Chords of colour.

Painting, when thought of as great art, has the same character as great
music. Harmony, tones, notes, chords, slurs, hard edges, lost edges,
soft edges. Orchestral colour, melody line, texture, transparency,
palimpsest, rhythm, percussion... each of these concepts has to become
our friend, our muse.

If I may illustrate... imagine two snooker balls on a green tabletop,
one red, the other yellow. The prosaic way to paint this (correct, but
deathly boring) would be to draw two circles on a green ground, fill
the one with yellow and the other with red, then shade each of them
from light to dark, not forgetting to add the cast shadow of each in
darker green, and finally, add a highlight on each. Particularly
obsessive renderers would even show how each of the two balls are
reflected in the other.

Now imagine the same simple subject painted by a master like Turner,
Sargent, or Rembrandt. In one brushstroke they would give us the yellow
ball, in another the red ball. This, at the most basic level. In truth,
they would in a single brushstroke define both balls, and the shadows,
as well as the tabletop. One colour chord, one slur of pigment,
perfectly weighted and drawn, easy apparently, but the result of the
most intense visual perception and refinement of feeling.

Painting of this quality can hardly be achieved in one lifetime. So we
have to take it as far as we can and pass on such knowledge as we may
have to a next generation, for them to add their own serious researches
until eventually, art is restored to its place of honour with the work
of Beethoven and Mozart.

Ryno.