| Description | MB: Do you need to have had some education to feel what you’ve described?
DH: No, though you might have to get rid of a few prejudices such as the assumption that a photograph tells the truth. The government wouldn’t allow a self-portrait in a passport as it might not be a likeness. But people can "put on a mask" when they’re photographed, and the result won’t be particularly like them
MB: You could argue that, once photography was discovered, "the game was up for painting".
DH: True of Canaletto – the postcards of Venice have replaced such paintings. And the subject matter of photographs doesn’t usually move one in the same way. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s exhibition "From Today, Painting is Dead" can really only refer to British 19th century "topographical painters" who used camera obscura to paint landscapes. The Picasso painting couldn’t be done in photography.
MB summarising: Exponents of the Cubist movement at the beginning of the 20th century explored it for ten to fifteen years, moved on, and left the wreckage of theory in their wake?
DH: People with a generous spirit don’t find problems with Picasso and Matisse now. And it’s not for us to decide how important their work was anyway.
MB: Can you explain what you mean by being moved by a painting? What comes across to you?
DH: When you’ve moved, you even forget about skill. Very hard to describe. Thoughts about how Matisse saw, remembered, made the image, what he liked. Thinking of the artist doing it is moving. Van Gogh’s popularity is very real, you don’t have to be an expert. He’d find some joy in all the little things around. It’s very moving to do it and to give it to everybody else. It’s unbelievably generous. An artist must have a generous spirit or he can’t do anything with his experience.
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