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.
Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2023)
Gallery view of Van Gogh's Cypresses at the Metropolitan Museum,
showing Van Gogh's Landscape
from Saint-Rémy, 1889
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.”
David Dawson, Photo (2018)
David Hockney and Martin Gayford in conversation.
Photo from Spring Cannot be Cancelled (Thames & Hudson, 2021)
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?
Aurochs,
horses and deer painted on a cave at Lascaux.
Upper
Paleolithic era, c. 17,300 years ago. Photo (2006)
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.
“I
exist.”
Mariano Cecowski, Photo (2005)
Hands at the Cueva de las Manos (The Cave of Hands), Argentina
No
one knows the exact identity of the ancient painters in Cueva de las Manos. Yet
modern-day artists can speak for them because the essential message of art never
changes. Acknowledging the insights of the contemporary British painter, Jenny
Saville, Gayford notes that the Cueva de las Manos handprints “are an arresting
way of proclaiming the same message … that Van Gogh was transmitting with his
oils and brushes: I exist.”
Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2023)
Gallery view of Van Gogh's Cypresses at The Met,
showing Van Gogh's The Starry Night, 1889
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.
Ed Voves, (Photo 2022)
Sean Scully at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Spring 2022
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.
Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh's Chair, 1888
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).
Ed Voves, (Photo 2022)
Gallery view of Sean Scully: the Shape of Ideas at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, showing Scully's Landline North Blue, 2014
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.
Ed Voves, (Photo 2022)
Sean Scully's Landline North Blue, 2014
The experience of beholding this powerful painting and discussing it with Scully ranks as one of the most memorable events in my evolving appreciation of art. But it was made even more meaningful by reading the Gayford/Scully dialogue in How Painting Happens. It is truly a case study of the "uses of adversity."
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.
Andrew Tupalev, Portrait of Lee Ufan, 2014
Lee Ufan, born in 1936, is not only one of the major painters and sculptors of modern Korea, but is a leader of the philosophical movement in Korea and Japan known as Mono-ha. This "school of things" explores the interface of natural and man-made objects. Lee Ufan has been a strong critic of the rapid and heedless Westernization of Asia.
Ed Voves, (Photo 2024)
Lee Ufan's From Line, 1979, displayed at the Metropolitan Museum
Lee Ufan's signature paintings are known by a common title, From Line.
These paintings are generally similar: uniform strokes of blue cobalt-cadmium pigment which begin with intense coloration at the top of the canvas, gradually losing saturation in the downward sweep, until only ghostly shadow-like forms remain.
As described by Gayford, Lee's working procedure is like that of Michelangelo in reverse. The canvas is placed on the floor and Lee paints, face down, from "a wooden board set-up, like a bridge, above it."
Ed Voves, (Photo 2024)
Detail of Lee Ufan's From Line, 1979
Prior to reading How Painting Happens, I had never seen a Lee Ufan From Line painting. This made it difficult to follow Gayford's exchange with Lee.
MOMA has a From Line in its collection but it is not currently on view. Fortunately, The Met's recent exhibition of Korean art, Lineages, displayed a From Line painting similar to the one chosen to illustrate How Painting Happens. I was able to see this painting, confirming its status as a remarkable, hard-to-fathom work of art - at least for a Westerner.
Gayford evidently had a similar reaction and his attempts to draw-out some form of intelligible meaning (again to Westerners) met with a barrage of polite rebuttals from Lee Ufan:
Maybe
you don’t really understand what I’m doing. I put some paint on the brush then
make one, two, three, four strokes, and as I do so, with each stroke, the paint
becomes fainter. Perhaps you imagine I control my breathing just during one
stroke, but that’s not the case. With one breath, I make several strokes. That’s very important... Because this is the
result of a long, long period of training. It is the same as the way an athlete
trains; artists train themselves as well.
After further discussion, Gayford finally grasped that when Lee paints, he is "immersing" himself into the work.
"I am inside the canvas," Lee says. He is painting, not only with blue cobalt-cadmium paint, but with his breath, his life force, his body.
"The body is crucial, our body does not belong just to us. It creates a relationship with the world. And that relationship is the most interesting thing of all."
These then, are just two of the amazing cast of characters summoned by Martin Gayford to the pages of How Painting Happens. Individually and collectively, they make the case of why art matters. They do so in terms which validate the hand-painters of Cueva de las Manos, ten thousand years ago, and Lee Ufan in the world of today.
Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2023)
Gallery view of Van Gogh's Cypresses at the Metropoitan Museum of Art,
showing Van Gogh's Country Road in Provence by Night, 1890
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.
Ed Voves, Photo (2022) Sean Scully’s Landline
North Blue, 2014. Oil on Aluminum: 7 feet 1 inches × 6 feet
3 inches (215.9 × 190.5 cm). Forman Family Collection.
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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