AND ANOTHER THING
The act of painting is a series of tricks, whether you are Turner . . . or Johnson
PAUL JOHNSON
With trepidation I await the opening next week of an exhibition of my water- colours. The Piers Feetham Gallery, 475 Ful- ham Road, is a reassuringly intimate place but there is no denying that to expose one's efforts to the glare of the public, even in such sympathetic surroundings, is daunting.
The show is called The Sketchbooks of a Journalist and covers all five continents. All the watercolours were done directly from nature, on the spot, usually in brief inter- vals while working on other things. With luck, I can finish a painting in half an hour, as I did when I lunched with Baron Thyssen at his Swiss villa and was much struck by the view across Lake Lugano. I got down to work immediately after the main course and was pleased by the result, though it meant forgoing what looked like a delicious iced pudding. Some of my work is done under difficulties, in crowds and heat, on trains or squatting on wet rocks.
I did my picture of Neil Kinnock making his big speech to the Labour Party in the Empress Ballroom, Blackpool, standing up, clutching my paint-book, water-bottle, pad and brushes in one hand while sketching furiously with the other, jostled by diplo- mats, Greenpeace and other riff-raff who had invaded the so-called press gallery. But this will not be in the show as I gave it to Robin Day on his 70th birthday.
Painting watercolours in the open air is my idea of paradise, especially if you can get a firm seat, a solid surface to work on and a fine subject in front. The concentra- tion required is absolute — much more demanding than in the act of writing — and you become totally absorbed, so that the rest of the world ceases to exist. But there is no denying it is the most difficult of the arts, which by comparison makes painting in oils seem child's play. You have to think out your moves a dozen or 20 steps in advance, like high-level chess, and a second of inadvertence or even hesitation or one rash or clumsy stroke is fatal.
Yet speed and daring are essential at all times. Every good watercolour requires lion-like courage as well as the almost imperceptible touch of an angel's feather — rather like advanced surgery, I imagine. John Singer Sargent, one of the most accomplished painters in oils who ever lived, used to work in watercolour to test his nerve, and was heard to exclaim as he plunged vertiginously down the rollercoast- er, 'It can't be done — it's impossible — ow — ah — goddamit — for Chrissake, let it not run — oh my God, help me! — ow ah — merciful heavens' etc.
Almost all watercolours exhibit irremedi- able mistakes, usually so small that the untrained eyes does not notice them. Of the hundreds, perhaps thousands I have done, only three or four contain no errors, so that I can look at them without self- reproach. The bigger the surface, the more audacious the effect sought, the more cer- tain will be the flaws. An expert in the art recognises the perfect specimen instantly and never forgets it. When Joseph Faring- ton, examining some of Turner's water- colours, rudely remarked, 'I have seen a better one than any of these,' Turner angri- ly replied, 'Yes, and I know what it is — it is Girtin's "The White House at Chelsea".' That is indeed the ideal watercolour, com- bining reckless audacity with faultless exe- cution, and it is worth travelling the world to see it at the Tate. Such works emerge as if by magic; there is no visual clue as to how they were done, just as with the finest paintings of Vermeer it is impossible to see how the paint actually reached the canvas — it seems to have floated down and set- tled silently and invisibly like snowflakes.
The act of painting, as opposed to the conjuring up of the vision in the mind, is a series of tricks and there are many more of them in watercolour than in any other medium. Turner started seriously acquiring tricks when he was eight or nine and was still hard at it nearly seven decades and 25,000 watercolours later. A lifetime is not enough to master this elusive craft. In writ- ing, having been paid to do it for 45 years, I am a professional, and whatever thoughts I have in my head I know exactly how to `Let me through, I'm a doctor!' express them in words. But in setting down visual images I am still, despite painful efforts over many years, an amateur, and severely limited in what I can actually do. Moreover, I am sufficiently skilled to be immensely frustrated that I am not just a little bit better, so that painting brings me grief and rage as well as serenity and intense happiness.
Watercolour painting has to be done without hesitation, almost mindlessly, but the ability to do this reflects the intellectual effort and careful preparation made before the brushwork begins. This starts with the selection and readying of materials, about which there is an infinity of knowledge to be acquired. Turner insisted on using the highest-quality paints and brushes even when he was still very young and poor, and Peter Bower's exhaustive study, Turner's Papers, shows the extraordinary care he exercised in selecting precisely the kind of paper he needed for a particular effect. He revered his paper while paradoxically stamping, rubbing, scratching and pum- melling it into submission — 'Always treat your paper with respect', he told his stu- dents.
My friend Una Woodruff, in my view the greatest watercolourist working in Britain today, will go to infinite trouble to choose brushes for a particular task, and then soak them in warm water so that she can identify and pull out any slightly loose single hair which might, per impossibile, threaten a perfect smooth wash. Each time I talk to her, she opens new windows into the com- plexities and subtleties of the art, and its delicious tricks.
You may say, if you are so ignorant and unskilled why exhibit your efforts? But holding a show is a spur to furious activity, rigorous selection, self-examination and brutal admission of error. Criticism received, which expresses itself in all kinds of ways, is a further guide to shortcomings, and sometimes strengths too. It is all part of the educative process, for to exhibit is the moment of truth, when all the self-con- soling games you play with yourself have to be put aside to let reality in.
Even Rembrandt had to bow his head under judgment when he let those hard- faced burghers and their starchy-crinkly wives into his studio. He did not always hear what he wished, as we can see from those melancholy, disillusioned, tired but still undefeated self-portraits.
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