Arthur Neal British

It was possibly the Brueghel painting of three very drunk men, slumbered, beneath a

strange wheel like table and pancake roofed houses. It was both intriguing, disturbing

and alive.

Or maybe it was the Van Gogh portrait of an old man in a straw hat that caught my

attention on the back wall of the primary school classroom.

I was eight years old. The combination of mystery, hidden narratives and in the case

of the Van Gogh, an intensity of feeling and luminosity planted a seed. Fascinated on

the one hand and moved by the other.

By that Christmas (after much pestering) I was given an oil painting set with brushes,

all in a lovely wooden box. As is common with childhood excitements, I found myself

truly disappointed. Not knowing about priming, the result was disastrous. To console

myself and on discovering that the turpentine had serious warnings of flammability, I

made myself a flaming torch. Out of control, I dropped the flaming thing on to the

carpet of my bedroom floor, which duly caught fire. I managed to put it out, without

the need to call the fire brigade, and managed to conceal the large hole in the carpet

until I left for art college many years later.

Not much has really changed, apart from my being older and no longer being so

foolhardy with matches. There have been many more paintings and many more

stories, but the magic and struggle of it all has never faded.

- ARTHUR NEAL