Heavy raindrops, painted in white, fall on a straw-thatched gazebo. Above the rain streaks are green dots running parallel with the white dots; the dots resemble the alphabet “V” at a closer look, which Nam June Paik often used to portray an old television’s antenna. Behind the rain are books, and behind the falling Vs is a furrow-like lattice structure. At the bottom of the painting is a Chinese four-character idiom, 晴耕雨讀, meaning “working in the field in fine weather and reading at home in wet weather.” Paik had stressed the importance of studying from the 1960s, which he had strived to maintain into his latter years.
Working in the field in fine weather and reading at home in wet weather