Tricks of the Trade
How a Master Painter Balances Technical "Tricks" with the Inexplicable Magic of Creation
A famous South American painter was being interviewed on a popular podcast. He rarely gave interviews, so this was a rather special occasion for the podcaster—and for the painter’s fans.
“Your paintings are called existential masterpieces,” the podcaster gushed. “How do you do that? That sounds so mysterious. Like something you couldn’t possibly put into words!”
“No,” the painter replied. “It’s very simple. Shall I explain?”
The podcaster looked crestfallen. “Oh, it can’t be!” he exclaimed. “Really, it’s simple?”
The painter sighed. He understood why people who did not create had to hold creating as something mysterious, grand, and beyond them. Thinking of creating that way gave them leave not to try. The idea that one could simply sit there and do it … that vision didn’t suit them.
“My paintings of Buenos Aires, for example. They would be considered among my ‘existential masterpieces,’” he said, with self-deprecating irony. “Why do they work? Shall I give you the reasons?”
“Yes, of course,” the podcaster said sourly.
“Well, first, I leave out the cars. Then you can’t place the period.”
“Amazing!” the podcaster exclaimed, genuinely taken aback. “That’s it?”
“Oh, no. Next, I make the figures thinner than in real life, much thinner, almost stick figures. They look emaciated. That makes them feel ‘automatically’ existential, as if they were on the verge of disappearing or maybe never having been there at all. Plus, you can’t make out their clothes—that provides another suggestion of timeliness.”
“So, these are your tricks of the trade?” the podcaster murmured.
“Yes. There are more. Shall I reveal them? How you use empty space and blank areas to suggest silence, timelessness and absence. How you have your figures waiting, thinking, sitting, aging. The way you resist simple symbolism and focus on ‘the gaze’—that inward look. Are your people resigned? Searching? Then the deserted interiors. The vague cityscapes. And the incongruous—a man in a suit standing in a swamp. Why would that create an existential feeling? Well, it does. You learn what does. And what doesn’t.”
The podcaster appeared at a loss for words.
The painter smiled, then continued. “Sorry. You want a more spiritual answer, something more occult, something more mysterious. Well, I can give you that kind of answer, too. Because it is mysterious. Something wells up from somewhere. But I would advise the artists out there not to scorn what you’re calling ‘the tricks of the trade.’ There’s no trade without them.”
The podcaster nodded. He ended the episode a little early and thanked his guest—who smiled, understanding that he hadn’t delivered quite what the podcaster had wanted. The podcaster had hoped for magic—and had gotten it, but just didn’t recognize it when he saw it.
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