Author, artist and broadcaster Lachlan Goudie knows from experience that masterpieces don't just emerge serenely from an artist's studio. They are usually the result of a long tussle between an artist and their materials. When he sees a work of art, his first question is not 'why' it was created but 'how’. How do you paint a masterpiece?
In The Secrets of Painting, Goudie seeks to answer this very question by exploring the turning points that have marked each new chapter in the history of art. Tracing the story all the way back to the first paints used to decorate the prehistoric caves at Chauvet and into the present day, Goudie explores the impact of numerous new inventions and discoveries over the centuries, from ink, fresco and egg tempera to oil paint, household gloss, acrylic paints and beyond.
We spoke to Goudie about what it was like to test out the techniques of painters like Artemisia Gentileschi, David Hockney and even Jackson Pollock, and what he learned about painting along the way.
Whenever I stand in front of a masterpiece, the first question I always ask myself is, ‘How in the world did they do that?!’ I’m fascinated with solving creative mysteries: where did Rembrandt place his first brushstroke? How exactly did Turner control those delicate washes of watercolour? Who else was in the room when Jackson Pollock added the last drip to his most iconic images?
Through writing The Secrets of Painting, I hoped to find some answers.
I envisaged this new project as an opportunity to become an apprentice to the greatest artists in history. After all, if you want to get better at painting then why not learn from the best? But painting is hard. And the first lesson I learned when I began testing out different materials and techniques from the past, was exactly how limited my technical expertise really was.
Above left: Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434. Oil on wood, 82.2 × 60 cm (323/8 × 235/8 in.) The National Gallery, London (NG186) / Above right: Lachlan Goudie’s experiment with Van Eyck’s techniques. © Lachlan Goudie
As a contemporary artist, I’m used to buying all my paints readymade from the art shop; none of my materials require much preparation. But when you’re mixing colours from scratch using egg yolk or oil, there are a thousand ways for things to go wrong. As I carried out my experiments, creating studies of the paintings I was researching using authentic materials, they often did!
The experience revealed how much time and commitment it would take to master these techniques and why it was so important, in the medieval period and the Renaissance, for young artists to works as apprentices for years, learning professional tricks and techniques, whilst on the job.
The studios of the past would have been crammed with painting ingredients and tools that would bamboozle most artists today; pigments crushed from insects, dyes extracted from plant roots, syrupy molasses-like resins and oils, squirrel tails and goosequills for making brushes. It must have felt like walking into a laboratory at Hogwarts. And at the time, even the lowliest apprentice would have been familiar with complicated processes and creative skills that are no longer part of an art school training.
Lachlan Goudie’s interpretation of The Blue Rigi, experimenting with Turner’s techniques. © Lachlan Goudie
The most challenging technique I tried out was working with beeswax. It’s a method of painting that dates to Roman Egypt and involves mixing ground pigment with melted wax. It’s a very tricky process. The colours need to be kept hot, or they solidify, but you must not heat them too intensely, because when the temperature of the wax exceeds 90°C (194°F), the fumes become toxic. Working with beeswax was sticky, tricky and dangerous... not characteristics I usually look for in my painting materials!
Perhaps inevitably, the results of my experiments with beeswax were rather clumsy. But the artists of Roman Egypt were able to use this technique to paint portraits that are so realistic that, even after 2,000 years, the subjects feel as if they are in the room with you. Testing myself against these historic materials gave me a newfound respect for the artists in whose brushstrokes I follow.
As my research continued, this admiration was extended to the practices of more recent painters too. Before writing this book, I had some sympathy for a popular critique of Jackson Pollock’s work: ‘My six-year-old could have done that!’
Berthe Morisot, Summer’s Day, c. 1879. Oil on canvas, 45.7 × 75.2 cm (18 × 295/8 in.) The National Gallery, London (NG3264)
But attempting to emulate Pollock’s process made me realise how challenging his methods really were. I researched the materials and tools he employed, then experimented using sticks, syringes and even turkey basters to flick gloss paint across canvasses that were placed on the floor. All I ever managed to create, however, were a series of messy, isolated splatters.
The reason that Pollocks paintings remain so compelling, is that he always managed to craft an interconnected galaxy of marks flowing continuously across the canvas. To achieve this required a working method of extraordinary focus and deliberation. Pollock’s considered process and subtle understanding of materials enabled him to interlace lines of different thickness and texture, marbling the paint or softening the colours where necessary, producing a feeling of limitless space in which the viewer can immerse themselves. Try it for yourself, it’s not child’s play!
Over the centuries, artists have always experimented with new painting materials. This curiosity has helped propel art historical leaps, from mixing paint with egg yolk to using oils, from working on wooden panels to experimenting with canvas. But this project has made me aware of how comfortable I had become in my studio, using only a familiar range of materials and techniques. It has been a humbling experience. But now, I am excited. There is so much more to discover and experiment with and after researching this book, I am determined to become a braver and hopefully a better painter.
At the start of this quest, I wanted to understand how it might be possible to paint a masterpiece. That’s a challenge which will last my lifetime. But writing The Secrets of Painting has taught me things I never knew about the working methods of the great artists; their lives, their studios and the creative big bangs that transformed not only the sorts of images painters were able create, but the story of art itself.
Words by Lachlan Goudie.
The Secrets of Painting is available now.
