A painter is painting a picture of another painter in the act of painting. The painter plans to call this piece “A Painter Paints a Painting of a Painter”.

The second painter (like the first) is holding a palette in his left hand, a brush in his right, and is standing before a canvas, and upon the canvas is his painting-in-progress.

The essential difference between these two painters (besides, of course one being the painting subject, and the other being a painted object) is that the two artists paint using different palettes.

(Neither painter is color blind. Only their palettes are limited.)

The first painter’s palette has only two colors: red and white.

What makes the second painter so fascinating and infuriating to the first — and, in fact, the entire reason he wants to paint him — is the fact that the second painter paints only in blue and black. For the first painter, this difference is a crisis, and he hopes to resolve it by capturing that difference on canvas. This is why he is painting “A Painter Paints a Painting of a Painter”.

So the first painter sets out to capture this difference — of painting in blue and black — using his own palette of red and white.

And the painting is a success. By some poetic miracle, the first painter perfectly captures the essential difference. Or at least some artists believe so. The community of painters who paint in red and white, marvel at his success.

But the second painter sees in the portrait allegedly of him, only a reflection of the first painter — certainly not himself. And his view is shared by his peers who paint in blue and black.

And here I am — palette and brush in hand — painting this fable in black, white, red and blue, which is the palette of this fable-world.

And whoever hears this fable is cursed to paint this story and the telling of this story onto their own canvas with their own palette.

The end.