It was only a painting, a medium-sized framed canvas that hung in the living room of my grandparents’ house, in Oklahoma City. But to my child mind it was mysteriously alive, a scene and setting that felt not just depicted but real. I didn’t so much look at the painting as visit it, taking my place in the stillness of a foreign glade, where a young woman in a yellow headscarf sat forever unmoving on a rustic log table. She was about to smile, it seemed, as she contemplated a pear she held gracefully in her right hand. Near her were three less distinct figures, seated or standing around baskets and piles of fruit. The deep shade, broken by swaths of sunlight, was protective and…