I was flattered this morning when a friend showed me one of her poems and asked me to comment on it. I was pleased to discover that she has taken to writing, and this was the first indication I have had of this. We had a really nice conversation about her work, and the best result I could haver hoped for was that later in the morning I saw her in conversation with another friend who is an established professional writer, whose name I had recommended. I’m sure that her advice will have been far more useful than mine.
The first thing that struck me about the poem I was shown was the somewhat old-fashioned nature of the language. When I asked her why she was writing in this register she said that she thought that poetry was supposed to be like that. That made me rather sad; but we talked about writing in different registers and the way in which that decision can have a determining effect on the way in which the work is received and understood.
Only later this afternoon (in the mid-session break during the snooker!) I began to ask myself whether there was a similar problem in the visual arts, and I concluded rapidly that this is indeed a serious issue. How many painters are still trying to paint as if they are Impressionists, for example? There is an entire industry of publication setting out to show artists “how to do it”, and typically these have a nostalgic feel about them. I did begin to ask myself whether there might possibly be a positive value in trying to imitate past models. At this week’s life-drawing class the instructor tried to get us all to draw like Frank Auerbach. His aim was not to turn us all into Auerbachs, but to get us to reflect a little more on the subject of how drawing works. This is a common approach he uses, and we have been asked to imitate the methods of Henry Moore and Jenny Saville, for example. Speaking personally I can say that often it is as useful to analyse why I resist working in the chosen method as it is discovering what I might want to take from them. This certainly doesn’t reduce the value of the exercise of attempting to work in a manner that is entirely derivative. It all sharpens awareness of the existence of alternative ways of working, and the significance of making self-conscious choices between different possibilities.