A Times Book of the Year 'This is as clear a piece of writing about the experience of
looking at a great painting as I have ever read ... Gayford seems to have seen everything and
thought deeply about all of it' Andrew Marr New Statesman 'If you are someone who revels
in the deliciousness of oil paintings who looks at them and wants to eat them 'as if they were
ice cream or something' in Damien Hirst's phrase then Martin Gayford's latest book will be a
banquet' The Spectator 'Martin Gayford long-serving critic and art historian is a trusted
insider and a favoured guest of the most celebrated talents in the UK and beyond. If anyone
knows what makes them tick it ought to be this latter-day Vasari ... Stimulating and
sumptuously illustrated' Financial Times 'From El Greco to Picasso Martin Gayford's How
Painting Happens offers us an encyclopedic journey through art history' Daily Telegraph 'A
remarkable painting can move the soul. So how does it come about? Martin Gayford brilliantly
marks out the path from inspiration to execution' The Irish Times Drawing on decades of
conversations with practising artists Martin Gayford offers intimate insight into the practice
meaning and potential of painting. Painting is an almost inconceivably ancient activity
that remains vigorously alive in the twenty-first century. Every successful painting creates a
new world which we inhabit for as long as we care to look at it. Paintings can incorporate
profound ideas and paradoxes that can be grasped without words. For those who dedicate
themselves to it the art of painting can become an all-consuming lifelong obsession. It is
a subject on which painters themselves are often the most incisive commentators. Martin
Gayford's riveting and richly illustrated book deftly brings together numerous artists' voices
past and present. It draws on a trove of conversations conducted over more than three decades
with artists including Frank Auerbach Gillian Ayres Frank Bowling Cecily Brown Peter Doig
Lucian Freud Katharina Fritsch David Hockney Claudette Johnson Lee Ufan Paula Rego
Gerhard Richter Bridget Riley Jenny Saville Frank Stella Luc Tuymans Zeng Fanzhi and many
more. Here too is Vincent van Gogh on Rembrandt John Constable on Titian Francis Bacon on
Velazquez R. B. Kitaj on Cézanne and Jean-Michel Basquiat on Picasso. We hear the personal
reflections of these artists on their chosen medium how and why they paint how they came to
the practice the influence of fellow painters and how they find creative sustenance and
inspiration in their art. How Painting Happens crosses the centuries to give us a wealth of
insights into the endlessly compelling phenomenon of painters and painting.
