The Collector (Vintage Classics)

by John Fowles

There were even times I thought I would forget her. But forgetting’s not something you do, it happens to you. Only it didn’t happen to me.

He said, I suppose there are people who are purely moved by great art. I never met a painter who was. I’m not. All I think of when I see that picture is that it has the supreme mastery I have spent all my life trying to attain. And shall not. Ever. You’re young. You can understand. But you can’t feel that yet. I said, I think I do. He said, then that’s bad. You should be blind to failure. At your age. Then he said, don’t try to be our age. I shall despise you if you do. He said, you’re like a kid trying to see over a six-foot wall.

Being blind to failure

He said, one has to learn that painting well – in the academic and technical sense – comes right at the bottom of the list. I mean, you’ve got that ability. So have thousands. But the thing I look for isn’t here. It just isn’t here.

What matters in creating

He said, it’s rather like your voice. You put up with your voice and speak with it because you haven’t any choice. But it’s what you say that counts. It’s what distinguishes all great art from the other kind. The technically accomplished buggers are two a penny in any period. Especially in this great age of universal education. He was sitting on his divan, talking at my back. I had to stare out of the window. I thought I was going to cry. He said, critics spiel away about technical accomplishment. Absolutely meaningless, that sort of jargon. Art’s cruel. You can get away with murder with words. But a picture is like a window straight through to your inmost heart. And all you’ve done here is build a lot of little windows on to a heart full of other fashionable artists’ paintings. He came and stood beside me and picked out one of the new abstracts I’d done at home. You’re saying something here about Nicholson or Pasmore. Not about yourself. You’re using a camera. Just as trompe-l’œil is mis-channelled photography, so is painting in someone else’s style. You’re photographing here. That’s all. I’ll never learn, I said. It’s to unlearn, he said. You’ve nearly finished the learning. The rest is luck. No, a little more than luck. Courage. Patience.