other, and represent the “whole” of life, especially from an existential perspective. Gottlieb divides his canvas in two and then uses a contrasting image in each to create a unified whole from the parts, much as existence is whole only when we considered the beauty and the brutality of it. The point that makes us think is not that it takes unity and wholeness to exist, but, that, unity and wholeness do not come without conflict, without contrasts, and, therefore, lacking the tension between beauty and brutality life would become quite meaningless.
It is this kind of contemplative mood that the painting evokes in the viewer, one whose disparate images mirror the disparate
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