I really do wonder sometimes what goes on in dreams. Last night I had an inspiration relating to a problem of composition that had been troubling me. I have been working on one of the pictures in my series dealing with Italy in the First World War. It has to do specifically with the alpine war, and how the alpine units (who are closely linked to the village where I was staying in July) are memorialised. I have been irritated by the fact that the design I had created turned out to lack visual depth, and to be less interesting than I hoped, for that reason. I my dream I imagined that I saw a raven flying across the scene that is the subject of my picture. I awoke realising that this was exactly what I needed. The raven is the symbol of the alpine troops: they all wear raven’s feathers in their hats. I have yet to work out exactly how the bird will be positioned in the image : but I’m sure that this is exactly the idea I need, both visually and symbolically.
Now where did that come from? A good deal of what we do in painting is undoubtedly a matter of conscious and rational thought …. for example, the arrangement of composition, or the balance of colours. Every now and then, however, we do come up against evidence of just what is going on for us underneath the level of consciousness.