Alchemy and the Personality of Paint.

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31 May

I am currently reading James Elkins, ‘What Painting Is’. In this thoroughly unusual book, Elkins, an art historian, considers a different way of discussing painting. Not the usual description detailing historical context, meaning of the work and description of the image, Elkins sees the painting as a dialogue between the artist and the medium that becomes set in a hardened state to hang on the wall preserving the memory of the artists process. A summary of ideas, gestures, brush strokes, body movements, a memory of pushing paint, diluting and mixing that transforms fluid into stone.

Elkins angle resonated with me, this is absolutely how I view my work, a multi layered timeline of my thoughts and process… so I read on and would just like to share a few snippets with you:

Elkins makes several comparisons between painting practice and alchemical experimentation. Alchemy, predates science there was no atom, molecule, no list of elements or periodic table in this uncertain world of raw materials with no rational order experimentation revealed a reaction an odour, taste, colour, weight. Painting is alchemy its materials worked through blind experiment, a fascination with, the feeling the look the texture and behaviour of paint without knowledge of precise chemical properties. The means of painting is liquid concluding in an end which is solid, not dissimilar to a purpose in alchemy being to turn something liquid into a firm dry substance.

17^th century alchemists and artists shared many substances, linseed oil, spirits minerals, pigments such as lapis lazuli, vermillion and despite the introduction of inorganic alternatives contemporary artists continue to use these same substances, the use of these materials predates their scientific understanding.

Painting is not a science, there are methods of working that aim to achieve effective results and plenty of, ‘do’s and don’ts’ if you want your work to remain intact, but these are only useful to provide gross formulas. Alchemy is the art that knows how to make a substance no formula can describe. Every paint mix, gesture, texture on surface, tool used, introduces multiple variables that rely on intuition and experimentation amongst the turmoil of thoughts that find expression in colours.

Elkins then goes on to make comparisons between numerology and modern mathematics, suggesting alchemical and artistic thinking take place outside of modern mathematics. In mathematics it is possible to add one and one equal two but this relies on one being duplicatable. Duplication is achievable in digital art, printing but not painting.

Conventional maths does not help me think about painting but the ancient art of numerology may. Alchemical numerology proposes numbers are not a sequence of precise amounts to be multiplied, it sees a number as having power/personality. Painting, (not to be confused with a painting by numbers kit!), is closer to the numerologist numbers, always counting but never adding up always speaking but never saying anything rational.

One:

No mark in art is duplicatable every mark is different. Hypothetically if there was to be a ‘one’ in art, it could only be a mass of all paint colours combined into undifferentiated unity described as a monad in numerology. It could be the end point to a day of painting and when you scrape all the remains of your palate into a pile that creates a grey/black. Arguably this is also the beginning, a mass of all paint waiting to be exhumed purified and ground into separate pigment colours, the raw stuff of which something must be made.

Two:

Two is really all the painting needs, a colour or a texture as something that can stand opposite it. A contrast between dark and light, cool and warm, masculine feminine, rough and smooth or any other conceivable opposite that belongs together. It makes a conversation that can be intricately interwoven in flecks of paint or harshly separated in bold contrasting lines. This dyad has no form it can only exist on a line between two points.

Three:

It’s the triad that gives us form and a plethora of compositions and combinations to be considered, f all I have is three hues being, red, blue and yellow with black and white on the side I am happy as anything can be made. Spiritual alchemists adopted the Tryad to discuss body, soul and spirit and mercury sulphur salt

FOUR

The tetrad and so it goes on but I won’t continue for fear of losing people.

I guess why I find Elkins writing so interesting is that when I am painting I am not thinking about the conventional adding up numbers not in the way of creating precise paint mixes or precise compositions. For me it is as though a number has a personality, the isolation and serenity of one, the playful conversation/dialogue of ‘two’, the volume and triangulation of three and the ever increasing combinations of 4,5,6 made up of multiples of ones twos and threes each with its own unique personality.

To the scientist this maze of unrepeatable paint and medium mixes with somewhat irrational use of numbers can seem like hocus-pocus not dissimilar to a western scientists opinions on the trade of alchemy. Yet to a painter the science is less important. I do hope some of this makes sense, I am sure I have skewed some of Elkins theory to meet my own thoughts, if I was to put it into a sentence I would suggest that a painting has a personality not a formula and to describe it in this way is more true to the artistic process then a factual description of the artwork itself.

I think of the personalities of my paints and brushes like friends, you can fall in and out of love. I am currently in love with Michael Harding Vermillion it’s sumptuous buttery versatility that brings a warmth to flesh that makes me fall out of love with cadmium red which I guess explains why it is so much more expensive! I’m starting to fall in love with Lapiz Lazuli that has a unique gritty feel on the palate and creates unexplainable qualities in flesh but does not replace an ultramarine blue glaze, I would be shot down by some for rating with synthetic pigment. I will always love lemon yellow….. but Cerealean blue…is not my friend yet. Like an alchemist it’s the experimentation with the materials experiencing their personalities building up an intimate knowledge over time that is so utterly entrancing, infuriating ravishing and addictive, necessitating return to the studio for a lifetime.

I think that is enough about ‘What Painting Is’ for now, if you are still with me, I’m going to move on to something more digestible. I mentioned in my last blog a pair of boots sold to me by an old lady at a car boot sale. I bought them because I have long skinny size 42 feet. By the time a boot is long enough for my foot it has a width that feels like I am slopping around inside Noahs ark. These car boots were different, despite being handmade about 50 years ago for someone else, they are slim around the width of my foot and ankle, with room for my toes to stretch. There is evidence in the feel of the internal sole and the asymmetrical creasing of the leather reminiscent of the previous wearer, but this doesn’t annoy me, it just reminds me of their history.

Initially I thought this was going to be a straightforward exercise of taking a pair of boots and painting them, but I hadn’t taken into account my experience of the personality of these boots. My first painting attempt is frustrating me, the angle and placement of the boots was not right, it didn’t offer anything about my feeling towards these boots, they looked bulky, broad, I would never leave my boots on the floor with one lying on its side, my heart just isn't in it.

I tweaked and tweaked trying to make the painting work and then thought, move on, I’m starting again.I have started a new painting and I’m much happier as I have captured the narrowness of the ankle and the length of the foot with the asymmetry in the creasing between the toes and the arch.

Then at the end of the day I sat down looked at my painting, then looked at the boots from a lower angle where I could see clearly the way the sole curls up at the toes. It reminded me about the wonderful way they walk, striding through from step to step in a curved un-flat-footed fashion, I haven’t captured that in painting number two, so I think I’m going to have to start again!