Most people know me as a singer; not many realize that I’m a painter as well. I have the same passion for my music and my art. I rarely consider the two mediums as anything other than the same outlet for my artistic expression. I never go anywhere without my paints, and I carry a small sketch pad with me wherever I go.
The more I paint, the more I realize just how beautiful life around me is. I live in New York City, in a place overlooking Central Park, and I love it here because there’s nature right outside my window. I get to see the four seasons change every year, which is magnificent.
The city is always vibrant and so alive. Everywhere you turn, there is so much that inspires me. In New York, I never run out of subjects to paint. This is my favorite place to live, over any other city on earth.
When I walk out of my building, I feel inspired by everything that surrounds me. To me, even a taxicab or a traffic light can be beautiful. Like the tones of a song, the colors of the city are constantly changing. I try to capture those changes impressionistically, whether I’m working early in the morning inside the park, or doing a still life in my studio. I run into fellow painters and musicians in every capital of the world, but in New York, they are everywhere, and I’m proud to be part of the city’s artistic and musical scene.
Rembrandt wrote that nature is the master; to me, she’s the boss. Experiencing nature and the change of seasons makes me happy and gives me a sense of perspective. We are born, we grow, and then we return to the earth; it’s the natural cycle of things. Every time I look at a beautiful tree in Central Park, or the sun setting over the Hudson River, I feel a great sense of privilege. I learn everything from nature; I use her inspiration for my artwork, and I never take her glory for granted. There are miracles all around us every day.
It’s not surprising, then, that one of my favorite songs is “The World Is Full of Beautiful Things,” by Leslie Bricusse, from the film Dr. Dolittle. The lyrics speak to me because I feel that I have seen many beautiful things, and I’m trying to replicate on canvas the pleasure I get from the beauty all around me.
I would describe myself as a perpetual student of art. I’m lucky because I travel all over the world when I tour, so I use the opportunity when I’m in various cities to visit the fabulous museums. I study the techniques of the great masters and try to apply them to my own work. In many ways, art is the same game as music—line, form, balance; how to edit it, and how to make it all come together. You don’t just go out in the morning and say that you’re going to do a painting. It’s like fishing; you have to get lucky and hope that you get one.
I paint every single day; I literally have no choice in the matter. It sustains me. When I’m traveling, I have my watercolors with me. If I see something interesting, I try to paint it, or at least sketch it. You have to know how to draw well in order to be able to paint. And the more you sketch, the better you will paint. It relaxes me, too; if I’m stuck in traffic on my way somewhere, I’ll start drawing and forget where I am. My paintings and drawings have become my visual journal; a diary of sorts, of my life.
Usually I’m working on three paintings at once, so I don’t get burned out on any one piece. If I feel myself reaching that point, I turn to my music. Alternating between the two gives me a little lift, all the time.
When I approach a canvas, I want to know how I can convey what I’m feeling to the person who’s looking at it. I really believe that art should be done with emotion—if it’s done with feeling, it communicates more than any other medium. I want to get through to the people who look at my paintings. I use my passion to express myself in every piece of art that I create.
I had been interested in art since I was very young, but after my father died, I was frequently left on my own in the afternoons after school while my mother was working. That’s when drawing became very important to me. I’d spend hours trying to get a picture exactly right.
One day as a kid I was drawing a Thanksgiving mural on the sidewalk with some chalks my mom had given me. I was so focused on the picture that I didn’t see a man come up from behind to watch what I was doing. “You draw very well,” he said. “Keep it up; your work shows promise.” It turned out he was an art teacher named James MacWhinney, who lived in our building. From that moment on, he taught me everything he knew about watercolors and oil painting. Even now, whenever I start to paint or draw, I can still feel his influence and the joy he instilled in me. He’s the person to whom I attribute my lifelong devotion to the arts.
When I was a teenager, a friend suggested that I apply to the High School of Industrial Arts, since I had applied to the High School of Music and Art but didn’t get in. At the time, Industrial Arts was a new school with an emphasis on commercial art. I took his advice, and the experience at the school was good for me.
Fifty years later, I met Everett Kinstler, the renowned portrait artist. It turned out we had both attended Industrial Arts at the same time. The evening we met, he told me he’d been given a scholarship to Music and Art. However, on the very first day of class, the teacher had told him, “I want you to paint what you feel.” Everett said, “I’m only fourteen; I have no idea how I feel. I want to learn technique before I can even begin to do that.” He left the school and switched to Industrial Arts, where he got the education he felt he needed.
Everett helped me see that Industrial Arts, with classes in everything from watercolors to photography to advertising, gave kids the chance to master all sorts of technical skills so they could pursue a wide variety of careers. Whenever I have a creative dilemma, I always think about what I learned there. Sometimes when I’m working on a painting for hours and feel that I’m not making any progress, I go back to the basics they taught.
Everett taught me that by observing how a painting was created, you can better understand why it is good. I keep this in mind when I view art in museums. I get really close and try to note the artist’s technique. When I look at Rembrandt’s work, I see the way he left things unfinished. Early on in his career, Rembrandt was criticized for leaving out details. He really was the first Impressionist, two hundred years before actual Impressionism—he was that far ahead of his time. And in the last quarter of his life, when he left even more to the imagination, his paintings became better and better.
Rembrandt is one of my strongest artistic influences; I can stare at his paintings for hours on end. His self-portrait that hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has always been one of my favorites. I’ve been coming to the Met ever since I was a child because my school was right down the road, and I still haven’t seen everything this museum has to offer. That’s how much art is in there.
What’s wonderful about Rembrandt’s self-portrait is that as you’re looking at him, he’s also looking back at you. To me, he’s saying, “Okay now, you know me; but who are you?” You’ll never forget him because his portrait is so completely honest and perfectly true to life; his face is so alive. No one else has ever painted the way he was able to. I have seven books of Rembrandt’s sketches, and every one of those sketches has soul.
Achieving excellence in the things you’re attempting to create is truly a matter of patience and learning proper technique. By looking at the paintings of the French Impressionist Manet, another of my favorites, I discovered how important it is to paint what you see. Manet was criticized for making some of his religious figures too humanlike, but he went ahead and painted Christ and the angels that way anyway. Manet’s example taught me that you have to take note of what the critics say, but then go ahead and follow your own instincts.
I have so many favorite artists, but two others that really set the mark for me are John Singer Sargent and the Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla. They were both post-Impressionist; they broke things down into values, as opposed to just color. Nature itself is made up of values; every leaf is different, and no one snowflake is the same as the next. Even though a leaf may be green, it is unique unto itself. Sargent and Sorolla painted in that way, replicating a sense of nature.
Of course they learned from the master, Diego Velázquez, the father of modern art. His painting Las Meninas showed for the first time the subjects reflected from different perspectives in a mirror. This is how Picasso came up with the Cubist approach. It’s so amazing to think how much there is to learn from these great artists. I always say that I learn more by looking back.
I’ve had the privilege to become friends with and learn from David Hockney. I attended one of his lectures in Toronto, and afterward he invited me to his studio, and we hit it off. I consider David a teacher first, and a painter second. He’s a big fan of ancient Chinese art, and whenever I get to hang with him in his art studio in Los Angeles, he always pulls out his Chinese scrolls and walks me through the way they tell stories.
As David carefully unrolls a scroll, he describes the difference in perspective that comes and goes, so the viewer’s eye is constantly in motion. As he explains it, this is how our eyes perceive images in real life. We are always scanning different views of what is around us, including those from our peripheral vision. When you look at David’s paintings, you can see that he has taken the Cubist approach to a new level, due to his intense study and understanding of those classic works. It serves as another example to me of how important it is to learn from what has been done before.
A funny story happened with David. One day in my office, the fax machine started spitting out about fifty sheets of printed paper. Each page had an image on it, and we soon realized that it was like a big jigsaw puzzle. When we put it together, it was a six-by-six-foot scan of a new painting David had done. On the image in the painting was a coffee table with a folded Los Angeles Times newspaper lying on top, on which David painted a portrait of me as the front-page headline. That’s just one example of David’s creativity, and also his great sense of humor.
Recently David told me that the young people today aren’t learning how to draw, because they’re doing everything on computers. But drawing is essential; it’s like the foundation of a house. I feel strongly that if you can’t draw, you can’t paint. It’s about mastering the basics before you can move forward.
Interestingly enough, people tend to think that it’s an expensive proposition to buy art supplies, but quite the contrary. David turned me on to these certain drawing pencils that you can find in any corner stationery store, and on top of that, they’re really cheap. They have the perfect lead point and texture to get the job done right. It just goes to show that you can never underestimate the hidden qualities of the things around us.
British art professor John Barnicoat has had an important influence on my work, as well. I met John when I lived in England in the early seventies, and he gave me private lessons in my flat near Grosvenor Square. He was so inspiring to me, and encouraged me in my determination to become a skilled painter.
I never had an ambition to become a famous artist. Instead, I paint because I have a passion for it. It’s as simple as that. When the Smithsonian announced that it was going to include one of my pieces in its permanent collection—in the company of artists like John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, and James McNeill Whistler—I felt so honored. I paint for myself and to express myself, but it is still a very rewarding feeling to have my work recognized, as the Smithsonian has done.
Cary Grant was another person who always made me feel really good about my pursuit of art. He had seen my painting South of France when I showed it to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, and he wanted to buy it. I told him I’d like to give it to him as a gift, but he insisted on paying for it. Later when I visited his home, I realized why he liked it so much—the painting looked exactly like the view from his window!
Cary never agreed to do television interviews; he was truly a movie star. But the one time he did was when he bought that piece of artwork. I was playing at the Hollywood Bowl and Cary said, “Let’s tell the press I bought the painting.” I’ve never seen that many press agents in my life—thirty reporters were there. I felt so proud that he’d used the occasion to tell people about my work.
The more you learn about art, the better you get at it. Painting should seem to be effortless; it’s a matter of concentration and study. I feel that I have a good ten years to go before I can consider myself a highly competent painter—not excellent, but competent. If you’re really an artist, you always feel that you could fail at any level. But you have to keep plugging away at it and have faith that at some point you can achieve the art of excellence—or at least come as close to it as possible.
The Zen of Bennett
Nature is the master artist.
We can always seek beauty and inspiration in the world around us.
Painting is a difficult process that has to appear effortless.
Have faith that at some point you can achieve the art of excellence—or at least come as close to it as possible.
