Each piece was composed of five separate canvases, and to see the whole work one must look at them in whatever order and hold in the mind the impression and image of each. To look at a single one alone, or to look at all of them as if they were a panorama, was to misunderstand. The work did not—could not—exist in paint: it existed in the mind as a conjunction, and all five parts must be apprehended at once.
