How Painting Happens (and why it matters)
By Martin Gayford
Thames & Hudson/384 pages/$45
The greatest compliment which can be paid to the author of an art book is that the book motivates readers to go to their local museum and see actual works of art.
This act of seeing entails more than gazing at a painting or sculpture for 27.2 seconds. Reputedly, this is the viewing time per work of art for the average museum goer at The Met.
Seeing art takes a lot more time and considerably more effort. Seeing art translates into a concerted eye-to-brain process- looking, analysis, perception and - hopefully - enlightenment.
The
second greatest compliment for the author of an art book is that motivated
readers will refer back to his or her book for further reading and reflection.
The volume in question may indeed become a trusted companion, perhaps honored
with a place on a bed-side book shelf.
Both compliments apply to Martin Gayford’s How Painting Happens (and why it matters), just published by Thames and Hudson.
The title of Gayford’s new book states its theme directly and succinctly. Gayford surveys the process of painting from conception to fulfillment, from preliminary sketch to deciding when – or if – the painting is finished.
It is important to note that How Painting Happens is not a technical treatise. True, there are a few “pointers” here for the taking. Gayford describes the novel technique of Gerhard Richter when he wishes to “lose control” of a painting, that is to paint spontaneously. To do that, Richter uses a squeegee rather than a brush.
Gayford states that “these products of interaction between his (Richter’s) eye, mind, hands and arms, and the squashing, blurring power of a piece of plastic, can be overwhelmingly beautiful.”
Intrepid painters may want to give Richter’s squeegee a try. This technique sounds more than a little risky, so I think I’ll stick to magic markers.
Instead of “how to”, the key concept of How Painting Happens is “dialogue.”
Gayford is the premier interviewer of the visual arts scene of our times. Spring Cannot be Cancelled, the 2021 book recording Gayford's friendship with David Hockney over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, is a poignant and powerful testament to the human spirit.
Gayford has over three decades of experience speaking to artists, putting them at ease while encouraging them to discuss their viewpoints, trials, tribulations and achievements. Gayford draws on these interviews to inform the text of this book.
“Inform” is indeed the correct verb form for describing Gayford’s methodology. How Painting Happens is no “cut and paste” reassembling of old newspaper clippings. Rather, the comments and insights of now-legendary figures like Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon, Paula Rego and Frank Stella are combined with those of contemporary painters to create a “voice” for art.
El
Greco, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, 1586
Moreover,
this “voice” resonates with what the Old Masters of painting, from Titian and El
Greco to Picasso and Matisse, said and did. They make their presence felt
chiefly through the comments of the artists whom Gayford interviewed. This
gives depth of insight to How Painting
Happens similar to the way that painting in oils builds layer upon layer to
create the desired image.
Gayford weaves together the strands of many voices with commentary founded upon his deep-seated knowledge of art history. This produces a sense of continuity and shared purpose which carries through the discussion of the many genres of painting and historical eras surveyed in this remarkable book.
The “voice” we hear in How Painting Happens is the voice of experiences, founded upon a shared conviction and leading to the same, unshakable, conclusion:
Painting
matters… Art matters and it has been doing so for a very long time.
In his discussion of the origin and use of color pigments, Gayford alludes to the alchemists. The aim of these Renaissance-era savants was to transform base metals into gold. Painters had beaten them to a comparable goal by many thousands of years.
Ochre, various forms of oxides dug from the soil beneath human feet, was the key component of the first paint. When mixed with fat from animal bone marrow and heated, ochre pigments enabled prehistoric artists to create astonishing masterpieces such as the cave murals at Chauvet and Lascaux. Is there a greater alchemy than this?
The
meaning of these cavalcades of painted aurochs, reindeer and wild horses has
been much debated. Almost certainly, these scenes related to hunting, either invocations
of divine assistance prior to a foray in search of game or to a celebration afterwards.
In the case of the stenciled hand-prints at the Cueva de las Manos, located in Patagonia at
the southern tip of South America, the statement was direct and unequivocal.
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Gayford,
as noted above, has interviewed an impressive number of painters, discussing with them the steps they
took, from blank canvas to gallery wall, to affirm their lives and art. So
numerous are the respondents to Gayford’s inquiries that to try and encompass
the contributions of all would be foolhardy. Instead, I will focus upon
Gayford’s exchanges with two painters in order to convey a sense of the whole
extraordinary enterprise.
Sean Scully is a perfect fit for a Gayford interview - and inclusion in How Painting Matters. Artist and author are near contemporaries, both steeped in the theory and practice of art, of the present and the past ... and with an eye to the future.
Scully was born in Dublin in 1945. His family moved to London when he was boy and he was trained to work in the construction industry. Scully related to Gayford that he would spend his thirty-minute lunch break, making a dash to the Tate Gallery on a moped, to commune with his favorite painting.
Standing in front of Van Gogh's Chair in his splattered overalls, Scully was moved to make a career change. From working with plaster, he chose to become a "worker" in paint.
Scully's timing was not the most propitious to take-up painting. By the time his career was launched, 1970's Minimalism was in full-swing. Representational art of any kind was "out" and Abstraction held in low repute. After moving to New York, Scully rebelled against "what you see is what you get." And he switched from quick-drying acrylics back to painting in oils.
In a fascinating discussion with Gayford, Scully related that painting with acrylics had enabled his "work to become, let's say, more conceptual." Then, in the 1980's, he was inspired to create work that was "more sensual, more emotional, more romantic, more experiential and less programmatic."
The resulting transition, shifting from acrylics to oil paint, was a near disaster. Scully recounted how:
It was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown because oil paint was so unruly. It's like the difference between walking and riding a horse - especially the way I ride a horse, which is clueless. You can't control it. Even now, I don't control it entirely. That's what's so beautiful about it.
The ordeal of recalibrating back to oil paints has enabled Scully to create an impressive oeuvre, "more experiential and less programmatic" over the subsequent years. These include his signature Landline series. One of Scully's Landline paintings is included as a full page illustration in How Painting Happens. This work is entitled Landline Star (2017).
I had the great, good fortune to meet Sean Scully at the press preview of the magnificent retrospective of his work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2022. A Landline painting similar to Landline Star was on view, Landline North Blue (2014). In my review, I described this work as an abstract landscape, in the spirit of Caspar David Friedrich.
One of the most vital tasks of a writer involved in cultural commentary and analysis is to make new or unfamiliar art forms intelligible to general readers. With Sean Scully, Gayford was able to find common ground and mutual understanding fairly easily. In his conversation with Korean artist, Lee Ufan, it was Gayford's turn to cope with a bit of adversity.
Art affirms our existence. Art records the relationship of our body, "which does not belong just to us", with the world.
And so, in the end does Martin Gayford's How Painting Happens. It affirms life and testifies to our relationship with the world.
Gayford's book, a work of art in its own right, has already claimed a place on my bed-side book shelf. It is wedged in beside Christopher De Hamel’s Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts and The Oxford Book of Essays. But How Painting Happens (and why it matters) is not a book to rest on its laurels and it won't be sitting on that shelf, gathering dust, for long.
***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved.
Original photography, copyright of Ed Voves and Anne Lloyd. Book cover, courtesy of Thames and Hudson.
Introductory Image: Diego Velazquez (Spanish) Self-Portrait, detail from Las Meninas, 1656. Oil on canvas: 318 cm × 276 cm (125.2 in × 108.7 in) Museo del Prado, Madrid. This image comes from the web site of National Gallery, London.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Gallery view of Van Gogh's Cypresses, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, showing Van Gogh's Landscape from Saint-Rémy. 27 3/4 × 34 7/8 in. (70.5 × 88.5 cm) Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen
David Dawson, Photo (2018) David Hockney and Martin Gayford in conversation. Photo from Spring Cannot be Cancelled (Thames & Hudson, 2021)
El Greco, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, 1586. Oil on canvas: 480 cm × 360 cm (190 in × 140 in). Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo Spain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burial_of_the_Count_of_Orgaz#/media/File:El_Greco_-_The_Burial_of_the_Count_of_Orgaz.JPG
Unknown photographer (EU), Photo (2006) Aurochs, horses and deer painted on a cave at Lascaux. Upper Paleolithic era, c. 17,300 years ago. Photo licensed under Creative commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lascaux_painting.jpg
Mariano Cecowski Photo (2005) Hands at the Cuevas de las Manos (The Cave of Hands), 2005. Photo licensed under Creative Commons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SantaCruz-CuevaManos-P2210651b.jpg
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Gallery view of Van Gogh's Cypresses, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, showing Van Gogh's The Starry Night, 1889. Oil on canvas. 29 x 36 1/4" (73.7 x 92.1 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Ed Voves, Photo (2022) Sean Scully at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Spring 2022.
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch,1853-1890) Van Gogh's Chair, 1888. Oil on canvas: 91.8 × 73 cm. National Gallery, London. NG3862
Ed Voves, Photo (2022) Gallery view of Sean Scully: the Shape of Ideas at Philadelphia Museum of Art, showing Scully's Landline North Blue, 2014.
Andrew Tupelvev, Photo (2014) Lee Ufan at the opening of artist's personal exhibition at Gary Tatintsian Gallery, November 13, 2014. Photo licensed under Creative Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lee_Ufan.jpg
Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Lee Ufan’s From Line, 1979. Displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oil on canvas: 76 3/16 in. × 8 ft. 5 15/16 in. (193.5 × 259 cm) Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul. #LL.001
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Vincent van Gogh’s County Road in Provence by Night, 1890. Oil on canvas: 35 3/8 x 28 3/8 in. (90.6 x 72 cm) Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands
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