“Modern Art”
The following passage is adapted from a memoir by British abstract artist Bridget Riley. (© 2009 by Bridget Riley).
- For me, drawing is an inquiry,
- a way of finding out – the first
- thing that I discover is that I
- do not know. This is alarming
- even to the point of
- momentary panic. Only
- experience reassures me that
- this encounter with my own
- ignorance is my chosen and
- particular task, and provided
- I can make the required
- effort the rewards may
- reach the unimaginable. It
- is as though there is an eye
- at the end of my pencil,
- which tries, independently
- of my personal general-
- purpose eye, to penetrate a
- kind of obscuring veil or
- thickness. To break down
- this deadening opacity, to
- elicit some particle of clarity
- or insight, is what I want to
- do.
- The strange thing is that
- the information I am
- looking for is, of course,
- there all the time and as
- present to one’s naked eye,
- so to speak, as it ever will
- be. But to get the essentials
- down there on my sheet of
- paper so that I can recover
- and see again what I have
- just seen, that is what I
- have to push towards.
- What it amounts to is
- that while drawing I
- am watching and
- simultaneously
- recording myself
- looking, discovering
- things that on the one
- hand are staring me in
- the face and on the
- other I have not yet
- really seen. It is this effort
- ‘to clarify’ that makes drawing
- particularly useful and it is in
- this way that I assimilate
- experience and find new
- ground.
- For the last 50 years, it
- has been my belief that
- as a modern artist you
- should make a
- contribution to the art
- of your time, if only a
- small one. When I was
- young, the situation was
- very different. Abstract
- painting hung like a
- mirage in the desert.
- The door had been
- pushed open by a small
- number of visionary
- artists – mainly
- Mondrian, Kandinsky,
- and Malevich. Although
- traveling by different routes,
- each had arrived at what was
- virtually a common core.
- Having discarded the figure
- and nature, what remained?
- Color as color itself, those
- simple shapes and forms
- that geometry and writing
- provided, and the material
- facts.
- Perhaps the time I had
- spent drawing allowed me
- to trust the eye at the end
- of my pencil. One evening
- on my way to the studio, I
- thought of drawing a square.
- Everyone knows what a
- square looks like and how
- to make one in geometric
- terms. It is a monumental,
- highly conceptualized form:
- stable and symmetrical,
- equal angles, equal sides. I
- drew the first few squares.
- No discoveries there. Was
- there anything to be found
- in a square? But as I drew,
- things began to change.
- Quite suddenly something
- was happening down there
- on the paper that I had not
- anticipated. I continued;
- I went on drawing; I pushed
- ahead, both intuitively and
- consciously. The squares
- began to lose their original
- form. They were taking on
- a new pictorial identity. I
- drew the whole of
- “Movement in Squares”
- without a pause and then,
- to see more clearly what
- was there, I painted each
- alternate space black. When
- I stepped back, I was elated
- by what I saw.
- The way of working I had
- found was both new and
- yet familiar. If my subject
- had been the human figure
- instead of a geometric form,
- I would have been looking
- for the ways in which the
- balance shifted. I would
- have found a twist or turn,
- which gave life and
- movement. I chose other
- geometric forms – the
- circle, the triangle, the
- oval, the curve – and
- found that through
- drawing I could analyze
- and study them. What
- could a triangle, for
- example, do and, equally
- important, not do?
- I searched for a new form
- that would be unlike any I
- had used before: a form
- that did not have the
- familiar identity of squares,
- triangles, ovals etc.
- Eventually, I found what I
- was looking for in the
- conjunction of the vertical
- and the diagonal. This
- conjunction was the new
- form. It could be seen as a
- patch of color. When
- enlarged, these formal
- patches became colored
- planes that could take up
- different positions in
- space. A whole new field of
- relationships opened up.
- Now drawing with color
- became central to my
- activity. I found I had to
- establish a common plane
- from which and to which
- the spatial advances and
- recessions of color would
- relate. This could not be
- predetermined – it had to
- be found afresh each time.
- It can sometimes happen
- that, when confronted by
- what seems to be a wall,
- which one cannot get
- either through or round,
- a kind of radical
- reorientation is called for.
- If this is to succeed, it
- nearly always means
- relinquishing some cherished
- notion or something that you
- have relied on. This
- destructive side to
- creative life is essential
- to an artist’s survival.