Last May, I wrote about the question of art and crying. What makes a person cry in front of a work of art? Do art "experts" cry less the more they know? Crying in front of art is the subject of an entire book by James Elkins, Pictures and Tears, which I thoroughly recommend.

I rarely cry in front of works of art, but last week it was tears at first sight when I entered the room at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art containing this painting.

Anselm Kiefers Shulamite, 1983, on view at SFMOMA
  • Anselm Kiefer's Shulamite, 1983, on view at SFMOMA

I didn't know anything about it and had never seen it before, either in person or in reproduction (that I remember)—and I think that added to its power. My theory is that not knowing a work in advance can be just as powerful as studying one and building up anticipation to see it in the flesh.

I was drawn into it, by the concentric arches, which seemed to tell me that I had no choice but to enter. I walked toward it, and my tears just started up. I felt the repetition of those arches like the dark minor chords being struck over and over. They seemed deathly, but reassuringly neverending.

Up close, the painting has areas of vivid red, like blood, and the fire at the end of the tunnel is chalky and faint. Paint-covered straw is affixed to the canvas in a messy field that sets the strict architecture vibrating, makes the bricks seem old and worn and full of bad history they're trying to shake off.

I stood there a while. I kneeled for a while.

Looking at the label was just an afterthought, and it made my sorrow a little more concrete than I'd have liked. The painting had told me everything I needed to know about it.