"Featured image, Willem De Kooning's <i>...Whose Name Was Writ in Water</i> (1975), from the collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Collection, is reproduced from The Museum of Modern Art's monumental career survey, <a href=""http://www.artbook.com/9780870707971.html"">De Kooning: A Retrospective</a>. Of the painting, Jennifer Field writes, ""In <i>...Whose Name Was Writ in Water</i>, the mauve brushstrokes at center right have the waxiness of encaustic. They hover over a thick, puckered passage of butter yellow�the result of de Kooning's practice of mixing his paints with safflower oil, water, and either kerosene or another solvent, which he would whip into a 'fluffy consistency.' De Kooning would have learned about the effects of mixing water-and oil-based mediums as a housepainter. This combination kept the paint wet and pliable. When it dried, it created a roiled surface of wrinkled and bubbled areas, later prompting the philosopher Richard Wollheim to liken these effects to the 'infantile experiences of sucking, touching, biting, excreting retaining, smearing, sniffing, swallowing, gurgling, stroking, wetting.'"""
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