Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art - Softcover

Baker, Nicholson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1984881396 ISBN 13: 9781984881397

Publisher: Penguin Press, 2024

Synopsis

Named a Best Book of 2024 by Slate and a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Literary Hub

From the acclaimed and bestselling writer Nicholson Baker, a deeply personal account of his journey learning how to paint for the first time, and a meditation on the power of art in times of crisis

Nicholson Baker wanted to learn how to paint.

In 2019, after years of researching and writing about secret and often horrible government programs for his book Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act, he was wiped out. Having been steeped for so long in the history of war, violence, and conspiracy, the world had lost some of its brightness. Photography had scratched a creative itch for years, but now, Baker was desperate to squeeze more out of what he saw - he wanted to live, slowly, through the snatches of life he was recording in photos. Maybe, he thought, he could learn to paint? The idea consumed him, but he was nagged by an even more debilitating doubt: What if he failed?

Finding a Likeness is Baker's record of the years he worked to improve his artistic skills, beginning with his first, humble attempts to set paintbrush to paper. Driven by a natural curiosity and a strong desire to paint faces, clouds, and landscapes that actually resemble faces, clouds, and landscapes, he attends classes from local artists, watches YouTube tutorials, and seeks out master painters from the past and present in the hopes of uncovering their secrets. In his inimitable voice, Baker recounts the highs and lows of the creative process, reflects on memories of growing up as the son of two painters, and learns what it means to really see.

Filled with Baker's own art, as well as the work of artists from around the world, Finding a Likeness is a tender and deeply felt testimony to taking a step back and going back to basics. Baker improves dramatically in his craft, but as he considers what it means to try, fail, and try again, he discovers far more than what it takes to paint a cloud - rather, he shows us how to bear witness to the world, to the good and the bad, and to do it all justice with paper and ink.

About this title

About the Author

Nicholson Baker has written seventeen books, including The Mezzanine, Vox, Human Smoke, The Anthologist, and Baseless--also an art book, The World on Sunday, in collaboration with his wife, Margaret Brentano. Several of his books have been New York Times bestsellers, and he has won a National Book Critics Circle Award, a James Madison Freedom of Information Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the Hermann Hesse Prize. Baker has two grown children; he and his wife live on the Penobscot River in Maine.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Hi, this is me. Welcome to my book Finding a Likeness. I recently traced this self-portrait with pen on a thick piece of paper taped to my computer screen. I live in Maine, near Bangor, with my wife, Margaret, and we have two grown children, Alice and Elias. I’m sixty-seven, and I write books for a living. My last book, Baseless, was about horrible government programs that happened in secret a long time ago. When I finished writing it, in May 2019, I was wiped out. I needed a rehabilitation program. A less bleak way of looking at the world.

I already had a hobby: photography. I rented fast lenses and took photos witha wooden folding bellows camera, and a Bronica camera, and several digital cameras, and iPhones. Like everyone else, I’ve taken tens of thousands of pictures. They happen so fast: you stop, take the picture, move on. A stairway in our oldhouse, a tree near our new house, some leaf shadows, a bowl of cherries. Click, done.

Sometimes I’d look at the old photos and think, It’s not enough to take the picture. I want to scoop more, squeeze more, out of these images. I want to live more slowly through the snatches of past life they hold. Sometimes I thought, Maybe I could learn how to paint them?

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Press
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1984881396
• ISBN 13: 9781984881397
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352