Barend Blankert's still-live paintings are endowed with an intensity that imparts to them a kind of presence almost a significance which, however, is never symbolic because they do not stand for something else. A kitchen table remains a kitchen table but, through its colour and its location, it acquires such an intensity that it almost become a person. (Barend Blankert Mineta Move Retina, 1980 p.16.