A Picture Paints A Thousand Words

I am looking at a beautiful painting in the gallery. The painting I am looking at in the gallery is beautiful. I am in the gallery. I am looking at a painting. It is beautiful.

I’m sorry, but those words don’t even begin to do it justice. When I first saw the picture, some hours ago, I was so stunned by its beauty that I had to sit down and stare at it with my mouth open in awe!How can somebody create on canvas the feel, the sensation, the reality of silk, and yet next to it using the same substances create the texture of velvet, of skin, of steel and pearl? What kind of brush or knife can apply paint so softly as to create the illusion of glass, mist, candlelight or deep, still water?

It is incredible to visualise the original bare canvas, stretched across a frame as it awaited the first dab of oil, or would the artist begin with a wash of colour to create the background? Nevertheless, however humble its origins, that same blank canvas now lies underneath a masterpiece.

Who did this? The signature is illegible, almost as if there has been an attempt to paint over it as an afterthought. The information about it is sketchy (which would be a good joke if it were a pencil drawing and not an oil painting!).

I can only try to understand the artist through this work. The painting is so lifelike, I feel I am able to climb inside the picture and actually watch the artist as he works, as if I have somehow travelled back in time. I wonder, when he had finished, did he stand and stare at it as I am now?

I start nodding at thoughts of an imaginary connection with the artist.

I create in my own mind a portrait of the artist as a young man.

I try to ‘remember’ the artist as a student. Was art in his blood from a young age or did he come to it later on

in life?

Was he a poor student at school, producing clumsy renderings of stick men, giant flowers and a smiling sun…

or did he stand out as a protégé; a budding genius?

Were there any women in his art class?

Had the artist actually witnessed the scene he has painted or has he constructed it through imagination?

How many times did he begin a canvas and then discard it in hot-tempered frustration? Did he simply paint over the failed work and start again?

How did he arrange his palette? Did he work feverishly or did he apply time management to the project with

regular breaks and a strictly defined relaxation period at the end of each working day?

He was probably feverish. That’s how I imagine him. He did his best work that way, driving himself into a frenzy, falling over items of furniture, shouting obscenities, rending his blouson in twain with his multicoloured fingers.

Was the artist irritated when his wife or mother called him down for his tea? Yes he was! A genius hates to be distracted whilst inspiration is in full flow. The only thing more hated than disturbed inspiration is not having any inspiration at all.

A blank canvas! A blank canvas can drive an artist crazy. It is said that if you stare long enough into the blank canvas, very soon the blank canvas will stare back into you.

“How can pork medallions (‘Come and get them whilst they’re hot!’ shouts Mother) be more important than

overcoming the mental challenge of a blank canvas?” the artist cries to himself. “No matter how good the sauce!”

Although the artist loved his mother, she didn’t seem to value his work. He would sometimes ask her opinion and she would glance at the painting, shrug and say, “It’s OK, but it needs to show more light.”

But what could a woman know about art?

His wife was even less enthusiastic, sometimes even refusing to come to the attic studio at all. Once, when she actually did venture upstairs, she irritated him by quoting from a brochure that introduced the work of his archenemy at a gallery in Florence.

“The artist affirms the objectivity of the imagination, not as sentimental fantasy, but as a function of the mind that leads to a harmony with both the self and others – a necessity for life. His use of materials is heterogeneous, utilising raw linen, milk paint, verdigris, silver pigment, mica, oil sticks and lithographic ink, which are combined in different permutations. They create a variety of painterly surfaces, which mirror his notion of the self as a fragmentary experience where the only constant is ‘the continuity of discontinuity.’”

His wife put down the brochure, looked out of the window and sighed dreamily. He noticed that whilst listening to her he had crushed the pastel chalks he was holding and his palette had dried out.

“I was thinking of experimenting with impasto,” he said defiantly, “and maybe a little chiaroscuro.”

She didn’t turn but continued to stare from the window, a wan smile struggled to her lips and the beginnings of a tear formed in the corner of her eye. She knew what she would have to do.

For the next few weeks she crept into the studio whilst the artist slept and slowly corrected his work. She added depth and light, using a mixture of techniques and mediums to create a feeling of life in the picture. She worked so delicately and with such infinite patience that the artist did not notice the minute increments of improvement. Not until the end.

With a final, violent flourish of blue across the canvas, he gasped for air and staggered back from his easel, grabbing the curtains for support. “Voila!” he cried triumphantly. His chest heaved with artistic exhaustion and drained emotion.

Through bleary eyes that ached from the months of concentration, he regarded his work as if for the first time.

Yes. Over a century ago he stared at the painting in awe, just as I do now. Then slowly and with increasing

wonderment he came to the same conclusion as I have.

“Only a woman could have painted this!”