Self-Delusion and the Painted Surface — On Knowing When a Painting Works

One of the most difficult judgements a painter faces is knowing when a painting is finished — or, more precisely, knowing when it works. These are not the same thing. A painting can be finished in the sense that no more paint will be added to it, while still not working: the relationships between its elements unresolved, the surface unconvincing, the whole less than the sum of its parts. Conversely, a painting can work — can have a quality of rightness, of inevitability — while still being, in some technical sense, incomplete.

The Problem of Self-Assessment

The difficulty of assessing one's own work is compounded by the fact that the painter is too close to it — too aware of the decisions that were made, the problems that were encountered, the passages that were reworked. What the painter sees is not the painting as it is but the painting as it was made: a record of struggle and revision rather than a finished object. This is why distance — both temporal and physical — is so important. A painting that seemed to work in the studio may look different after a week away from it; a painting that seemed to fail may reveal unexpected qualities when seen from across the room.

Self-delusion is a particular hazard in this process. It is easy to convince oneself that a painting works because one wants it to work — because the effort invested in it makes it difficult to acknowledge that it does not. The antidote is rigorous honesty, which is easier to prescribe than to practise.

Criteria for Success

What makes a painting work? This is a question that resists easy answers, but some criteria are more reliable than others. A painting that works tends to have a quality of internal necessity — the sense that its elements could not be otherwise, that each mark is in the right place and of the right weight. It tends to reward sustained looking, revealing more the longer one stays with it. And it tends to have a quality of presence — a sense that it occupies space rather than merely filling it.

These are not objective criteria, and they cannot be applied mechanically. But they are, I think, the right questions to ask.