Yes. And I would add, this committment has “power”, and when done very well, as in Landfield’s case, does not require anything else.

Perhaps.

I would suggest the opposite. I have seen many more paintings trying hard to “generate metaphors” that fail sublimely in being good or successful paintings. Usually,…and this is not a rule,…when an artist uses ideas as a kind of blueprint for his or her art, the art has less “power”, or is less good. One would have to sit in front of the painting and think about how various imagery might create more metaphoric “content” in the work, and this kind of musing and thinking almost always – again, not a rule – creates ersatz art.

From my experience.