"Paintings Drawings and Words" is a large-format catalogue of Mull's work to 1995, accompanied by essays on art and work in his typically self-effacing style. Discussing originality, he has the smarts to quote Jean Cocteau ("One has to be very careful with originality or one may appear to have a brand-new haircut and a brand-new suit") and the honesty to claim "The Piano Lesson" by Henri Matisse as the single painting that has influenced his work.
When Mull, then a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, finally sees "The Piano Lesson" in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, he calls it a "confrontation rather than surprise encounter." After years of seeing the "postage-stamp sized reproduction" in art books, the original painting's size -- eight-and-a-half by seven feet -- made his knees go weak.
As a student, he was so impressed by its striking simplicity and color that it became "the perfect classroom" for what even Mull now claims was "an arrogant and ill-founded pursuit, doomed from the outset." Matisse's genius, he writes, was a learnable theorem that would reveal itself as a reward for diligence, determination, and patience. He's still learning; as for any artist, this is a lifelong personal challenge more than a criticism.
His most recent paintings evoke a 1950s suburban childhood, darkened with what one reviewer calls "feelings of loss, disconnection, and fear" -- exactly the emotions most children feel when they sit for an hour in front of a piano. It seems Mull has internalized the experience of "The Piano Lesson" after all, if not its genius.
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