The Power Of Story

It was the eve of my trip to California, touring the first group of paintings from my Banjo Paterson's People series. The pictures to be exhibited were being previewed for Australian collectors at a cocktail party hosted by the gallery which represented my work at the time.

Suddenly, a trendy local architect loomed up beside me, champagne flute in hand. Looking down the considerable length of his nose at me, he commented: "So, you're really an illustrator, I see."

I beamed up at him and gushed: "Oh, thank you!"

His smirk made his thought transparent: (She's too dumb to even realise she's just been insulted.)

Then I added: "You've elevated me into the company of Michelangelo and Leonardo, Raphael and Rembrandt." As his jaw hit his chest, it was clear the truth had hit him between the eyes, and I walked away, laughing.

Now, why could I dare list my work alongside the Masters? Because their "book" was The Bible; mine was Banjo Paterson (1864-1941.) (That night, I didn't bother to point out that of close to 300 titles in my Register of sold paintings at the time, only 33 were based on Paterson poems or stories. The current totals are 400 and 63, plus 30 "illustrations" of my own version of the story of Paterson's words to "Waltzing Matilda.") But back to the Masters:

When you stand gazing up at Michelangelo's massive marble sculpture David, you know it can be no one else but the youth who challenged and defeated Goliath. Yet, it might be anyone. He stands naked of any identifying costume. And in this portrait - of the young man destined to become the second Jewish king - he is shown not circumcised. We are given only one clue: the slingshot. But that's enough.

Still, as you know, no artist is content to simply illustrate the facts. S/he is thinking always of how to present those facts in a new way; a way that will stimulate the viewers' own imaginations, start them thinking about more than the remembered story. Michelangelo pared away everything superfluous. No action is evident in the sculpture. But every gesture of the figure, the complex expression of the face, tells us something is about to happen.

Leonardo was thinking the same way when he made The Last Supper. The great innovation here is the placement of Judas on the same side of the table as all the other disciples, a breakaway from the tradition of isolating the betrayer by seating him apart. In the hands of the Master painter, all that's needed is the expression on Judas' face and the gesture of his figure.

Both masters used every skill of craftsmanship at their disposal to engage our emotional response to the work and the story it tells. And even today, these images, made 500 years ago, fill our minds when we think of those ancient stories.

How's that for memorable art?

Now, jump to New York post-WWII, when Abstract Expressionism was riding the crest of its wave. Abstract Art was declared the successor of all art that had come before, a new broom sweeping away the traditions of representational art. And with it, a new dogma was proclaimed: "Narrative is dead!"

I believe all artists from Kandinsky (1866-1944) to the latest "name" in "Modern Art" circles have been genuine in their desire to revolutionise art by experimenting with (seemingly) new ways of laying paint on a surface. Left to themselves, they'd have done no harm. Art is the biggest game we humans have invented, and within it there is room for all manner of playfulness. But some art dealers, and the critics who serve them, soon awoke to the golden opportunity this new art presented.

There are those who have much money but little confidence in their own taste, and others who feel a need to display a "sophistication" above that of their fellows. Then there are those who must demonstrate their superiority by possessing whatever is the latest, or most exclusive. They were the perfect targets for the purveyors of this new style of art that was presented as beyond the understanding of "the common people."