By Timothy
Hawkesworth
February 2003
At
the heart of painting there is a kind of affirmation; it returns us
to hope. When form appears in the paint, when the color starts to sing,
it’s already on the side of hope.
It’s not just a theory. Our body starts to shift; it starts to
feel a little more alive. It’s a fact. It brings the life force
up in us. We secrete the paint onto our nervous system. This is true
for both the painter and the viewer. As we work – as we get extended
by the experience of a painting - as it starts to pull things from deep
inside us - we actually experience hope. In this, hope is different
from optimism. Optimism tells us everything is going to turn out all
right. Hope tells us there are things worth working towards. Hope has
one foot in the transcendental; it has one foot over the horizon.
Painting also addresses our frailty. Although our experience of a painting
is in the present it also touches our mortality. As our eye follows
the immediacy of Rembrandt’s handling of the paint we are also
aware that he is long gone. As a painting washes over us, extending
us, it also shows up the transient nature of our lives. This duality
between the intimacy of the immediate experience of a painting, and
our inevitable annihilation, gives poignancy to the act of painting.
This may be part of its lasting power; it is an act of affirmation and
an act of hope in the face of our predicament.