Praeterita

I recently watched a documentary about the Danish painter Per Kirkeby, Man Falling . It's available on Amazon's Prime Video streaming service (for members). It documents his attempts to continue painting after he suffered a fall down a flight of stairs and landed on his head, that left him partially paralysed and with occluded vision. The film is a moving testament to the difficulties endured both by the patient in these cases, and the people around him. It's also one of the best films I've seen about the process of painting itself. Because even though Kirkeby talks about the fact that he can't really see the left side of anything he's working on, nevertheless with the guidance of assistants he adds marks on those areas of the canvas or paper, too. And the mark-making is just as intricate and beautiful, seemingly, as the work he produced when he was able-bodied. This suggest to me that for artists who have been working for a long time, particularly ...