WHAT I THINK ABOUT PAINTING

WHAT I THINK ABOUT PAINTING

Renato de Almeida

          When I first started on painting, in a city and at a time of few incentives, I carried that need for painting as a curse that got on my way making difficult to earn everyday bread. I felt that the art was a lover that demanded everything and  promised nothing. In spite of that, or perhaps because of that, I easily embraced her but to carry her with difficulty. To serve her, got a job in another activity, becoming a little slave as man, even so, very free as  painter. 

           After this, it is worth to remember the answer  I gave to Paschoal Carlos Magno when he asked me  whom I had studied with. I answered that when I needed a teacher, I didn't have one, and when I could have one I didn't need it. A good teacher, perhaps could have shortened the road. But, in compensation, I walked with my own forces, serving me from everything in general, but from nothing in particular, what brought something very personal in my work. 

          If I am not mistaken, the writers are the ones that most see literature on painting; and the painters, maybe by professional deformation, see the painting first. When a painter sees a horse he thinks of painting it, not in riding it ; he thinks of using the horse to create painting. For this reason, Goethe already said: " The art is art because it is not nature ". 

          I don't believe that a painter - I am speaking about the ones that  do have real need to paint, not  about the ones that  can be always painting, but about the ones that  cannot live without painting -  sacrifices a true  plastic in favor of other truth. The need to manifest his ideas as a painter, prevails over the elements that have been utilized as  means to reach  his objectives. It is probable that the fear of the literature in the painting forces us to be more like writers than painters, we tend to do what we more  hate.                                               

          There are different  truths, mine, yours and the truth itself, nevertheless, I think we must be aware of everything that is happening in art, mainly in painting. To visit museums, to see old and modern works as much as possible, to acquire knowledge of  every "ism". But when one paints, he must be faithful to himself, nor master nor slave; to drive and to be driven; to give two or two thousand brushstrokes on a picture, it doesn't matter, what should not be done is to commit the sin of excess or  lack. Let things happen, therefore each painter has inside of himself an alarm that works in agreement with his needs, that separates the wheat from the chaff.                

        The search for wisdom can take us to serve a wrong God. I have the impression that, in a general way, the artist today wants to be a Christ, not a Christian;  he wants to be a reformer, not a follower, and that lack of humility hinders his passage through the door of the art, that as the one to the heaven, is narrow and  low. 

          When Beethoven censored an Archduke for using serial thirds in his music, the Archduke replied that Beethoven also used them, to what Beethoven answered:    

         - I can, you don't. 

         A student asks his old Italian master:   

         -Master, may I paint as I see? 

          -Yes, answers the master, inasmuch as you don't see as you paint. 

          With this I mean that few want to pass through the sieve as students, most want to tear it as geniuses, burning stages, forgetting that  time destroys what is done without it. This unconsciousness makes them  sacrifice the artistic proportion. We should do the sun out of a blot, and not out of the sun a blot; we can do theater out of swearwords, but not out of theater a swearword. 

          I finish here, completely unworried if I was, in these considerations, more  painter than  writer, in the same way that  when I paint I am not worried if I am being more  writer than painter, or else, neither do  I write, nor do I paint. 

          It is still opportune to remind the story of an old man who was questioned  by his grandson:     

          - Grandpa, when do you sleep, does your beard  stay under or overthe blanket? 

           And, at night, the old man, that until then had not thought the matter, began to throw the beard under and over the blanket. He ended up cutting it off