I have called this painting 'One Hundred Years of Solitude, after the title of Gabriel García Márquez's celebrated novel. I have used oil and cold wax medium on canvas (150 x 100 x 3 cm) and the subject matter is a forest. However, Rene Magritte would say, with complete conviction of course, that 'this is not a forest'. It is simply a series of marks and coloured pigment applied to a flat surface; the maximum depth of the paint, even with raised impasto is no greater than 2 mm.
I don't know of anyone who has ever come close to solving the enduring mystery of painting. You could have a doctorate in Art History, and in-depth knowledge of the psychology of visual perception, but the conundrum at the heart of painting will always remain. Making pictures must qualify as one of the most curious and improbable forms of human activity. Painting has no intrinsic value or obvious purpose, other than distraction, adornment and decoration; no one needs to paint or own a painting to live a healthy and full life. Yet the fascination endures and people continue painting; museums and art galleries are more popular today than they have ever been. Try visiting a gallery in central London and you will have to navigate through crowds of art lovers searching for their favourite works.
Although some will have you believe that the eyes of a painted portrait will follow you. If you move away from the central viewing position here, the trees will most definitely not follow you, the narrow viewing angle and compression render them unintelligible and the vertical forms merge into each other. This is true of the majority of realistic paintings. In a representational piece, the spatial positioning of objects within a painting relies on the static location of the viewer, coupled with the illusion of diminishing size, scale, aerial and tonal perspective.
There are no tree trunks, branches, bark, dried grass, water, leaves, sky, clouds or wind rustling through the canopy. The scene is hermetically sealed and airless. But wait, all is not lost, although everything tangible has been removed and substituted, the alchemy of painting rushes in to fill the vacuum.
Our unlimited potential to invent, suspend disbelief, conjure and imagine is the key component in all paintings. The painter collaborates with the viewer and inhabits the role of spectator, both parties temporarily failing to distinguish between what is real and what is imaginary. They work side by side, interchangeably, a form of aesthetic schizophrenia.
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