Oil Painting on Canvas. 24 x 24 inches, Collection of Sir Fraser Stoddart.
These three rings are not linked together as in a chain. Snip just any one of the rings and the other two fall apart - this would not happen with a chain. The spheres are used to preposition the parts so that they will spontaneously join up in the right way. The ring structure was unknown to science until Kekulé dreamt of a snake swallowing its tail and awoke to the realization that benzene might have a ring structure. During my work on this painting I too had snakes on my mind.