Canvasing opinions: what can books by Julian Bell and Andrew Marr tell us about painting?

Michael Prodger | New Statesman | 4th December 2017

What, really, are painters doing when they paint?  Answering this question has become more difficult over time as the painter’s options have grown – perception, perspective, narrative, feeling, abstraction, colour, medium. One suggestion – a painting is “a corner of nature seen through a temperament”. A more declarative alternative is that a painting is the artist saying “I exist, and therefore you, the viewer, do too”.