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April 20, 2004
not painting
At no point do you actually paint a picture.
You might sit [right down] and write a letter. Dear Lemuel … you begin, and you continue to the bottom … yours… But a painting is not like that. A painting is more like a photograph developing in a tray of hypo [in the daze when photographs came about by liquid chemical intervention]. A painting, and a drawing, for the matter of that, comes about gradually, all over.
The first marks go down, the passion, the intent, the feeling of the broad stroke – you aren’t painting a picture. Then the body colour goes on, big brushes, bold marks, general colours approaching some form – you aren’t painting a picture. More detailed marks go down, the colours become more specific, they get closer in tone, they end up in more particular places – but you aren’t painting a picture. You look and look and look at the picture – you clearly aren’t painting a picture. You change a few colours, the tones, the tints, the lines; you add this and that, and obscure this bit just here – you aren’t painting a picture.
It reaches a point where you feel you have expressed something, and that the marks are such that they describe some emotion, some story, some history, the painting exists; and at no point have you actually painted a picture.
Posted by john at April 20, 2004 01:28 PM
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