The window on the world There are two sorts of painting. One contains a whole world, all of what there is and all that is necessary. The other is a section of something much bigger.     Cezanne’s Bathers where ‘everything’ is contained within the rectangle.     Francis Bacon innovated a unique and distinctive space of the interior, an equivalent space, like a large mirror. In both the Cezanne and the Bacon there is no world beyond the paintings […]

Scale The word ‘scale‘, when speaking of paintings, is often used when it is simply ‘size‘ that is being referred to. Such as – “I like the scale of these paintings“, when it is clearly the size of the painting that is being appreciated. It would be wrong to comment on the scale of, say, a Jackson Pollock when you are only commenting on how big it is. Scale is not the same as size. Scale refers to the internal proportions of […]

Do not dismiss the obvious I have been criticised for being too obvious and not leaving enough space for the imagination of the audience. I used to tell my students not to discount the obvious, as the obvious can be difficult to deal with but it could be the fundamental, the common denominator, the important thing. You should not dismiss the obvious without investigating it thoroughly. The obvious is not always obvious. The problem with the obvious is that it […]