Philip Guston
Painting, Smoking, Eating
1972
oil on canvas
197 x 263 cm
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
I studied with Philip Guston from
1974-76 at Boston University. Looking at my work, he would not likely come to
mind as an influence, but his teaching had a profound impact on my development
as a painter.
I sometimes wonder what Guston would
think of the proliferation of contemporary painters making, cartoonish, messy
images with thick, and sometimes, encrusted paint. Many of these paintings
borrow the most apparent, stylistic aspects of his work to ironic and sometimes
cynical ends, while seldom embodying the underlying pictorial structure and
formal intelligence that make his paintings great.
Guston came to Boston once a month to
give crits. He would come around to individual studios and a flock of students
would follow him, listening reverently to his comments. Once a month we were
all a nervous wreck before, during and after Guston’s visits.
Guston was, for the most part, either
extremely complimentary—“Marvelous!” was his favorite adjective— or extremely
negative in response to student work. I don’t recall much in between. He was
charismatic and his enthusiasms were infectious; his criticism could be harsh.
He was never didactic or formulaic and seemed to respond from the heart. One
time, when he was in the studio of a classmate, he became very quiet, looking
around, seeming to search for words to express his feelings. Finally, he
stammered, “You know, the more I look at these paintings I just want to take
some white paint and cover everything up.”
On another occasion, I remember Guston
asking permission to work on a student’s painting. It was moving to watch him
work, swiftly and fluidly while he talked about what he was doing. He loved to
talk and was extremely articulate.
Another time a student working from
observation asked if he should include or omit the radiator in an interior he
was painting. Guston was visibly irritated and snapped something to the effect
of: “who cares about a radiator and whether you leave it in or out?” Blunt, but
so true.
To one of the students in the program
who had been rigidly trained to follow a linear process in developing his work,
Guston said that painting things out is still painting, and just as important
as adding to the painting. “You’re still painting when you get rid of things.”
He encouraged us to take chances and to respond to the painting itself rather
than a fixed, methodical plan.
Sometimes it seemed strange that he had
chosen to teach at that particular school, with its decidedly academic program.
But he said that he wanted to teach at BU because it was one of the few places
where they were actually teaching us some skills and techniques of painting and
drawing. He decried the loss of traditional curricula at most other art
programs, where the advent of Abstract Expressionism and Pop had eclipsed most
traditional, representational training.
Another time, while looking at some of
my early collages, that were thick with layers of highly textured oil paint, he
said, “Do you mind if I touch these?—I like to touch paintings”, in that
slightly breathless voice that I still remember well. He ran his fingers over
the collages and considered them.
Plasticity is the term that Guston
always used to refer to the substance of painting and the tensions of pictorial
space. His paintings are messy but they’re also masterfully taut in
composition. Underneath the seemingly slapdash execution, his paintings are
quite formal and reveal the high regard in which he held the masters. They’re
humorous, but reverential rather than ironic. Few of the so-called
Guston-influenced paintings that I’ve seen recently have the plasticity,
cadence and gravity that connect his work to the great paintings of the past
that he so admired.
The way in which Guston spoke about art
was highly emotional and personal but also deeply rooted in his understanding
of the traditions of European painting. He had an uncanny ability to wed intense,
emotional expression with highly formal, pictorial structure, which is what
made him a great painter and an inspiring teacher.
Excerpted
from Memories of Philip Guston by Caren Canier, Painting Perceptions
Caren Canier (US)
Ulysses
2008
mixed media
with oil on panel
