The smell was principally of linseed with grace notes of Parisian gutter, for the window was open, which was good since the weather was undeniably hot, on its way to surpassing what we used to call 100 degrees.

The smell was principally of linseed with grace notes of Parisian gutter, for the window was open, which was good since the weather was undeniably hot, on its way to surpassing what we used to call 100 degrees. I was in the studio of an old friend, in the eighteenth arrondissement, half burrowed into the butte of Montmartre, with steps in the street outside that stopped traffic using it. A policeman went by on a skateboard, and I wasn’t sure whether that was the film- school next door or the effect of the heat.

After looking at quite a few pretty interesting canvasses, manoeuvred from behind or on top of each, there was just time to be drawn before lunch. Being drawn is not as painful as it is for a chicken or a traitor, but it is not without an element of suffering, humility being truth and good portraits being true.

Clambering on to a chair elevated on a couple of industrial pallets, I was reminded of Cardinal Newman being painted by Millais, who pointed to the model’s dais and said: “Oh, your eminence, on that eminence, if you please.” When Newman hesitated, he urged him: “Come, jump up, you dear old boy.”

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