The Waste of Words

Words cannot be trusted. Seriously, they are viciously deceptive. Especially words describing or explaining art, specifically painting. Whenever, in the context of painting, you encounter two or more words strung together – distrust them. Run away. They will turn out to be a base lie and they will deceive you.

During periods in my life when I am unable to paint (one has to earn a living), words start seeping in, from the very instant I lay down my tools. It is like a flash flood, it starts with a gentle trickle, and before you know it, you are up to your neck in text and language, and soon adrift in an ocean of words. 

Even when circumstances allow me to paint, I ordinarily spend the first hours of every day fending off words. So vicious is the attack, that I have been known to surrender, cast aside my brushes and sit down at my desk to write frantically about the struggle and ensuing defeat, instead of painting. And in the belief that this would help.

Not painting allows you to think about painting. Not in any good, fertile way, but in a straight, discursive, ‘worldly’ manner. As a subject of the Kingdom of Word. While not painting, words shamelessly multiply in order to enlighten one’s actions and choices, to elucidate, spell out the truth. Merely by means of thought, expressed in words, the Truth is revealed. The longer and deeper you are immersed in words, the more lucid your thoughts become. Not only does one’s growing insight pierce the secrets of Art History, one even comes to ‘understand’ one’s very own history and progress. And then the morning arrives when once again you boldly take up position, face your painting. En garde.

You stand there, hesitant, irresolute, shreds of words and sentences echoing between your ears. You know not what to do, how to proceed, if it is the right moment, or why you are there. In desperation you try to grab onto some thoughts. Anything to escape the gaping void. All of a sudden the words lose substance, they become quite inert now, insipid, anodyne. They all turn out to be of no use whatsoever. But they continue to nag as you proceed to act simply. If all goes well, you are able to act simply for a while, and the echo of words fades somewhat.

But even if all goes well, a time must come when one downs the brushes, for a break, for a rest, because night falls. Then, you remember the words. It is unspeakably shocking how manifestly untrue they now turn out to be, blatant, bare-faced, out-and-out Lies. Brazen, outrageous, naked falsehoods.

A shopping list found in a supermarket trolly speaks more veraciously and extensively about the person who wrote it, than the most insightful academic dissertation does about painting. The text has turned out to be painfully irrelevant, a colossal waste of time and energy. Insignificant, inconsequential. For as long as one’s days are ruled by painting, the very idea of shaping a thought in reference to it by means of words reveals itself as a lost cause, of complete and utter irrelevance. Recollection of art-historical insights, art-critical analyses and other common assumptions, can then only be met with scorn and bitter derision. They are of no use, indeed, they are ruinous, toxic. To the process of creation, to the painter, and likewise to the public, both prophylactically prevented from fertilizing or being fertilized, by means of the Condom of Art Theory.

The painter wipes his palette and resolves, for the umpteenth time, never ever again to rely on words. And then comes another interval, and once again words start seeping in.

Often, all too often, one encounters a statement on painting so abysmally imbecilic, a received truth so appallingly crass and injurious, that one is provoked into some sort of reaction.

Only, the question then arises: how? The wordless act of painting does indeed power the indignation and the resentment, the wrath and the fury, but it does not provide the words to strike back with. Then you become aware of the paradox: in order to disable the preposterous inanity, you have no choice but to use the opponent’s weapon: words. Deceitful, lying words. You have to discursively expose the falsehood, explain its flawed premises, and eludicate truth. Using words.

It is profoundly unfair. One can freely discourse on literature by means of its medium - language -, without necessarily deviating from truth. Even music, with its proper extensive vocabulary, can legitimately be discussed using words. Yet on painting – the most secret art (oh yes!) – words have almost no traction.

To discourse on painting is like painting a literary comment. It cannot be done. The former results mainly in absurd lies, and when the latter is attempted, it is always literature rather than painting.

Only a handful of ideas on painting may be expressed without automatically lying, but to the non-painter these appear very impalpable, vague, puzzling, even mystical. Mysticism may be of bad repute in art theory – in painting it is rock solid. Those who do not paint have no use for it, as soon as they can they return to common sense, however insane it may be.

There have been epochs when painting seemed to flourish, despite the insanity of common sense. Centuries of religious insanity have produced numerous Great Painters, as have many strata of insane conformist bourgeoisie. But even when its religious or social substrate is forgotten or disowned, an altarpiece or impressionist landscape does not become a lesser painting.

Rather, the essence of its being is continuously snowed under by an unrelenting blizzard of words. Clearing this literary snow is in itself not complicated, but extremely challenging. Impossible, for many. How do achieve this? It simply requires the beholder to imitate the painter in the initial moments of the working day. Not to follow in his footsteps - merely to step into his shoes for a moment, and stand there. Alone, facing the painting, not knowing where to begin, what to see, how to see it, and fundamentally distrustful of words. Open. Receptive.

No stories, no narrative, no references, no rational. No recipe, no explanation, no instruction, no guidance.

Only thus can one look without bias, and see a Rembrandt or a Rothko or a cave painting through the same eyes. Only thus, painting fulfills its sole purpose, which is to assert man’s freedom.

Should the painting lose substance once deprived of its narrative, without recourse to words, lacking instructions, then either you have not looked or the painting has failed. In the latter case, it is most likely not a painting at all, despite appearances, but an illustration of an idea, feeling or mood, a fanciful rebus, art work, journalism, side-show, political pamphlet or a decoration - something to match the curtains. All of which has nothing to do with painting.

Delightful as it may be, a seventeenth-century still life is not an appetizer for your next meal (even though originally so intended, perhaps). If Guernica is a good painting, it is not so as a criticism of war. And a nude by Renoir is not a pin-up, intended to arouse carnal instincts.

The fact that for most people paintings are what they ‘represent’, says much about the current decline in painting. Once again, it may safely be declared dead.

Should you be shocked by this statement, consider how much more appalling it is to insist that a corpse is alive. Besides, painting has innumerable lives. Only on the verge of extinction it has a chance to revive. Not due to technological innovation, not because of political, social or intellectual insights, or cultural bloom. Only under the greatest stress, painting has a chance to shed all or most of the obstacles that hamper its flight. Or rather, it can then flourish due to its obstacles.

Not in museums, galleries or art shows is one likely to encounter this resurrection. It is brewed up by an anonymous multitude of solitary painters, who are not diligently constructing their career or refining and polishing their public profile. It is being made by those who paint. Not knowing how to proceed, what direction to take, without a programme. Despite the acknowledged irremediable futility of words.

All of the above would seem to deny art criticism or theory any sort of existence. But that need not be the case. Only, it does not make writing on painting any easier, which probably explains its latter-day absence, partly. There can be no good reason why the art critic should not simply start from the initial position of the painter, and of any other beholder. Alone, without guidance and as impartial as humanly possible. That is what he should do. Subsequently, he should not simply rehash the words that were uttered by the painter/manager/curator. He should not dismiss the painter’s utterances offhandedly either, but explore them, scrutinize them. And, should they turn out to be a bunch of horsefeathers, scrap them. Ditch the whole shebang, if the words cannot save the painting. And he should not walk into the trap of waxing poetical, of imagining to reflect the painting’s creation in some ‘creative writing’.

In times of artistic crisis, even though they are an ultimately renewable resource, let us not squander or misuse words. Or blindly abide by them.

That is all. Easy.