Transcript
Maxwell Bates
I had tremendous confidence in myself since I was 3 or 4 years old.
P.K. Page
Did you know you were going to be a painter when you were quite young?
MB
Yes, I think so.
PP
How young? Do you remember?
MB
3 or 4 I suppose.
PP
Did you really?
MB
Yes, I think so. Either that or be a great philosopher or something like that.
PP
Was it you who, when you were a young boy, drew the most elaborate forts? With
crenelated, tesselated tops.
MB
Yes. Exactly me.
PP
It was you?
MB
Oh yes. Because all these forts and castles had to be self-contained. They'd
have courtyards with a cow in it so they could drink milk and great stores of
grain in case there was a siege. All that sort of thing.
PP
What did it mean to you, the fort?
MB
Oh, somewhere to be safe from the encroaching terror of the outside world, I
think.
PP
You always had a sense of the outside world being terrifying did you?
MB
Well, I always had a strong sense of death.
PP
Looking back do you find one period of your life that was more important than
another?
MB
Oh, I'm sure it was....
PP
Do you see that? Do you sense that?
MB
That period when I used to meet Stevenson and go down to the Library was a very
important time of my life because I was developing my ideas about art and literature
at that time and I haven't changed them. So it must have been important.
PP
They've grown perhaps, but not changed.
MB
I have the same ideas about painting as I have now.
PP
Can you talk about them at all?
MB
Oh yes, I think so. I developed them, strengthened them, that sort of thing.
Cast out some of the unnecessary stuff and strengthened some other stuff.
PP
Let us talk about them. You were always very interested in naive painting.
MB
Well I'll tell you how I got to that. I think of painting as being important
to me, three things: directness, simplicity, and intensity and that's all I've
ever tried to get.
MB
All sorts of people - like Klee. He was the greatest man for techniques.
PP
Wasn't he extraordinary?
MB
I've learned from him more than from anybody else, I think almost.
PP
You're interested in the human soul, spirit.
MB
I am not perfectly certain about the human soul. I haven't seen one yet.
MB
I don't like landscapes that are untouched by man - it doesn't interest me.
PP
Just straight nature doesn't interest you.
MB
No there has to be a trace of man.
PP
Even if man himself isn't in it.
MB
Oh, yes I like to have a shack or a fence or something otherwise I don't relate
to it."
PP
You were entirely an ecclesiastical architect, were you?
MB
No, I did schools, warehouse, offices, firehalls, all kinds of things - everything,
any job we could get.
PP
How long did you work as an architect?
MB
1951 to 1961, as a registered architect, although I was registered in England
but...
PP
How did this complement your painting?
MB
I don't think it complemented it, really.
PP
You think it drew on the same source?
MB
Vaguely. I suppose it did, in a way, except I was never allowed to design anything
the way I wanted to except the Cathedral. My partner let me do that because
it was my father that got the job in the first place - in a sense - so that's
why I got it. Because of that Alf Hodges thought "well, you design it."
MB
You see there was the thing with the committee - the Bishop and his committee
- they were pretty tough, rough people, and you couldn't get anything the least
out of the ordinary past them.