A pediment is an architectural element found particularly in Classical, Neoclassical and Baroque architecture, and its derivatives, consisting of a gable, usually of a triangular shape, placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. The tympanum, the triangular area within the pediment, is often decorated with relief sculpture.

Brown's long-term interest in blurring painting, sculpture, and architecture naturally would translate the "pediment" form into a sculptural painting, thus uniting the three. This painting was executed in the years following the death of Brown's life partner George Veronda, himself an architect. Many paintings of this period have a distinctly gothic character to them, Brown's iconic dark silhouettes foregrounded onto blood-red skies, but this piece has a kind of hopefulness and sentimentality that perhaps pays tribute to Veronda, rather than mourning him. Depicting a nude male holding hands with two unseen individuals on either side of him, the painting has a sense of solidarity and community that speaks to the era. 1985 was a major year for the AIDS crisis, a topic regularly in Brown's mind as a gay man in America. 1985 was the first year that Ronald Reagan publicly acknowledged the existence of AIDS; Reagan was already years late to the conversation, as only about two weeks after Reagan acknowledged its existence for the first time, the crisis saw its first celebrity death, Rock Hudson. By the end of the year, it was known that more people had contracted HIV/AIDS in 1985 than all previous years combined, and more than half of all people who had contracted AIDS to date had already died to the disease. This painting, grim but perhaps with a glimmer of hope, encapsulates some of Brown's complicated feelings in a difficult time of his life.