Painted during Fine Art degree 1986-1989 “So I was doing all these figurative paintings at uni and looking at older artists for inspiration and I discovered Watteau for the first time and his Fête Galante paintings which were rooted in the Commedia dell’Arte tradition. There is often musical players in them too. I loved them for their playfulness and the depiction of nature but nature almost as a theatrical backdrop to the players in them. I loved this artificiality. It reminded me of Huysmans waxing lyrical about artificial things being better than natural things in ‘Against Nature’. I got myself a redhead light from somewhere and lit my models with it to make them look like they may be on a stage. This is one of those that I lit like this. It was a very brutal light actually, casting long shadows. I took photos on a film 5x4 camera and painted the paintings from these prints. All these things were available to me at college. It was great like that I must say. The best kind of broad based course. From what I remember of this painting, I wanted the musical theme again. I had my own guitar but it didn’t feature in this painting. This was a guitar I found lying around I think and I thought that will do because its simple. I don’t even think it had strings. The compositional influences were a combination of two paintings from the past. Watteau’s “Pierrot” 1718 and a guitar player from ‘The Nativity” by Piero della Francesca 1470. I loved the way the Pierrot stares directly out of the painting at the viewer. It sort of transcends time and place so I wanted to get this slightly mischievous thing going on with this painting. Breaking the picture surface with a direct look. I took away the natural background and put the guitarist in an anonymous space looking very much at Manet and his portraits for this. I wrote my thesis on Manet’s ‘Luncheon in the Studio’ I was and am a big fan of him. Chris Tosic was the model and was dressed as he was then with a smock kind of thing on.” – Christian Furr