Evidence of struggle
by Alec ClaytonAn investigation into the nature of texture
Texture is the spice that flavors a painting. But like all spices, it needs to be seeped into the dish, not sprinkled on like so much salt and pepper after the dish is served. The first artist I fell in love with was Vincent Van Gogh. I loved the way he slathered paint on in thick strokes. So I tried to paint a still life in the Van Gogh style, and I ended up with a muddy mush. But I learned a great lesson in that experiment, one that I didn't fully comprehend until many years later when I read a statement by Hiram Williams in his book, "Notes to a Young Painter." Williams said, "Texture that is not a by-product of process is merely decoration." In other words, you can't fake it. Faking texture is like faking an orgasm; you only fool those who want to be fooled.I remember being fascinated with the walls in Greenwich Village apartments back when I was supporting myself by painting walls instead of canvases. Some of those old apartments had been painted, scraped and repainted hundreds of times. Covered with flat white latex, they were textured with the accretions of years of living, beautifully alive with it. Home decorators could try to duplicate that look with plaster and paint, but the result would be like a Martha Stewart gimmick: surface decoration that is not integrated into the whole.
It's like paintings we've seen where the artist builds a texture with gels or plaster or sand – remember that, back in the '60s when paintings on sand-textured surfaces were all the rage? – and then paints over it in oils or acrylics. There is no organic relationship between the painted design and the underlying texture. Or like cheap reproductions sold in gift shops where photo lithographs of paintings are printed on boards with simulated canvas and brushstrokes. There's no relationship between the "real" brushstrokes in the so-called painting and the fake brushstrokes on the support. It rings a false note like in canned laughter on a television sitcom.
Then there's the real thing: the tortured surface of a Willem de Kooning; the chalky, scratchy marks on a Cy Twombly; the wet and scumbled look of a Susan Rothenberg; the mangled accretions on a painting by Leo Golub; the squeegee marks in a Andy Warhol silk screen. Even painters like Roy Lichenstein and Phillip Pearlstein, who try to do away with all evidence of the painter's hand, create work with a kind of textureless texture. And in the works of all these artists surface texture (or lack thereof) is a natural product of their painting methods.
De Kooning, who is the painter's painter of all time, is the prime example. Would you like to know how he created such richly textured paintings? It's very simple. He kept trying to fix the parts that weren't working to his satisfaction, and he never could seem to get it right. That may sound flippant, but it's true. And if you study the works of great artists you'll see, right there on the surface of their canvases, the visual evidence that they had grand visions they could never quite fulfill. And it is the trail left behind as they struggled to express their vision that lends such richness to their works.
© 1999 by Alec Clayton