How Painting Happens (and why it matters)

Description

Drawing on decades of conversations with practicing artists, Martin Gayford offers intimate insight into the practice, meaning, and potential of painting. Painting is an almost inconceivably ancient activity that remains vigorously alive in the twenty-first century. Every successful painting creates a new world, which we inhabit for as long as we care to look at it. Paintings can incorporate profound ideas and paradoxes that can be grasped without words. For those who dedicate themselves to it, the art of painting can become an all-consuming, lifelong obsession. It is a subject on which painters themselves are often the most incisive commentators. Martin Gayford’s riveting and richly illustrated book deftly brings together numerous artists’ voices, past and present. It draws on a trove of conversations conducted over more than three decades with artists including Frank Auerbach, Gillian Ayres, Frank Bowling, Cecily Brown, Peter Doig, Lucian Freud, Katharina Fritsch, David Hockney, Claudette Johnson, R. B. Kitaj, Lee Ufan, Paula Rego, Gerhard Richter, Bridget Riley, Jenny Saville, Frank Stella, Luc Tuymans, Zeng Fanzhi, and many more. Here too is Vincent van Gogh on Rembrandt, John Constable on Titian, Francis Bacon on Velázquez, Lee Krasner on Pollock, and Jean-Michel Basquiat on Picasso. We hear the personal reflections of these artists on their chosen medium; how and why they paint; how they came to the practice; the influence of fellow painters; and how they find creative sustenance and inspiration in their art. How Painting Happens crosses the centuries to give us a wealth of insights into the endlessly compelling phenomenon of painters and painting. 176 color illustrations Review: Interesting, readable, well-illustrated, excellent on Kindle - I suppose you could call this the author’s take on the history of painting. He writes well and gets into the nitty gritty of how artists paint and the differing ways in which they approach their work. The writing is almost conversational, a highly personal take on a variety of ideas discussed without resorting to jargon or taking up the cause of one school at the expense of others. I read the Kindle version and loved being able to enlarge the many excellent illustrations on my screen. It’s a great book that I can recommend highly. Review: More name-dropping than insight - A few sharp observations on contemporary painters and painting practice, and some insight into how the art world works. But after a while the relentless name-dropping gets really tiresome. The author's main goal seems to be showing off how many prominent artists and critics he has met.