They're so irritating, those lists of the best ten paintings, the best five novels... It's ludicrous: if you're ever in a position where your options are so reduced then the chances are you won't have any choice. OK, you might be torn between which books to take on a long flight or for a weekend in the country but, asked to choose in some definitive way between Tolstoy or Dostoevsky the only reasonable response is "both". Likewise, if you're forced to choose just ten great paintings then what is at stake is probably not your personal preference but the fate of art and civilisation itself.
When the catchment area is raised to a 1001, however, the idea seems quite reasonable. (The extra 1 is crucial. A thousand is a logical cut-off point. Allowing in one more suggests that there is always room for an exception, for one more. So implicit in the idea of a thousand and one is a thousand and two, and if there's room for a thousand and two, then...) It's generous - an inclusive kind of exclusivity. And, in all likelihood, in the course of seeing this 1001, you'll accidentally catch ten thousand more. 1001 is benign in the opposite way too. It's not off-putting.
Some of the paintings in this book are in private collections and therefore difficult to see but, in the course of a normal lifetime, you could get to see many of them. There are, broadly speaking, three ways in which you might do so. The first is when the work in question hangs permanently in your hometown or when an exhibition of works by that artist comes to a museum near you. What could be easier? You take a bus, you buy your ticket and - if it's a Van Gogh or Matisse blockbuster - queue for about eight hours to get a glimpse of the masterpiece in question. The second is when you happen to be visiting a city where the work is housed or where a temporary exhibition featuring it is in progress. This is quite convenient but it's not always as simple as it seems. In the film Voyager, Faber, played by Sam Shepard, asks this African guy when the Louvre is open. "I don't know," he replies. "As far as I know it's never open." It often seems that way. You're in a city and have a free afternoon: a Monday, the one day of the week when the museum in question is closed. For years I had wanted, in the vague, passive way of these things, to see Gauguin's Where Do We Come From? What are We? Where Are We Going? And then I found myself in Boston with some free time. I went to the Museum of Fine Art and deliberately refrained from asking where the picture was hung. I wanted to stumble upon it, as if by accident. Eventually, after traipsing through the entire building, I discovered I that it had been removed for restoration or was out on loan (I forget which). Sod's law.
This raises the third possibility: going to a place specifically to see a picture or exhibition. Naturally this does not mean that the only thing you do in Urbino is see the Piero Della Francescas but that was the reason my then-girlfriend and I went there. It was a kind of pilgrimage and, as such, the act of getting there (trains, buses, wine, dinners, sex, blazing rows) became part of the experience of seeing the paintings.
Now I could - to go back a paragraph - fly to Boston to see the missing Gauguin but, a) I'm not that desperate to see it and, b) it's not a bad idea to have things up one's sleeve for the future, things to look forward to. When asked what we are looking for in life we assume this requires a weighty response but the truth is that our lives are given meaning not by trying to answer the big questions posed by Gauguin but by thousands of little things. Or, to put it another way, the big questions are answered in little ways. So I'm confident that I will at some point find myself in Boston again and see this painting which has far eluded me. Not having done so yet gives my life purpose. As for whether it will live up to the interminable build-up, well, people say it's great but, as far I'm concerned, I'll be the final judge of that. That's one of the reasons I want to see it: to see how it compares with its formidable reputation.
Whether seeing this or any other particular picture will transform or even enhance one's life is open to question. It depends on the painting and the person looking at it. Will looking at a good portion of the paintings in this book make you a better person (more polite, kinder, nicer to dogs, less grumpy)? Maybe not. So why bother? The best answer, I think, is a negative one that keeps the stakes as low as possible: because not to do so is a waste of one's eyes.
Personally, I would consider my life a waste if I'd not seen Death Valley, Angkor Wat, Varanasi, or Dead Vlei in Namibia. How do paintings compare with real places? Given the choice would you rather see a painting or...? Again, the question posed in this way should be rejected. The mere fact that you're reading this book means that you enjoy a degree of freedom from the realm of necessity. You can see places and you can see paintings of places. Chances are you won't be able to see everything or go everywhere but you'll be able to make a start. This book shows you how - and where.
Geoff Dyer's many books include
1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die by Stephen Farthing (published by Cassell Illustrated) is available from Amazon for £12 (reduced from £20). All 1001 paintings, from Ancient Egyptian wallpaintings to contemporary western works are reproduced in colour with texts by internationally renowned critics, art historians, curators and artists. A perfect gift!
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