The Art Of Being Alone

The global lockdown has left artists stuck indoors like never before. Steve Pill looks back at art history for clues of how to handle the situation – and where we go next

- Steve Pill

Never before in the history of mankind have so many artists, simultaneously yet apart, spent so much time alone with their thoughts. The global lockdown that has been enforced on countries across the globe over the last three months as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic has produced a truly unprecedented set of circumstances with which we have had to contend. And while some artists were quick to speak directly to this unusually captive audience – from David Hockney sharing quaint iPad drawings from his Normandy home to Grayson Perry bringing his madcap brand of English eccentricity to the fore on Channel 4’s Grayson’s Art Club – the real creative fruits of this enforced period of introspection and the effects it will have on the ways in which we create art will not truly emerge for months and years to come.

One thing is certain though: whatever the circumstances, an artist working in isolation is far from a 2020 invention. Art history books are filled with fascinating and varied examples of painters sketching out a solitary path, whether by choice or otherwise, and their lives and works give us a great pointer towards what might lie ahead.