Howard Hodgkin. In conversation - ACE121.2

Farmhouse, stream etc. Interior studio, including views of paintings on walls. Howard Hodgkin VO: "… I would like [but will never succeed] to be a classical painter where all emotion, all feeling is turned into a beautifully articulated, anonymous architectural memorial at the other end… That’s what my pictures are attempting to do." Several paintings. David Sylvester asks Hodgkin how he knows when a painting is finished. "My pictures really finish themselves. I know immediately because there’s nothing more to be done…", he says, and describes how the painting reaches that point. Travelling along a road in India. Caption: "Day Dreams 1977-80." The painting. Camera looking through pierced stonework (jali) surrounding the tomb of Sheikh Ahmed Khattu (Ganj Baksh) at Sarkhej, Ahmedabad. Sylvester asks about metaphor. Hodgkin VO says this usually depends on subject matter; suggests that several of his paintings "would lose their meaning if they were too specifically presented…" Caption: "The Green Chateau 1976-80." The painting. Hodgkin: "… if you particularise too much, particularly about private emotions …they would remain in the painting private emotions… the more I think about this, my paintings are really totally metaphorical… a metaphor for emotion." View from the tomb verandah over the tank. Studio. Hodgkin says it’s always possible to recuperate a mistake. "That’s perhaps the only part of my life as an artist about which I have total confidence." He quotes Muriel Spark: "‘For an artist, time can always be regained. Wonders never cease.’" The same road in India. Hodgkin talks VO about visiting India, and muses on how his experiences there have affected his painting. Domestic scenes. Café interior; Hodgkin.