The meaning of art

The recent re-opening of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, plus the news that apparently the only painting to be replaced in its original spot is Rembrandt's 'Night Watch'. Or to give its proper title; 'Officers and Men of the Amsterdam Kloveniers Militia, the Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq', 1642. The news took me back to my first visit there in 1962, just a few weeks before I left school and started work. One of the teachers who took us, grabbed my shoulder and said, 'You like a bit of art Davis don't you? Then get a load of this......' I was sort of gently frog-marched down various corridors until I was standing in front of the famous painting. I was mesmerised. My interest in 'art' and painting had begun really the year previously when the same two teachers had taken a group of us to Paris. 

Me in Paris, 1961. No idea who madam is!

After the obligatory visit to the Louvre, I had become very taken by many of the French landscape paintings there. On returning from that trip, I began to pay regular visits to the national Museum in Cardiff which held a wonderful collection of French Impressionist paintings. Hence my teacher's insistence on getting me to see something he thought might broaden my knowledge of art. He was right. 

Peter Galassi - Before Photography: Painting and the 

Invention of Photography, 1981

However, I probably didn't realise how right he was to foster my interest in art until many years later when I began to make those connections between some of the work I had seen in museums and the history of photography. I found that I understood the influences that some forms of painting had on the early photographers and how some painters long before photography were making images and using viewpoints and image constructions that would be mirrored by photography over a century later. The painting by Thomas Jones of a 'Wall in Naples' 1782 which was in the National Museum of Wales collection was used by Peter Galassi for the cover of his book (above). Things began to come together.

Gendarmes, Paris, 1961

The Paris trip did more for me than this. I felt empowered with this new enthusiasm for things visual. Although I had been photographing for a year or so by now it wasn't a very serious part of my life but my eyes were opened in Paris and I gained a new confidence as long I was behind the camera. Emboldened, I wandered around the city capturing scenes that were new and fascinating to me and things I had only previously seen in books. I was, of course, very fortunate to find things

Gendarme, Paris, 1961

I was passionate about and my niche in life. My eyes had been opened by exposure to art and artworks and I really did now see the world in another way. I was also lucky to have gained, in a small way, the ability to capture portions of this with my camera. In those days I was something of a rarity owning a camera and making my own prints etc. The truth is that even then I had no idea of the impact that it would have on my later life life, or just where it would lead.