Does art matter? It must do. To misquote someone else in an entirely different context: it hasn’t gone away you know, and painting is its oldest form. After being astonished at the age of the Lascaux cave paintings in France, dating back around 17,000 years, this year’s discovery of 50,000 year old paintings in Leang Karampuang, Indonesia, shows us how the urge to express ourselves visually is immemorial.
From figurative to abstract, and into assemblage, photography, film and text, we now have art so conceptual it doesn’t actually exist physically at all, but throughout every innovation, and every declaration, such as Paul Delaroche on seeing the daguerreotype in 1839: that this was “the death of painting”; painting endures. So too does its power, and it is a power that takes us beyond the glitzy headlines of multi-million euro auction sales, and the slickly bright baubles so beloved of oligarchs. Whether it’s a Rembrandt or a Paula Rego, Bridget Riley or Pablo Picasso, a remarkable painting can move the soul. So how does it come about?
Surprisingly, given all art’s rich mysteries, How Painting Happens, succeeds in providing keys to unlocking the puzzles of painting; and even more surprisingly, given that painting exists in the realms that sit behind language, it manages to do it without ruining everything. Erudite and insightful, art writer and critic Martin Gayford wears his knowledge lightly and manages to carry his considerable and weighty connections with ease. He is on chatting terms with Peter Doig, has cheerful disagreements with Lee Ufan, and previously wrote a book on his experiences of being painted by Lucian Freud.
Reading this richly illustrated book takes you on a ride from inspiration to execution, from pigments to feelings and meanings, and the extraordinary wonder of it is, that unlike someone trying to explain why a joke is funny, Gayford’s investigations of the arts behind the art leave it all the more magnificent. An early surprise may be that frequently the artists themselves do not know, or cannot put into words why, or how they paint. Perhaps this should not be surprising. As any parent knows, feeling and impulse come way before language, and language itself is not sufficient to contain or encompass everything that goes on in our minds, or in the world.
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Gayford quotes Virginia Woolf (writing on post-Impressionist painter Walter Sickert) describing a conversation between guests at a dinner party, discussing painting: “Now they are going into the silent land; soon they will be out of reach of the human voice [ . . . ] They are making passes with their hands, to express what they cannot say.” That this “silent land” is not a thin realm of nothingness is captured by Columbian artist Oscar Murillo, when he tells Gayford that painting as a medium is “a well, an infinite well of water. You can just continuously draw out of it, and it always gives. It keeps you hydrated.”
The range of the book is vast. Irish artists, and the Irish art world are represented by Francis Bacon, Brian O’Doherty, who worked for years as Patrick Ireland, and Sean Scully, while Hugh Lane Director Barbara Dawson is referenced in context of the Bacon Studio there. Early on there is a beautiful series of conversations with, and quotes from artists on the near-impossibility of starting, and the task of carrying on, even when things get tough. Read it as an artist for inspiration and encouragement, or read it, quite simply as a person in the world, as advice for life: for who hasn’t wrestled with a fear of failure, an alarm that ideas may dry up, and a general malaise about getting going on anything at all? Vincent van Gogh found it “paralysing”, Jadé Fadojutimi makes sure to always make a mark, while Joan Miró “provoke[s] accidents.”
The section on knowing when something is finished is every bit as fascinating, and looked at this way, How Painting Happens also functions in parts as a gloriously illustrated, occasionally abstract Self Help book that even delves into the spiritual. Korean abstract painter and sculptor, Ufan, describes painting’s relationship with time: “It is a matter of moment and eternity. Sometimes there are shiny moments, while in other times there are mundane moments. Repetitions come from the awe of shiny moments, or the longing for continuation of such moments. In the process of the repetitions, humans see eternity.”
Artists are more likely to read How Painting Happens from cover to cover, and dwell in its more theoretical sections on bodies, perspective, colour and the use of lenses, and yet even these are not hard work for the lay reader. Gayford’s confidence, and his love for the subject saves them from any soggy weightiness. Non-artists may prefer to dip in, though I expect they will not be able to stop until they have dipped everywhere in this fascinating study, and come out richer, in imagery, ideas, understandings and appreciation for this extraordinary and most enduring form of human expression in all its tints and glories.
Gemma Tipton is a freelance critic
