His parables reveal a
close and sympathetic
observation of everyday life: the farmer's sowing and reaping, the shepherd and his flock, the house built on the rock, the leaven in the dough, the lost coin and the lost sheep, the father's joy in the return of a wayward son and the elder brother's peevish jealousy, the mother forgetting her agony for joy that a man has been
born into the world, the workers standing idle in the marketplace because no one has hired them, and many other instances.
As he progresses into this century, his work takes a more abstract turn, but it still
bears the legacy of a lifetime of
close observation and bravura painting.