The Inner Life of Painting, Matthew Collins

I think Collins is aware, as I am, that he is one of the few art critics who is accessible to nearly everyone. Like, ‘This is Modern Art’, I found Collins very readable and without airs.

The significance of the medium of paint has decreased in the past century, since the industrial revolution, the world wars and improved education amongst other things. This, in my view, has lead to many artists being able and feeling forced to find new, original ways to express themselves.

This does not mean that painting has been forgotten, but more that the approach to painting has changed. During the last part of the 20th Century, a whole new era of art developed and you could argue painting was dragged with it (arguably kicking and screaming).

What Collins is trying to state in his essay, I believe, is not that the paintings are bad quality, but the medium as a whole has lost the integrity that once it held. He describes in his essay how the art we have had for fifteen years is a “new kind of art” and this type of art is now “fashionable”.

One of the main points Collins makes is that today’s paintings try to ‘keep up’ with other mediums, such as instillation art and new media. It is for that reason, Collins says, that painting is now following the tradition of these mediums and not following the tradition of it’s own. Following this statement Collins suggests that they are not “connected to the past in any real way”.

Because it defines itself by “this new tradition” much of today’s art is “visually boring”. I understand what Collin’s is saying here. Surely a medium which has carried itself for centuries cannot reinvent itself based on art that is “non-visual”? It is competing with types of art that are, at a basic level at least, not as concerned with aesthetics as they are with ‘trying to say something’.

Personally, I couldn’t describe what attracts me to a painting in the first place, which is surely the point of art in the first place. When we write down in laments terms what makes a painting mean something to us, surely we take the magic from it?

I like simplistic bright colours, one of the reasons I am so enjoying this project, yet I rarely paint this way. Why? I couldn’t really say. All the years of restrictive art education, as well as restrictive exam syllabuses had lead me to stay stuck in my comfort zone. A talent in painting that stuck to a ‘technically good’ piece would get a more successful mark than a piece with meaning, thus I was always encouraged by teachers to do so. I produced some lovely pieces which I felt very little for and I became quite disillusioned with it.

Since beginning my degree my passion for art has expanded as my knowledge has increased. Painting is a craft, but not one that is exclusive; anyone can paint. It has, and continues to have, such a vast history that it remains impossible to define in any concise way. Collins seems disappointed with paintings new era but it’s always changing.