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How Painting Happens
Drawing on decades of conversations with practicing artists, Martin Gayford offers intimate insight into the practice, meaning, and potential of painting.
Painting is an almost inconceivably ancient activity that remains vigorously alive in the twenty-first century. Every successful painting creates a new world, which we inhabit for as long as we care to look at it. Paintings can incorporate profound ideas and paradoxes that can be grasped without words. For those who dedicate themselves to it, the art of painting can become an all-consuming, lifelong obsession. It is a subject on which painters themselves are often the most incisive commentators.
Martin Gayford’s riveting and richly illustrated book deftly brings together numerous artists’ voices, past and present. It draws on a trove of conversations conducted over more than three decades with artists including Frank Auerbach, Gillian Ayres, Frank Bowling, Cecily Brown, Peter Doig, Lucian Freud, Katharina Fritsch, David Hockney, Claudette Johnson, R. B. Kitaj, Lee Ufan, Paula Rego, Gerhard Richter, Bridget Riley, Jenny Saville, Frank Stella, Luc Tuymans, Zeng Fanzhi, and many more. Here too is Vincent van Gogh on Rembrandt, John Constable on Titian, Francis Bacon on Velázquez, Lee Krasner on Pollock, and Jean-Michel Basquiat on Picasso.
We hear the personal reflections of these artists on their chosen medium; how and why they paint; how they came to the practice; the influence of fellow painters; and how they find creative sustenance and inspirationin their art.
How Painting Happens crosses the centuries to give us a wealth of insights into the endlessly compelling phenomenon of painters and painting.
Painting is an almost inconceivably ancient activity that remains vigorously alive in the twenty-first century. Every successful painting creates a new world, which we inhabit for as long as we care to look at it. Paintings can incorporate profound ideas and paradoxes that can be grasped without words. For those who dedicate themselves to it, the art of painting can become an all-consuming, lifelong obsession. It is a subject on which painters themselves are often the most incisive commentators.
Martin Gayford’s riveting and richly illustrated book deftly brings together numerous artists’ voices, past and present. It draws on a trove of conversations conducted over more than three decades with artists including Frank Auerbach, Gillian Ayres, Frank Bowling, Cecily Brown, Peter Doig, Lucian Freud, Katharina Fritsch, David Hockney, Claudette Johnson, R. B. Kitaj, Lee Ufan, Paula Rego, Gerhard Richter, Bridget Riley, Jenny Saville, Frank Stella, Luc Tuymans, Zeng Fanzhi, and many more. Here too is Vincent van Gogh on Rembrandt, John Constable on Titian, Francis Bacon on Velázquez, Lee Krasner on Pollock, and Jean-Michel Basquiat on Picasso.
We hear the personal reflections of these artists on their chosen medium; how and why they paint; how they came to the practice; the influence of fellow painters; and how they find creative sustenance and inspirationin their art.
How Painting Happens crosses the centuries to give us a wealth of insights into the endlessly compelling phenomenon of painters and painting.
- GenresArtNonfiction
384 pages, Hardcover
Published November 12, 2024
53 people are currently reading
378 people want to read
About the author
Martin Gayford
58 books139 followersMartin Gayford is an art critic and art historian. He studied philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London. Over three decades, he has written prolifically about art and music in a series of major biographies, as well as contributing regularly to newspapers, magazines and exhibition catalogues. In parallel with his career as an art historian, he was art critic of The Spectator magazine and The Sunday Telegraph newspaper before becoming Chief Art Critic for the international television network, Bloomberg News. He has been a regular contributor to the British journal of art criticism, Modern Painters.
His books include a study of Van Gogh and Gauguin in Arles, The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles (Little Brown, 2006), which was published in Britain and the USA to critical acclaim, and has been translated, to date, into five languages; Constable in Love: Love, Landscape, Money and the Making of a Great Painter (Penguin, 2009), a study of John Constable’s romance with Maria Bicknell and their lives between 1809 and 1816; and A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney (Thames and Hudson, 2011).
His books include a study of Van Gogh and Gauguin in Arles, The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles (Little Brown, 2006), which was published in Britain and the USA to critical acclaim, and has been translated, to date, into five languages; Constable in Love: Love, Landscape, Money and the Making of a Great Painter (Penguin, 2009), a study of John Constable’s romance with Maria Bicknell and their lives between 1809 and 1816; and A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney (Thames and Hudson, 2011).
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 16, 2024
A visual art and literary art feast to demystify an elusive art form (thirty-five-year compilation): Be ready for your notions about art to change.
It’s as if distinguished British art historian and art critic Martin Gayford wrote How Painting Happens (and why it matters) as an encyclopedic reply to Paul Delaroche, a French artist who declared “painting was dead!” in 1839 after he saw Louis Daguerre’s photography invention. No, Gayford says, “Painting is difficult” if you’re aiming for something new and influential, offering a vast array of visual influences and literary insight to prove painting never died. It did, though, change, showing us painting has “an infinite well.”
Thames & Hudson has done it again with an eye-pleasing book that grabs our attention (see also: Why We Photograph Animals, Spring Cannot Be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy, and Anna Spiro: A Life in Pattern). Weighing nearly three pounds, its 400 high-quality pages printed in Italy are filled with 176 jump-off-the-page color reproductions, including many abstract expressionist works that may have you questioning: What defines a painting? Art?
Whether you like what you see or don’t isn’t the answer to these questions. Because “it is possible for someone to like or dislike just about anything in art,” Gayford says. Start, instead, with the premise that it’s the emotions a painting elicits that provide answers.
Emotions that stand the test of time. Emotions words may be unable to express as powerfully, or “freeing,” or feeling “opened and held” in a spiritual sense. Emotions, then, don’t necessarily equate to a specific meaning the artist had in mind versus experimenting to achieve an “emotional tone.” An “aura.”
Gayford’s Introduction starts with the same questions he asks of painters who ask themselves, “Where shall I start?” He starts by presenting a far-reaching view back to prehistoric times to claim the everlasting need for creative expression of an art form existing at least 45,000 years. Then fast-forwards to starting with the abstract expressionist genre, and the narrative’s pattern of blending his personal observations and discussions with British artists that expand globally by artist, styles, and movements, informed by the work he’s dedicated “half my life” to.
Gayford is not looking to tell us what we know.
Before painters put anything down on a white canvas, he discusses other types of surfaces unfamiliar, such as “frichons,” or tea towels Van Gogh used in a painting that’s impressionistic, Daubigny’s Garden, not his post-impressionistic paintings we’re familiar with. Similarly, “Van Gogh’s Chair, 1988” isn’t the painting we thought we knew, when he says, it’s “an emotional and spiritual self-portrait disguised as a study of a humble piece of seating.”
From the first page to the last, this exciting compilation challenges our thinking. Intrigues in examining the language of painting on three dimensions, as “an interaction between mind, hand, and physical matter.”
Even the idea that a painting must be beautiful in the eyes of the artist isn’t necessarily so. For instance, German painter Georg Baselitz intentionally painted “ugly” paintings to “put off” people. His in-your-face painting “The Foot”, the least ugly in a series of eleven, meant to make us feel the “disharmony” and ugliness he reacted to post-WWII. His unconventionality also a reaction to valuing art for “prettiness.”
Not all artists start with or end up with a painting reflective of meaning per se, though we’re primed to give it one. Are Gayford’s intentions meant to provoke us into seeing today’s avant-garde art as a reflection of the present era of uncertainties, chaos, extremism? What they’re not are the “calm” emotions he ascribes to Johannes Vermeer’s paintings.
They’re also not like the early Italian renaissance masters Michelangelo and Titian and Dutch giant Rembrandt. And yet other aspects of their paintings – originality, colors, types of paint, brushstrokes – share common elements. Gayford breaks these down for us, such as the materials used that make a difference (types of oil in the paint, whether egg whites used as in frescos, “turps” or turpentine, and other surprising paint ingredients like champagne.) The discussion on paintbrushes could fill a book.
Like Wayne Thiebaud’s pastry brush creating a glaze giving his mouthwatering desserts a “creamy quality.” “Quintessentially American,” they emit such a strong “edible quality” that Gayford first tempts us with a smaller image of “Dessert Tray” knowing we want more, followed by a two-page pastel spread of “creamy mint green, pink, and lavender colors” encircling the desserts.
It’s impossible in this space to present all the other painters and paintings discussed. Below a sampling of a few standout visuals and literary comments.
George Hume’s paintings of a series of doors is part of discussions on the “fluidity” of paint. Is this even art? David Hockney, Gayford’s friend and collaborator, remarks that some artists paint doors better than others. When another iconic painter and friend, Lucien Freud says, “Painting is all about paint,” he’s not being facetious but agreeing that different paints create a smoother effect without showing lines better than others. Lucien Freud is also depicted through the eyes of his model – Gayford – having painted his portrait and written a book about the experience, Man in a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Gayford.
My favorite painting discovery is by Scottish Peter Doig who lives in Trinidad: “Gasthof zur Muldentalsperre, 2000-2002” (German Pier), considered a “photocollage,” sort of. Stunning how its watercolor-y elements reflect the starry skies, lighting up the lake, trees, grass. It’s also a self-portrait if you look close enough. Those two tiny figures standing on the bridge are the artist and a friend. Inspired by a postcard, it falls under a section on painters who use photographs or “sketchbooks” for inspiration.
Other intense emotional paintings include Sean Scully’s “Landline Star, 2017” engendering warmth and richness from dark colors painted in horizontal blocks one atop the other; Patrick Heron’s “Long Cadmium, with Ceruleum in Violet (Boycott), 1977,” that makes your eyes pop out. Red being the most intense color. The “scale” of this painting “became a feat of stamina and concentration.” Scale a critical factor in how a painting can overwhelm our senses. Scale hitting us in Claudette Johnson’s “Figure Blue, 2018,” a painting to elevate black female “individuality” after she was the only black woman in art school.
The scale of Jackson Pollock’s abstract creations are described as the work of a genius in deep concentration physically and emotionally, lost inside his on-the-floor paintings.
Colors are explored in terms of how a painting speaks to us. “Is color a matter of science or poetry?” asked when color changes depending on what else it borders or touches. Color is also seen philosophically in terms of how the painter thinks of the universe as “lightness,” “brightness,” or “darkness.” People also “perceive and experience color” differently. Matisse and Picasso were color masters, yet Matisse’s paintings were “harmonies” whereas Picasso’s were “psychedelic.”
Familiar paintings here, too, yet new information. For instance, did you know all the women in American Edward Hopper’s paintings were his wife? So jealous of any other woman modeling for him. He used “different lights” to project loneliness.
So many painters influenced others. So much more presented. That’s why you can’t put this hefty book down.
It’s as if distinguished British art historian and art critic Martin Gayford wrote How Painting Happens (and why it matters) as an encyclopedic reply to Paul Delaroche, a French artist who declared “painting was dead!” in 1839 after he saw Louis Daguerre’s photography invention. No, Gayford says, “Painting is difficult” if you’re aiming for something new and influential, offering a vast array of visual influences and literary insight to prove painting never died. It did, though, change, showing us painting has “an infinite well.”
Thames & Hudson has done it again with an eye-pleasing book that grabs our attention (see also: Why We Photograph Animals, Spring Cannot Be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy, and Anna Spiro: A Life in Pattern). Weighing nearly three pounds, its 400 high-quality pages printed in Italy are filled with 176 jump-off-the-page color reproductions, including many abstract expressionist works that may have you questioning: What defines a painting? Art?
Whether you like what you see or don’t isn’t the answer to these questions. Because “it is possible for someone to like or dislike just about anything in art,” Gayford says. Start, instead, with the premise that it’s the emotions a painting elicits that provide answers.
Emotions that stand the test of time. Emotions words may be unable to express as powerfully, or “freeing,” or feeling “opened and held” in a spiritual sense. Emotions, then, don’t necessarily equate to a specific meaning the artist had in mind versus experimenting to achieve an “emotional tone.” An “aura.”
Gayford’s Introduction starts with the same questions he asks of painters who ask themselves, “Where shall I start?” He starts by presenting a far-reaching view back to prehistoric times to claim the everlasting need for creative expression of an art form existing at least 45,000 years. Then fast-forwards to starting with the abstract expressionist genre, and the narrative’s pattern of blending his personal observations and discussions with British artists that expand globally by artist, styles, and movements, informed by the work he’s dedicated “half my life” to.
Gayford is not looking to tell us what we know.
Before painters put anything down on a white canvas, he discusses other types of surfaces unfamiliar, such as “frichons,” or tea towels Van Gogh used in a painting that’s impressionistic, Daubigny’s Garden, not his post-impressionistic paintings we’re familiar with. Similarly, “Van Gogh’s Chair, 1988” isn’t the painting we thought we knew, when he says, it’s “an emotional and spiritual self-portrait disguised as a study of a humble piece of seating.”
From the first page to the last, this exciting compilation challenges our thinking. Intrigues in examining the language of painting on three dimensions, as “an interaction between mind, hand, and physical matter.”
Even the idea that a painting must be beautiful in the eyes of the artist isn’t necessarily so. For instance, German painter Georg Baselitz intentionally painted “ugly” paintings to “put off” people. His in-your-face painting “The Foot”, the least ugly in a series of eleven, meant to make us feel the “disharmony” and ugliness he reacted to post-WWII. His unconventionality also a reaction to valuing art for “prettiness.”
Not all artists start with or end up with a painting reflective of meaning per se, though we’re primed to give it one. Are Gayford’s intentions meant to provoke us into seeing today’s avant-garde art as a reflection of the present era of uncertainties, chaos, extremism? What they’re not are the “calm” emotions he ascribes to Johannes Vermeer’s paintings.
They’re also not like the early Italian renaissance masters Michelangelo and Titian and Dutch giant Rembrandt. And yet other aspects of their paintings – originality, colors, types of paint, brushstrokes – share common elements. Gayford breaks these down for us, such as the materials used that make a difference (types of oil in the paint, whether egg whites used as in frescos, “turps” or turpentine, and other surprising paint ingredients like champagne.) The discussion on paintbrushes could fill a book.
Like Wayne Thiebaud’s pastry brush creating a glaze giving his mouthwatering desserts a “creamy quality.” “Quintessentially American,” they emit such a strong “edible quality” that Gayford first tempts us with a smaller image of “Dessert Tray” knowing we want more, followed by a two-page pastel spread of “creamy mint green, pink, and lavender colors” encircling the desserts.
It’s impossible in this space to present all the other painters and paintings discussed. Below a sampling of a few standout visuals and literary comments.
George Hume’s paintings of a series of doors is part of discussions on the “fluidity” of paint. Is this even art? David Hockney, Gayford’s friend and collaborator, remarks that some artists paint doors better than others. When another iconic painter and friend, Lucien Freud says, “Painting is all about paint,” he’s not being facetious but agreeing that different paints create a smoother effect without showing lines better than others. Lucien Freud is also depicted through the eyes of his model – Gayford – having painted his portrait and written a book about the experience, Man in a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Gayford.
My favorite painting discovery is by Scottish Peter Doig who lives in Trinidad: “Gasthof zur Muldentalsperre, 2000-2002” (German Pier), considered a “photocollage,” sort of. Stunning how its watercolor-y elements reflect the starry skies, lighting up the lake, trees, grass. It’s also a self-portrait if you look close enough. Those two tiny figures standing on the bridge are the artist and a friend. Inspired by a postcard, it falls under a section on painters who use photographs or “sketchbooks” for inspiration.
Other intense emotional paintings include Sean Scully’s “Landline Star, 2017” engendering warmth and richness from dark colors painted in horizontal blocks one atop the other; Patrick Heron’s “Long Cadmium, with Ceruleum in Violet (Boycott), 1977,” that makes your eyes pop out. Red being the most intense color. The “scale” of this painting “became a feat of stamina and concentration.” Scale a critical factor in how a painting can overwhelm our senses. Scale hitting us in Claudette Johnson’s “Figure Blue, 2018,” a painting to elevate black female “individuality” after she was the only black woman in art school.
The scale of Jackson Pollock’s abstract creations are described as the work of a genius in deep concentration physically and emotionally, lost inside his on-the-floor paintings.
Colors are explored in terms of how a painting speaks to us. “Is color a matter of science or poetry?” asked when color changes depending on what else it borders or touches. Color is also seen philosophically in terms of how the painter thinks of the universe as “lightness,” “brightness,” or “darkness.” People also “perceive and experience color” differently. Matisse and Picasso were color masters, yet Matisse’s paintings were “harmonies” whereas Picasso’s were “psychedelic.”
Familiar paintings here, too, yet new information. For instance, did you know all the women in American Edward Hopper’s paintings were his wife? So jealous of any other woman modeling for him. He used “different lights” to project loneliness.
So many painters influenced others. So much more presented. That’s why you can’t put this hefty book down.
January 23, 2025
A spectacular art book. I've read a lot of art history books, and often get frustrated with the standard 'oh here's some people who all lived at the same time and here's their art movement,' because this perspective is often solely the interest of the historian; the artists themselves are almost never thinking in such a way. This book, in contrast, describes what painters are actually concerned about. Through a combination of intimate relationships, encyclopedic knowledge, and interviews — often painters talking about other painters — Gayford deftly invites us into the mind of painters. Why choose the specific subject you are painting? How do different painters feel about the type of substrate they paint on? How much does 'influence' actually matter? Each of these subjects relates different painters across time, answering the same questions within their particular context. This book will teach you how to look at any painting, not just the ones we always see. Spectacular.
November 17, 2024
I just loved this book. It is sweeping and all-embracing while never pretending to be anything other than personal reflections resulting from conversations and observations from many years as an art critic. Martin Gayford has talked with and observed scores of great artists over the last 40 or 50 years and the result is a unique comprehensiveness. He’s able to make astonishing comparisons even going back as far as ancient cave painting or between Artists whom one would never think to place alongside one another. This is lavishly illustrated and beautifully written. I was sad to finish it and only wanted to get back to the start.
January 2, 2025
Alerted to this by a review in the 'Spectator' I immediately added it to my Christmas wish-list, dropping enough hints to ensure it did not go unnoticed. Glad to say it delivered everything I'd hoped and a good deal more, beginning with references to seeing Dutch Old Master faces on the streets of Bruges, as I had once delightedly done and both educating and fascinating me with every page I read.
February 5, 2025
The second of the two art books I splurged on in one hit in January 2025. Bigger and thicker than the other, it took me a while to read, digesting a few chapters at a time. It’s a big enough and weighty enough book that I felt as I read that I was already forgetting enlightening parts I had read earlier, as new information overtook my mind. The first part of the book, “starting, finishing and carrying on” addressed issues that concern every artist, of whatever level, but which aren’t very often talked about in books - literally, how do you make a start on an artwork? How do you know when you are finished? Why do you have the urge to paint? I found myself relating strongly to the words of some of the artists who were interviewed or quoted. The next section, material matters, was fascinating in the way it talked about paint and how different artists sought different qualities for their particular techniques. Not having done oil painting, I hadn’t realised that different artists preferred very different consistencies of oil paint, and the different effects they achieved. Following sections, addressing other topics, were equally as interesting. Probably a book I have to dip into again and again to enjoy to the full.
November 15, 2025
I adore Martin Gayford's writing, and his "Yellow House" on van Gogh is one of the best art books I've ever read - yet I found this one a difficult read and a bit of a slog compared to his other work. Maybe it is a me problem, but it just jumped all over the place and some of the studies within the chapters didn't feel quite relevent or coherent with the chapter, jumping around a little too much. I love the books he has done with David Hockney and the conversational nature of those works permit a broader range in a way that this format doesn't quite allow to this reader.
It has some lovely bits in and the illustrations are lavish - I liked it, but didn't love it like his previous work!
It has some lovely bits in and the illustrations are lavish - I liked it, but didn't love it like his previous work!
August 13, 2025
it can take you over, draw you in, and keep you looking and looking, on and off, for a lifetime. it can incorporate profound paradoxes of which you are aware without needing to think, at least in words, because looking like this is a way of thinking. every successful painting creates a new world, which we can inhabit for as long as we care to look at it.
inspiring as heck and i found my new fav artist ♥
inspiring as heck and i found my new fav artist ♥
December 21, 2024
I loved this book. I'm an aspiring artist. So many lovely paintings. I wish I could have been there with all of the interviews. To be a fly on the wall would be the best thing in the world
December 18, 2025
A fascinating insight and perhaps the most beautiful book I have ever read.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews