ABOVE: ‘For Christ’s Sake’ – charcoal. By Harvey Cox, January 1970. Thousands of clergymen have asked for reprints.

AN ARTIST’S PASSION

“Hello young man, I am an artist, and you have the face and body I am searching for – would you model for me? I will pay you well and I only need you for an hour. My studio is just here, I have set up a crucifixion cross because this is a painting for the Pope. Yes, get your clothes off and, that’s right – put your arms up so that I can bind you to the cross – you look good.” – at which our first ‘Humanist’ painter calmly picks up a dagger and plunges it into the side of his model, exactly where the centurion no doubt finished off Jesus Christ. Quickly, brushes in hand, Giotto begins painting, taking in the agony of the poor young man.

The rest of the story is even more shocking. Giotto was indeed not only a talented painter, who made the first to break with the Byzantium human image, but also to draw and paint from life. Why was he also a cruel calculating, devious and obsessed individual? What does this say about great art and artists? How do I defend my constant encouragement that you should try always first to draw or paint what you see in front of you?

LEFT: The story is told of the famous Giotto, one of the first Restorers of our modern Painting. “Giotto, intending one day to draw a Crucifix to the Life, wheedled a poor Man to suffer himself to be bound to a Cross for an Hour, at the End of which he was to be released, and receive a considerable Reward for it; but instead of this, as soon as he had fastened him, he stabbed him dead, and then fell to drawing. When he had finished his Picture, he carried it to the Pope, who liked it so well, that he was resolved to place it over the Altar of his own Chapel. Giotto told him, as he liked the Copy so well, he would show him the Original. What do you mean, said the Pope? Will you show me Jesus Christ on the Cross is Person? No, said Giotto, but I will show your Holiness the Original from whence I drew this, if you will absolve me from all Punishment. The Pope promised this, which Giotto believing, attended him to the Place where it was, As soon as they were entered, he drew back a Curtain, which hung before the dead Man on the Cross, and told him what he had done. The Pope troubled at so barbarous an Action, repealed his Promise, and told Giotto, that he should surely be put to an exemplary Death. Giotto, with a seeming Resignation, only begged Leave to finish the Piece before he died, which was granted him, and a Guard set upon him to prevent his Escape. As soon as the Picture was delivered into his Hands, he took a Brush, and dipping it into a Sort of Stuff ready for that Purpose, daubed the Picture all over with it, so that nothing of the Crucifix could be seen. This made his Holiness stark mad, and he swore, that Giotto should be put to the most cruel Death, unless he drew another equal to the former; if so, he would not only give him his Life, but also an ample Reward in Money. Giotto, as he had Reason, desired this under the Pope’s Signet, that he might be in Danger of a second Repeal. This was granted to him; and taking a wet Sponge, he wiped off all the Varnish he had daubed on the Picture, so that the Crucifix appeared the same in all Respects as it did before. Upon this, the Pope remitted his Punishment. And they say, that this Crucifix is the Original, from which the most famous Crucifixes in Europe are drawn.” (sic)

On a lighter note, a work colleague and dear friend, very nearly killed a canary in a cardboard box with a mallet he found in the gents in a High Holborn Pub. Another G, not Giotto but Garrick, a Kiwi in London. I was his studio art director in the early 1960s. He was an – unusual for the times – bald headed executive, and that lunchtime had put his daughter’s canary purchase on the bar while ordering. He went to the gents, then this figure appeared with mallet in hand hitting the bar as he approached the cardboard box. We all froze, and somehow the mallet missed the poor bird by a fraction of an inch. Such was the passion, not as calculated as Giotto, but very nearly as brutal, that shocked bystanders before this true kiwi dropped his trousers and commenced a haka. Of course, we both were ejected into the street by the management, me totally innocent. I must say that this most talented New Zealander is a very dear and compassionate friend whom I love dearly. My forgiveness was instant, it was actually a very funny moment and worthy of Monty Python.

So where do we stand with ‘snuff’ movies as against set up black comedy? In ‘A Fish called Wanda’ the running over by a steam roller of a stuffy lady’s small white dog was funny, only because it came out, not as a horrible actual mess, but as a piece of Lino.

Garrick Tremain

Garrick Tremain is total humour and understands the difference as many who have chortled at his brilliant cartoons know. The black comedy in the Holborn studio was my poor advice as his senior in the studio, to say “Garry – give up cartooning – you will never make any money at it.” How wrong I was.

The passion in this man for his art, like Giotto, is equally great. What if Giotto had been reared looking at Giles cartoons in the Daily Express instead of scraping images on rocks of his sheep when a small shepherd boy.

Garry prepared me for life in the late Fred Dagg’s New Zealand years before I arrived in this wonderful land. This talented and enjoyable Kiwi in London was interestingly like many of us professional artist-designers in those days. Water-colourist Brian Millard – ex same UK school as myself, Peter Bromhead and I made a good income and enjoyed an honourable way of life as professional artists, designers and creatives. Unlike today, art appears for the hands-on mass who read this magazine, to be mostly a hobby thing. We were able to buy our homes and big cars totally financed by our thinking and creative skills. We rated high in the company employment structure.

With the advent of computers, graphic programs and instant press ready typography, no longer can a top woman wordsmith/copywriter be found to be relied upon to have a hammer or pipe wrench in her handbag. Our dear colleague, Mary, did – true, as Tremain will tell you himself. Creatives were seen as being ‘special’ and much needed people, our art skills constantly at work bringing our ideas to life through our graphic producing hands, for high flying clients. Len Cox, our boss in those days, preferred to line himself up with us rather than the serious Siemens factory owner who bought our Mayfair based company. He ruined it – even snooped in our desk drawers at weekends. But unknown by him, he once inspired a painting I completed after a weekend sailing the east coast swatch ways, winning the Buxey Bouy Trophy. He had announced that office builders would be in to divide up our studio over the weekend. They left a shambles of sawdust and grit covering my desk where selections of high fashion colour transparencies were under selection for a high fashion Courtaulds campaign which I had art directed with American photographer Claude Virgin in the Kings Road, with the sister of model, Melanie Hampshire.

So angry was I, that I refused to clean the mess myself and grabbed a loose length of off cut hardboard and immersed myself in the emotion of recent sailing, still in my salt wet raincoat. Using the builders can of left-over grey acrylic, my only ever use of acrylic, the painting captured accurately all the same experienced emotion that Giotto also had experienced as his subject died in agony. In my case, our struggle to race around the Buxey bouy among sand shoals and horizontal rain off the Thames estuary. Mallord Turner lashed himself to the mast of a ship in a storm to experience the same – accuracy for his eye and hand to lay down.

Garrick Tremain’s cartoons no doubt fall back on years of amusing collected imagery. His life experience, virtuoso skill as a draughtsman and sense of humour when watching the 6 o’clock news over dinner, before retiring to his studio and completing tomorrow’s political comment to appear in a dozen New Zealand newspapers next morning. Meanwhile his daytime landscape watercolours are quite different. They establish him as a mature painter and may be found in exhibition or close to his Queenstown and Arrowtown home.

It was a delight to work with this man. Once both young, we are now both old. However, both our heads and hands still work well. Art has been our lives but unlike many today we had to diversify to make a living, conceptual drawings, artwork in various media and of course TV and film. Nobody made a living painting pictures for themselves. If you could do it, you did. If you could not – you became a teacher.

Our virtuoso hands-on skills were wanted – and I wish your skills today were equally appreciated and honoured financially, as were we. As an oldie I compliment many of you featured in these pages. Question: How can we educate those with money to spend as much on a living room painting to grace their million-dollar lovely home – as they spend on the chip board vanity unit in the bathroom?

Giotto later tricked his Patron, his holiness and was even forgiven – his art reigns supreme still today. What a nasty obsessed chap, however. Happy painting.