Oh, to Be a Painter!

by Virginia Woolf, Claudia Tobin (Introduction)

The twentieth volume in the renowned ekphrasis series, this collection of Virginia Woolf’s writings on the visual arts offers a whole new perspective on the revolutionary author.

Despite wide interest in Woolf’s writings, and in the artists and art critics in her Bloomsbury circle, there is no accessible edition or selection of essays dedicated to her writings on art. This volume collects her longest essay on painting, “Walter A Conversation” (1934), alongside shorter essays and reviews, including “Pictures and Portraits” (1920) and “Pictures” (1925).

These formally inventive texts reveal the centrality of the visual arts to Woolf’s writing and vision. They show her engaging with contemporary debates about modern art and are innovative in their treatment of ideas about color and form, including in response to the work of her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell, who designed many of her book covers and jackets. In these essays and reviews, Woolf illuminates the complex and interdependent relationship between the artist and society, and reveals her own shifting perspectives during decades of social and political change. She also provides sharp and astute commentary on specific works of art and on the relationship between art and writing.

An introduction by Claudia Tobin situates the essays within their cultural contexts.

Genres: Art, Essays, Nonfiction, Classics, Art History, London, British Literature

144 pages, Paperback

Published November 30, 2021

About the author

(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Reviews

[sAmAnE · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب خوشا نقاش بودن!
این کتاب مناسب کسانی هست که به نقاشی و هنر علاقه دارند و یا صرفا مجموعه کتاب‌های نویسنده رو دنبال می‌کنند.( که خودم در این دسته‌ام)
در واقع کتاب مجموعه‌ای از چند مقاله است که با نگاهی شاعرانه و هنری به بررسی آثار نقاشی و تحلیل هنر و هنرمند با زبان ساده می‌کند...
گفته می‌شود مجموعه‌ای با عنوان اکفراسیس است که به رابطه میان ادبیات و هنرهای تجسمی می‌پردازد...

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

"there is a zone of silence in the middle of every art"

loved this, super interesting and provocative - she writes in such a lovely way, was also cool to learn about her sister vanessa bell (painter). i love historical feminists💕💕💕

[Court Schueller · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/4 stars

“When he paints a portrait I read a life.”

Kind of funny that this is the first Virginia Woolf writing I’ve ever read. Definitely have to get to some of her fictional works. Still really interesting nonetheless! Just a cool commentary from an infamous female writer on different forms of art and media through the years. I enjoyed! Short and sweet.

[Alina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a review of Virginia Woolf’s wonderful collection of essays.

Yesterday, the master of cinematic art, David Lynch, passed away, and it brought to mind something Woolf wrote about cinema nearly a century ago, in 1926.

In her essay ‘The Cinema’, written during the early days of the seventh art, and published in this collection, Woolf wondered what cinema might achieve ‘if it were left to its own devices’—‘if it ceased to be a parasite’ to literature and the other arts.

She reflected on cinema’s untapped potential—its dynamic, psychic, and cognitive possibilities—and wrote:

‘We should see violent changes of emotion produced by their collision. The most fantastic contrasts could be flashed before us with a speed which the writer can only toil after in vain; the dream architecture of arches and battlements, of cascades falling and fountains rising, which sometimes visits us in sleep or shapes itself in half-darkened rooms, could be realized before our waking eyes. No fantasy could be too far-fetched or in-substantial … How all this is to be attempted, much less achieved, no one at the moment can tell us.’

When I first read this essay a few months ago, David Lynch immediately came to mind. I like to think Lynch embodies what Virginia Woolf hoped cinema might one day achieve. He elevated cinema into an art form entirely its own—creating something no other medium could replicate. Lynch brought our fantasies, dreams, and nightmares vividly to life, rendering them before our waking eyes. His passing is an immense loss for art and for those who dreamed alongside him.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so full of love. Everything she writes here is so compelling and strange. That is to say, she has a lot of thoughts on painting that have never crossed my mind, and they come across beautifully in her style. Her movies essay is especially fascinating and relevant.

[zoe arenós · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quin plaer llegir escriptores que parlen d’art, és fantàstic, tot i que he de dir que m’he perdut moltíssimes coses perquè l’anglès de la Virginia Woolf em sembla dificilíssim. Però un bon llibre per tenir i revisar, gràcies Mariona!! 💘

[Vilde Hjemås · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first meeting with Virginia Woolf! I feel a little bit enlightened, and I’ll definitely be referencing this in my next art history paper.

Takk til Maja for sykt fin julegave <3

[Marnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

love the way this girls mind works

[Jules Bosse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would be better as a YouTube video

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesomeness.

[Sarah Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sampling of Woolf’s meditations on painting, so Woolf at her most visually evocative. Always in awe of the way she uses language. “All great writers are great colorists, just as they are musicians into the bargain; they always contrive to make their scenes glow and darken and change to the eye.”

[Mia Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

FABULOUS

I am a mere resident of the literary world; art only makes sense to me in the way that I acknowledge there is courage in creation. Besides that, paintings and drawings usually get lost on me. I have a nasty habit of trying to "figure them out."

These meditations offered suchhhhh interesting commentary on the relationship between words and visual art. Woolf agrees with me on the failure of ego one experiences when their expertise belongs to articulation, not the mixing of hues.

Woolf frequently examines how painters narrate stories through their canvases and how writers, in turn, can glean insights from the visual lexicon of color, form, and composition. She often ponders the "impure medium" of words in contrast to what she terms the "silent kingdom of paint." The essays also offer astute commentary on modern art movements and the prominent artists of her era, particularly evident in her extended piece, "Walter Sickert: A Conversation" (1934), where she gasses him up hella. He's such a freak (I love him).

Quotes:

"Words are an impure medium; better far to have been born into the silent kingdom of paint"

"...the most exquisite of tortures - to be made to look at pictures with a painter."

"People say that the savage no longer exists in us, that we are at the fag-end of civilization, that everything has been said already, and that it is too late to be ambitious. But these philosophers have presumably forgotten the movies"

"... there is a zone of silence in the middle of every art"

"But words, words! How inadequate you are! How weary one gets of you! How you will always be saying too much or too little! Oh to be silent! Oh to be a painter!"

I always be sayin too much tbh. Need the nonchalance of painting, desperately.

[Isabella · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed a lovely pre-underlined copy of this book of essays. Although, I appreciate Woolf’s mind and often fall into her descriptions with a sense of surprise and pleasure at the scene she has created, it always takes me a bit to get there. That is to say, there is something about her writing that I always find resisting. It’s hardened with a formalness but then finally you reach her vision and her expression softens? Anyway, lovely little read about the intersections, abilities, and differences of literary and visual arts.

[ally baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Watching the boat sail and the wave break, we have time to open our minds wide to beauty and register on top of it the queer sensation—this beauty will continue, and this beauty will flourish whether we behold it or not.”

[lou ‎ ‧₊˚ ౨ৎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this in its entirety on the train to Lewes to see Virginia Woolf’s house… Virginia incorporated art in any part of her life that she could, and truly wanted to curate and support other artists in any way possible.

down to the tiles of her fireplace, or the spines of her Shakespeare collection, there was a piece of an artist filling her surrounding space. truly changed the way i entered her home and explored museums in London. gorgeous.

[Margaux Chauvet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some quotes I liked

“Words are an impure medium, better to be born into the silent kingdom of paint”

“What tune is the child playing on the violin? What are the people saying who are not on the sofa” Nobody talks but the room is full of conversations. Nobody moves but the room is full of intimate relations


“Words talk such nonsense it is better to be silence to them”

Oh to be a painter..

Will write more about this but the the USA Brazil game is about to start

[Linus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gedanken, die man gern gehabt haben möchte, aber wenn man sie schon nicht gehabt hat, sollte man sie wenigstens gelesen haben.

Viel Schönes zum Verhältnis von Malerei & Literatur und den Charakteristika der Kunstformen, jeweiligen Grenzen und Vorzügen. Dadurch auch Abhandlung über das Verhältnis zu ihrer Schwester, Vanessa Bell.

Lohnt sich, ein paar der Personen & Bilder nachzuschlagen, um besser zu verstehen, worüber sie schreibt.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a good read to immerse yourself in the power of the arts. A proof how art is related to everything and everyone. Woolf writes perfectly, to the point, but still creates space for interpretation. This book should be read slowly, and even multiple times.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

But words, words! How inadequate you are! How weary one gets of you! How you will always be saying too much or too little! Oh to be silent! Oh to be a painter!

Another winner from the ekphrasis series. I love examining the connection between fine art and literature, and since we just read Mrs. Dalloway for book club, I thought this would be a nice supplement to that.

The final essay, The Artist and Politics(1936) is—to me—a perfect one.
A sample:

"Obviously the writer is in such close touch with human life that any agitation in his subject matter must change his angle of vision... But why should this agitation affect the painter or the sculptor? The rose and the apple have no political views. Why should he not spend his time contemplating them, as he has always done, in the cold north light that still falls through his studio window?

...But if it is true that some such contract existed between the artist and society in time of peace, it by no means follows that the artist is independent of society. Art is the first luxury to be discarded in times of stress; the artist is the first of the workers to suffer. Society is not only his paymaster but his patron...if the patron will only buy pictures that flatter his vanity or serve his politics, then the artist is impeded and his work becomes worthless.

It is clear that the artist is affected as powerfully as other citizens when society is in chaos...his studio is now far from being a cloistered spot where he can contemplate his model or his apple in peace. It is besieged by voices.

First there is the voice that cries, 'I cannot protect you; I cannot pay you. I am so distracted that I can no longer enjoy your works of art.' Then there is the voice which asks for help. 'Come down from your ivory tower, leave your studio and use your gifts as a teacher or nurse, not as an artist.' And finally there is the voice which many artists have heard and had to obey—the voice which proclaims that the artist is the servant of the politician. 'You shall only practice your art at our bidding. Paint us pictures, carve us statues that glorify our gospels. Celebrate fascism. Preach what we bid you preach. On no other terms shall you exist.'

With all these voices crying and conflicting in his ears, how can the artist still remain at peace in his studio, contemplating his model or his apple in the cold light that comes through his studio window? He is forced to take part in politics...two causes of supreme importance to him are in peril. The first is his own survival; the other is the survival of his art."

I meannnnnnnnn... c'mon! These words ring as true today as they did nearly 100 years ago.

Now pardon me while I go make some art.

[Molsa Roja(s) · Rating 5 out of 5]

To collect Virginia's thoughts on painting amongst her vast oeuvre is itself fantastic; to edit it in such a beautiful book is quite extraordinary, and it can be said this Ekphrasis piece is up to the writer. In Oh, to Be a Painter! we enjoy the usual lyrical prose that's so particular of Virginia, this time focused on trying to understand not so much what a painting is or what it says -'cause in the center of it there is muteness, as she poses- but what is it like to paint, in contrast of her own experience in writing. As any Woolf's reader knows, she was as much a master of words as she was disappointed by their final incapacity to not so much represent life but bring life itself to the front, to go beyond the sadness of the page filled with black ink; she presents painting precisely as this beyond she so much desired, as the full meaning that can be achieved without words. I do recommend it, if you're any interested in painting!

[Cyrus Colah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ekphrasis - “a vivid, verbal description of a visual work of art. The written description of a work of art [traditionally] produced as a rhetorical exercise.”

Woolf’s essays outline the border between visual art and writing. Her theses were clear and thought-provoking. Her perspective on this topic is noteworthy given that her own work, and the work of her literary era, is itself so visually scintillating. I thought it nice to read these essays in the context of works such as Woolf’s To the Lighthouse or Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.

She also shares some early thoughts on cinema as an art form, which was historically insightful.

It would have been nice if this edition had included reproductions of the art she directly referenced.

[Jillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The elphrasis series continues to be one of my favorite collections of short books. Concise and direct, Tobin’s introduction sufficiently prepares and excites the reader for Woolf’s selected essays. Per usual, Virginia Woolf’s voice is a balance magnificently struck—crisp and intelligent, humorous and accessible. Her essay on Walter Sickert is one of my new favorites. “There is a zone of silence in the middle of every art,” Woolf asserts. Home to the artist themselves, slightly but noticeably separate from the writers, the sculptors, the filmmakers. The arts enrich one another without ever totally touching. To write or paint or compose with the other arts in mind is wise. An associative frenzy, maybe, but one Woolf undertook herself.

[Marios Alexandrou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Virginia Woolf’s Oh to be a Painter is a collection that feels like sitting down with a close friend who has a deep, intuitive understanding of the arts. Her way of writing—simple yet profound—pulls me in, making me pause and reflect on my own relationship with art and creativity. Each sentence feels carefully thought out, like she’s painting with words, not just describing but connecting ideas that resonate on an emotional level. I read her work not just for the insights but for the feeling it leaves behind, that sense of quiet contemplation that stays with me long after I close the book. Woolf’s ability to capture the essence of art and translate it into something so deeply felt is exactly why I turn to literature like this, searching for moments that feel honest, raw, and true.

[Chad Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Collection of essays on art by Virginia Woolf. Dated. Writing style here is cold and sterile although knowledgeable and informative about her contemporaries and subject matters. Collection of essays are also disjointed in spite of the introduction by Claudia Tobin.

Mostly literary criticism of the writer’s eye vs the painter’s eye but Woolf also discloses her view on the cinema ( it’s negative) and shares her view about the artist and politics.

I picked up this book upon a visit to the Whitney Museum one day and thought it worth a read being that the subjects explored by Woolf here are also dear to me.

[Rika · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only give this 3 stars because the essays were not as 'general' as I had hoped but still very enjoyable! Some of them were general (e.g. the artist's involvement with politics), and others were very context specific (e.g. comments on Walter Sickett, on Vanessa Bell (her sister), whose works I am not familiar with). It was still enjoyable to read though. As is my experience reading anything she's written - it's like having finely prepared, delicious, succulent food. (This being said - I had to ignore the one or two ableist and racist remarks - which takes a lot of effort. - "... [a writer like this] is like a man without legs", and "... chocolate-faced [maid]..."?

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of Virginia Woolf's writing on art (and one on cinema). Though it is often graceful, the writing here (in a critical rather than fictional vein) almost has the drollery of Dorothy Parker, but lacks her sting. Without the barb, there is a sense of wit and flourish but little in the way of thought. It all seems weightless. Though much of this work is generalization, the few times a specific piece of art was mentioned, some reproductions would have gone a long way to making this tiny little volume more complete.

[Mind the Book · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tyvärr tenderar verk av Virginia Woolf att fastna i tbr:en. Hon är så svårläst. Men förr eller senare ska jag ta mig igenom hennes författarskap, p.g.a. viktigt.

Från början var det essän om en Sickert-utställning, som gjorde att jag tyckte den skulle följa med hem från Foyles, Waterloo - en plats där allt kan hända i bokväg, under de kanske 10 min man väntar på sitt tåg. Men den lilla boken innehåller även en text om film som konstform och en mycket bra om konst och politik.

[George Dibble · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5

From a Teaching How to Write Essays perspective, this is a perfect book. It introduces such a unique way of writing analysis, from an acclaimed fiction writer, that is both insightful and enlightening. If I were to teach a class about professional writing, I would have my students read this book, for sure. Woolf introduces creative writing in the bounds of an essay that is so incredibly beautiful. This has been a great read for me and will definitely influence my future articles and posts and whatnot.

[John Paul Gairhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The onions and the eggs perform together a solemn music. Flowers toss their heads like proud horses in an Eastern festival. In short, precipitated by the swift strokes of the painter's brush, we have been blown over the boundary to the world where words talk such nonsense that it is best to silence them. And yet it is a world of glowing serenity and sober truth.”

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Selected commentaries on, and critiques of art, literature and cinema may be found in this selection of essays by Virginia Woolf. Some are erudite, draw interesting analogies between art or the movies and the written word, and levy valid criticisms. Others fall flat, miss their mark, or fail to make their point.