How can a painting tell a story? How can a painting pass through time? This problem has been approached constantly throughout human history by cultural forces from Greek vase painters like Euphronios,( ca. 500 BC)2 to Chinese scroll painters from the Song Dynasty like Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145), known for his panoramic painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival.3 It is only quite recently in human history that painters, influenced by the writing of critics like Clement Greenberg (1909-1994), discarded narrative for a formal approach to painting as object-making.
