He got into a little difficulty recently. “What about?” It asked. He has this thing about taste, which exercises his brain like an itch. It was about intuition. How does an artist know when something is finished, or what to do next? “Not that again, you do go on a bit!” It accused. “That’s the sort of question that people ask who have no real understanding of the way artists work.” It continued. It’s right, and the response of those with whom He was engaged in conversation was of a degree of shock that the notion of intuitive judgement should be so agnostically questioned, or at least as He put it distrusted.
“An intuitive act is not a matter of your choice. It chooses you. You fall into it. You give yourself to it or not.” “But is an intuitive act still not a matter of taste?” He asked defensively. “Yes” It replied, “And taste can be a pretty crass thing.” “Taste is everywhere the same in principle and everywhere individual in practice.” I sit to one side and watch as the circles continue to turn. He decided following the conversation to paint as far as possible ‘intuitively’, just as He always does really but to stop worrying about it. This painting had been wandering around in circles. He looked at it, imagined things and painted. He did something and then decided to do something else, adding or removing as he went. If something appealed, he went with it. He had to make assumptions, such as what looked nice or otherwise, but were those intuitive as well? Meandering lines are nice. Colours meeting are nice. Contrasts are nice. Semi transparency is nice. Thick paint is nice. “Are some better than others?” It asked, “How do you know when to stop?” “Be quiet!” was his response.
