4th of July

Right now I am calling this one Grief.  I could use your help giving it a better name.  I'm not sure what motivated it, unlike most of my paintings I did not start with a plan.   I back painted the canvas vandyke brown and it sat for a time.  I had no other plan for it, and then one day I was angry, and painted the red crack, still unsure what direction I would go in, it sat for another long while.  Later I played with a simple landscape that would be broken up, but I was not happy with it, and again it sat for a few weeks.  I caught the end of 'Saving Private Ryan' and began thinking of a visit to Arlington when I was a kid.  Soon after the landscape became my memory of the seeming endless crosses.  I must say it left an impression, that lingered in the back of my mind.

It's an 11x14 acrylic on stretched canvas, painted around the edges.

The flags and old man were the last additions.  I'm not sure what I am trying to say.  That's usually the first thing I think of, and what most people ask when looking at a painting like this.    What does it say to you?  Is what I would like to know.

More political than mythical.  But then most myths have a start in historical legends.