizons # 1 & 2, both are based on abstracted memories, the rainstorm is based on a road trip through Holland after I had moved to the United States, the mountain ridge on a recent trip to New Mexico, where things happen in the landscape that don't happen anywhere else.

Size 18" x 14", oil/cold wax on linen