{now we have class. pay attention. Boilly is the painter here. first thing you notice is....depends on your orientation somewhat, but. the central point in the image is a shading in and out above the old couple's heads. contrast that with the light from above. and the thin band of light at the door. and who is that guy? not significant guy right? only check out the girl just below him. she's the same figure as what most people would say is THE central figure in the image. ok check out where her head is. right in front of the guy's elbow. the guy is Boilly. elbows are everywhere in this painting. an elbow is the dominant foreground image. it balances her right breast, the most lovingly rendered breast I've ever seen. the guy's elbow her elbow and Junior's there at her left. now drop down and over what do you see? it's a timeline of growth it starts to seem almost bludgeoningly obvious. infant/breast toddler/breast then right at the moment of puberty and full bloomed young womanhood. ok go back to the nursing mom at left. see her head? what's it hiding? and above him to his left? another one. below that. ok on the other side of the billiard player past the dogs there's a guy who is almost all shadow, and being embraced by a girl who's mostly light, and now her head is hidden by... right. my first attraction to this painting was the girl/woman bending over the table, but then where was the center? that shading, amorphous place with no boundaries exactly not exactly brown or black, the center of the image is ah.... there and there and somewhere in there....and below that the old woman's face, almost in the center, and the pool cue pointing, could it be? to the place above the couple where their souls meet? something valentinish like that, something sentimental like that. but not cynical that's the key issue here. cynicism can't touch this stuff. the center is there, imprecisely, because....well it moves around really. he makes it move. there's some pretty hardcore courtship happening far right, and bright as can be at the edge of the shadows, her arm, her...yes another one. and at the far right edge of the billiard table see the boy, his...yes...and blocking his head her.....yes. and I don't mean to make it freakish, it isn't at all. he's playing. it's elegant play, and so much love for the movement of life, for women, for sex, and for the breast itself not separate from but in and of the warm heart of womanhood. it's there. you can ignore it or turn away from it, but it's not a choice really, it's there because Boilly put it there. the shadowy figure near center is echoed again to the far right, these guys are hats, father hats, fatherly hats, men. men and elbows. Boilly. A Game of Billiards. corny maybe some, but that love is bigger than sentiment. that love is real, nothing living is bigger.}