The Gods Themselves

Too tired to work or read anything difficult, I spend the day in my office, reading books on painting and film. From Kitaj: Pictures and Conversations, in which the great artist converses with Julian Rios, I learn of Kitaj’s friendship with Avigdor Arhika. They speak every few days on the phone, and cheer one another up when it is needed. There is a marvellous drawing of Kitaj by Arhika, and then one of Arhika by Kitaj. And drawings of Anne Atik and Gabriel Josipovici. Sadly, the reproductions in this book are in black and white.

Then I read Kitaj in the Aura of Cezanne and Other Masters, a slim volume full of splendid colour reproductions, where the artist talks with Colin Wiggins. Open the cover, and there is a photograph with the title Sandra (and underneath that: ‘seven’). This is, I presume, Kitaj’s wife, who died, according to the foreword, a few years before. There is a picture of the older Kitaj with his sons and grandsons, too. This book has reproductions of paintings which inspired Kitaj, including several of the bathers sequence from Cezanne.

Then I read Being Naked Playing Dead: The Art of Peter Greenaway, which is an attractive and interesting volume with a long interview with the man himself. And again, a Kitaj connection – he is, apparently, a particular inspiration for Greenaway. I particularly liked the author’s description of Greenaway’s screenplays as a libretto for images.

Reading these books, enjoying them, you wonder what it would be like to be an established artist with a few works behind me, with a reputation. Truly then you would become one of the gods, painted by some and painting others, linked in friendship with the other gods, knowing the same circle of people. Where Arhika is, for example, Beckett is not far away. Then you remember the picture of Arhika and Giacometti (where did you see it?) from the 1950s. Always a community, always a group: nothing is possible alone.