Left to Write, Collected Writings
Patrick Hughes
Extract, pages 383 y 385:
Vladimir Nabokov wrote that ‘Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterise all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity – and splendid insincerity!’ Paul Critchley’s work is original in his shaped canvases which show us what shape things really are when they are isolated. When I started painting in 1960 I could not imagine what the background in a painting was for, and cut out of hardboard with a coping saw my pictures of hearts and shields. Critchley’s inventiveness is irrepressible, he has imagined things we have not dreamed of, but that when we see them we think ‘I wish I had thought of that.’
The conciseness of Paul’s work is there in that he does not show us more than one thing or area, he just paints and makes the window or the corner of the room. Against this conciseness we might also consider his prolixity, even generosity, in showing us details that we take for granted but which he lovingly draws to our attention, details of carving, of plugs, of pattern, the purely visual. Moments that are a joy to him in their quiddity and that become a joy to the viewer because he paints them so well, the glowing elements of an electric fire, the check lining of an average suitcase, a feather boa.
There is a harmony in these pictures given by the preponderance of perspective. The perspective system grips the regular world like a force of nature, like gravity or light. Everywhere we look rectilinear things, doors, windows, suitcases, houses and so on, set off towards infinity, tables begin to make their way towards their particular vanishing point, depending on where we are standing. From our point of view as a central actor, we are surrounded by things or planes which are hurrying away from us into the distance, obediently obeying at all times the rules of perspective. This gives an overall harmony to our vision: Paul takes this perspective and isolates and stills it, pickles it, and causes us to think a fresh about what surrounds us at every moment of every day.
Nabokov’s fifth characteristic,complexity, comes into the Critchley world as a tussle between the dimensions, two and three. Seen in reproduction his pieces are flatter than they are in life, because when we look at them they come to life, as we come to believe the spaces and shapes he represents so well. The windows Paul paints in perspective can also be really hinged and moveable; and the corners that he paints can be in corners or on corners that are real: painted and actual are superbly complicated in his art.
When one paints things people often believe you. Samuel Taylor Coleridge referred to the ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ that is an aid to the true appreciation of art. Paul Critchley is such a talented and imaginative artist that we readily suspend our disbelief and step into his witty, wondering and mysterious world. His ‘splendid insincerity’, the result of many years of honing his skill and focusing his intelligence on his corner of the world of art, comes from a very rare feeling for the beauty and delight to be got from the overlooked and the ordinary. This is sincere insincerity, not a trick but a triumph, not a dusty corner but a turning point.
Patrick Hughes
ISBN 978-1-906412-15-9
Published by Flowers
reproduction of the painting "The Time Has Come", page 384
Vladimir Nabokov wrote that ‘Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterise all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity – and splendid insincerity!’ Paul Critchley’s work is original in his shaped canvases which show us what shape things really are when they are isolated. When I started painting in 1960 I could not imagine what the background in a painting was for, and cut out of hardboard with a coping saw my pictures of hearts and shields. Critchley’s inventiveness is irrepressible, he has imagined things we have not dreamed of, but that when we see them we think ‘I wish I had thought of that.’
The conciseness of Paul’s work is there in that he does not show us more than one thing or area, he just paints and makes the window or the corner of the room. Against this conciseness we might also consider his prolixity, even generosity, in showing us details that we take for granted but which he lovingly draws to our attention, details of carving, of plugs, of pattern, the purely visual. Moments that are a joy to him in their quiddity and that become a joy to the viewer because he paints them so well, the glowing elements of an electric fire, the check lining of an average suitcase, a feather boa.
There is a harmony in these pictures given by the preponderance of perspective. The perspective system grips the regular world like a force of nature, like gravity or light. Everywhere we look rectilinear things, doors, windows, suitcases, houses and so on, set off towards infinity, tables begin to make their way towards their particular vanishing point, depending on where we are standing. From our point of view as a central actor, we are surrounded by things or planes which are hurrying away from us into the distance, obediently obeying at all times the rules of perspective. This gives an overall harmony to our vision: Paul takes this perspective and isolates and stills it, pickles it, and causes us to think a fresh about what surrounds us at every moment of every day.
Nabokov’s fifth characteristic,complexity, comes into the Critchley world as a tussle between the dimensions, two and three. Seen in reproduction his pieces are flatter than they are in life, because when we look at them they come to life, as we come to believe the spaces and shapes he represents so well. The windows Paul paints in perspective can also be really hinged and moveable; and the corners that he paints can be in corners or on corners that are real: painted and actual are superbly complicated in his art.
When one paints things people often believe you. Samuel Taylor Coleridge referred to the ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ that is an aid to the true appreciation of art. Paul Critchley is such a talented and imaginative artist that we readily suspend our disbelief and step into his witty, wondering and mysterious world. His ‘splendid insincerity’, the result of many years of honing his skill and focusing his intelligence on his corner of the world of art, comes from a very rare feeling for the beauty and delight to be got from the overlooked and the ordinary. This is sincere insincerity, not a trick but a triumph, not a dusty corner but a turning point.
Patrick Hughes
ISBN 978-1-906412-15-9
Published by Flowers
reproduction of the painting "The Time Has Come", page 384