Open interpretations.

This picture was drawn by a friend.
I wondered what she had tried to convey through this picture. What story did it tell?

I see an old man, sitting on the outside of what seems like a cemetery. The cross above his head responsible for my assumption of the setting. Maybe he is grieving the loss of someone, someone who must have meant something to him. Maybe a wife, or a son. Or even a friend, maybe his only one.  I wonder what the stairs imply. And his slippers. Maybe he is distraught over the loss. And it is there to emphasize the importance of the person.
The old man has a vacant expression on his face. It is not of peace, but of a tranquility that results from the acceptance of chaos in one's life. I think he is grieving for a loss that happened a long time ago, and that he forgot to stop grieving about it. But is this what happens to people who do not accept loss, who learn to live around it. Letting it consume you slowly in your mind before its eventual claim on your body.
I concluded that this was something to do with loss, and the pain accompanying it.

And I ask her, what is it that you are trying to convey through this. She told me that she tried to recapture an image, which made an impression on her, using watercolours. And that was the result of it.
So I ask if I can have a look at the Original picture; this is it.

Was I wrong in my assumptions? Maybe. But can you dispute it? Well except for the cemetery part, which maybe true, I think I can live with my take on it.

That was my first impression on the picture drawn. If she had not mentioned it, I would have gone on to think of it as a brilliant piece of art with an underlying message to the rest of the world.
But this picture taken is exactly that. It still is art, captured through a different medium, and open to interpretation to the rest of the world.
And each of our interpretations and complex analysis will be far from the truths of the world that this man lives in. Maybe he sat there because he was tired, with slippers he found, which made no sense together to the rest of the world but him.
That is absolute freedom.
Away from the world that was created for us in the minds of others who came before. Away from the shackles of our reality that binds one slipper in this world to the only other of the same kind.