Today I offered to clean my wife’s shoes, in preparation for our attending a funeral tomorrow. While I was on the job I noticed that it had probably been a considerable time since they were cleaned. Thinking about it, I could not remember ever having seen her doing this. Then an idea occurred to me. “Did your Dad usually clean your shoes?” I asked. “Oh, yes! He did it for all the family. It was a job he liked to do. That was only natural, I suppose. He was in the army.” Then it struck me. My own habit of regularly cleaning shoes is rooted similarly in the past. I went to a boarding school, where, just as in the forces, shoe-cleaning was part of the daily routine.
There are people who clean shoes, and those who don’t. We recognise each other.
Actually, habit is an extremely important part of life. Where on earth would we be without it? Some of our most important and characteristic behaviours are rooted in habit. It’s instructive to think about artistic activity in these terms. I’m always interested to watch the BBC TV series Fake or Fortune? which is about the problem of determining the provenance of pictures. Typically, somebody produces a picture the origin of which is in doubt, but which is believed might possibly be by a renowned artist. The picture is subjected to a rigorous series of scientific and scholarly tests in order to see if it is possible to reach a decision about its disputed provenance. Not infrequently it is those actions of the artist which are pure habit that enable a judgement to be reached. As I was making a few late improvements to a picture today (hauled out of retirement for a reappraisal) I was wondering what artistic habits might be inscribed in the things I paint.
Incidentally, this will be the last posting between now and next Tuesday. In addition to the funeral we will also be spending a few days in London. My older son, who is a minister of religion, is to be inducted into a new (civilian) post having retired from his career of many years as a chaplain in the Royal Navy. I have been thinking quite a lot recently about my own experience of taking early retirement from university work to take up art on a full-time basis. He is about the same age as I was then.