The home and studio used by the great Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens from 1610 to 1640 still stands in the center of Antwerp. Rubens himself commissioned the sculptures that adorn its courtyard. This shrouded figure with huge blank eyes emerges from the façade itself, an allegorical figure probably symbolizing death. The long fingers curled around a batch of pointed leaves are grim and unforgiving. I chose this vantage point to stress the arm flowing diagonally within the frame of the molding that surrounds the sculpture. It is almost as if this figure is entombed. I abstract it by converting it to black and white. The yellowish stone walls and sculpted figure become much more stark and severe once the color is gone. I did everything I could to photographically render the subject as severely as the theme it seems to represent.