PLASTIC SOUL

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

Gustav Mahler

The best painting neatly evades language in very much the same way that Mahler suggested music does. There ought to be no surprise in this and yet most days I am asked, with varying levels of agitation – what does this painting mean? As if by simply talking about it, the work may suddenly give up its secrets. 

It is true of course that sometimes a phrase may unlock something in the apprehension of a work but ultimately there is no substitute for consideration and looking – and being repeatedly told that you can meaningfully apprehend painting by reading more is like being told that you can learn to swim, if you’d just read the manual. 

Music, by virtue of its duration, invites at least some pause – from the three-minute pop-song to a full symphony – time is a pre-condition for engaging with music… unless you constantly skip to the next track – I blame Spotify and “playlists” in general. Were people inclined to spend the average length of a Ramones song looking at a painting they would most likely be found out for the impatient consumers they have lamentably become. Contemporary dance gives me ADHD so clearly none of us are perfect. 

So, when faced with a recalcitrant viewer, or one that simply seeks the easy reinforcement that description offers, I often resort to music as analogy. We can talk about tone, intensity, crescendos, spaces, texture, staccato, lyricism and heaven help us, mood… even emotion and as an enthusiastic agent of the plastic arts, giving people a way in, allowing them the opportunity to see something unexpected feels like a worthy goal and if this can be done without resorting to parables then hallelujah. 

Of course, some painting lends itself more seamlessly to these helpful analogies – hence “Plastic Soul”. And rather than the derisive connotations the term had when first coined to describe David Bowie’s flirtation with Detroit’s other great manufacture, I love it. Daffy as it may sound, these works all have ‘soul’ – that all too elusive quality that separates pretension from authenticity.