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Painting and Observation
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“I was told by a friend that when Whistler guided a school in Paris, he made his pupils observe their model on the ground floor, and then run upstairs and paint their picture piece by piece on the floor above. As they became more proficient, he put their easels up a storey higher, till at last the elite were scampering with their decision up six flights into the attic — praying it would not evaporate on the way. This is, perhaps, only a tale. But it shows effectively of what enormous importance a trained, accurate, retentive memory must be to an artist; and conversely what a useful exercise painting may be for the development of an accurate and retentive memory” — from Sir Winston Churchill’s Life Through His Paintings by David Coombs with Minnie Churchill
I really enjoyed this quote, Sonya and the book has piqued my interest. Are you reading this in school at the moment and do you care to share a review of the book?
The quote reminded me of a course I took at university on the Stanislavsky method of acting and directing. A main objective was to fill the “kitchen cupboards” or storehouse of our mind through careful observation of people, places and things from which we could then borrow.
One of the many memory training exercises was to observe three new things on our way to class each day. The class was only a ten minute walk from our apartment — traveled numerous times each day — and there was never a shortage of new observations to be made when time was taken to really look. Our accuracy of observation would then be tested in various ways.
I was not a theatre major but was able to apply many such aspects of a liberal arts education to business and now, happily, to motherhood.
I read this book a couple of years ago, actually, at my sister-in-law’s place. (She always has such interesting books!) This was a quote I had jotted down from that reading. Last night I happily came upon it and enjoyed the idea so much again that I thought I’d share it with you all.
It’s a fascinating book, chronicling Churchill’s paintings and the events of his life, including some great photos of him painting in various locations. I had not realized that he was such a prolific painter!
My favorite part of the book is Churchill’s description of his first timid attempts to begin. In typical Churchill fashion he describes his feelings of intimidation:
“The palette gleamed with beads of colour; fair and white rose the canvas; the empty brush hung poised, heavy with destiny, irresolute in the air. My hand seemed arrested by a silent veto.”
So he gingerly mixed a little blue paint on his palette with a very small brush. Just then an artist friend drove up.
” ‘Painting! But what are you hesitating about? Let me have a brush – a big one.’ Splash into the turpentine, wallop into the blue and the white, frantic flourish on the palette – clean no longer – and then several large, fierce strokes and slashes of blue on an absolutely cowering canvas. Anyone could see that it could not hit back. No evil fate avenged the jaunty violence. The canvas grinned in helplessness before me. The spell was broken. The sickly inhibitions rolled away. I seized the largest brush and fell upon my victim with berserk fury.
“I have never felt any awe of a canvas since.”
I hadn’t known he even painted until your post. I’ve added the book to my “to read” list. The quotes are great – Winston Churchill certainly had a powerful means of expression so it would be interesting to see how that translated on canvas.
Happily, my children still attack canvases with the abandon of the artist above!
Thanks for your review.
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