The Laocoön Stance

Three meerkats stand sentinel as a dark serpent coils through them. It is the Laocoön, the ancient marble of a priest and his two sons crushed by sea-snakes, restaged with the most watchful animal on the veldt. Formichella found the pose in El Greco's Toledo, where, as he noted, "Toledo stands for Troy," and in Blake, who read the strangled Trojan as imagination throttled by empire and false religion. Terror, held upright in a small body.

James Formichella is a Gloucester painter who works by association. Each of these canvases has a companion in An Alphabetical Caprice, a notebook he compiled from his working notes and source clippings: an A to Z in which every letter spirals off into art history, etymology, money, madness, and mortality. He came to Gloucester from Denver in 1978 for the plein-air light, trained in oil under John C. Terelak, and is an associate member of the North Shore Arts Association.

One of a kind. Giclée on stretched canvas, a flat $180 regardless of size. Fish City Studios, 39 Main St, Gloucester. Leaves the gallery ready to hang.