Alan Gouk presents his thoughts on great modernist paintings by Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, Bonnard, Gauguin, Monet, and Braque.

Gouk remarks: “What painting is about is claiming the surface – making it real to you, palpable, physically present, and tangible almost. At its best it is the expression of one’s involuntary response to surface, but without resorting to literalism. Every painter’s response will be different. The task is to find your own way, by trusting your impulses and going with them. You are always more original than you think you are. A painting is first and foremost a stretched membrane, like the skin of a drum. Whether it is hit hard or softly tickled into life is a matter of basic temperament, or of psychological type, extravert, introvert, thinking, feeling, intuition, sensation, and all points on that spectrum.”