PETER PLAGENS: I’ve got some positive things to say, and some negative ones.

JOHN CURRIN: I usually tend to agree with the negative things–except when they’re silly.

You’ve gotten a kind of rep for being arrogant and saying you’re the best.

It’s more provocative to say you’re not the best because then you prompt the question of exactly who is better than you are. When I was 18 or 19, I would look up what Picasso was doing at that age. He became unstoppably good right about then. Somehow, I always thought I would be better. It’s a hard thing to get over–the idea that you’re not as good as people who are obviously better than you.

It’s clear you’re a well-trained artist with a lot of talent. You can do whatever you want with paint. There’s also a great ambition in your work. You’re not afraid to change styles and you’re not afraid to try things, like suddenly putting thick paint on the faces of those busty women in “Jaunty & Mame.” I think you hit your stride with the single female figures of ‘96-‘97, like “Heartless.” What I like is that the overall shape of the figure is solidly placed on the canvas, the background is subtly painted and the face that looks out at you is pretty engaging. “Thanksgiving” [2003] is a genuine tour de force in style.

I always had a fear of lapsing into a signature style, then I had a fear of not ever getting one. Then I thought it was best to let it happen. Maybe I will get one in the end.

I grew up with figurative painting vs. abstract painting. Now it’s figurative painting vs. everything else–abstraction and installation art, video art, etc. You still hear the same ole complaint from figurative painters: a supposed conspiracy oppressing them. I’ve always felt that figurative painting is doing just fine, thank you, outside of a couple of art bars in SoHo and Chelsea. You don’t have to care what the hip art magazines and The Village Voice think.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care. I’m part of the same scene. I like the tension in New York. And I like being somewhat different. It’s fun to tweak the P.C. art world.

But you’re not one of those people who say, “Contemporary art would be totally going to hell in a handbasket if it weren’t for a few figurative painters like John Currin.”

I hate contemporary figurative painting more than anybody else does. I can out-hate anyone in that regard. It’s depressing. And I’ve always preferred my own work. My big deep fear, though, is that I’m just a conservative figurative artist, who will eventually be doing Arcadian scenes, like those British artists with a whole bunch of initials after their names. “A View of Brighton Abbey.” So now give me the criticism.

All right. Your painting is good, but it’s not that good. The technique is really impressive–from about 1996 on. But your pictures lack a certain oomph. And not just in comparison to the old masters, but in comparison to earlier American moderns who were realists–George Bellows, Reginald Marsh, even Thomas Hart Benton. I think there are some current illustrators and several contemporary figurative painters, including your old friend Lisa Yuskavage, who do it better. It seems like you want to take things further, but your obligation to the old masters is holding you back.

The part that gets me is not your comparisons to other artists. Everybody’s got their own tastes, and I simply like my paintings better. I think you’re looking for emblems of authenticity that you don’t see in my work. When you say Reginald Marsh, you’re invoking his Italian Renaissance-like touch in drawing. I can’t stand that, myself.

I think you openly allude to the old masters so that what you do doesn’t become mere caricature.

You’re saying it’s just amateur illustration with some trappings of old-master painting.

Strike “amateur.”

I can’t disagree that strongly. I find it very difficult to argue with esthetic criticism of my work. It’s like arguing with a woman who doesn’t find you attractive, and you say, “C’mon! You’ve got to find me attractive!” It’s not really a logical process. You love certain things because you love them–the way you love your kids or something.

Let’s go on to the content of the pictures. The social satire in them seems pretty small beans to me–pinched, WASPy and academic. You’ve got brunching women, lecherous old profs, vain Upper East Siders, bosomy girls–all easy targets. Even in your celebrated painting “Ms. Omni.”

By the way, this really gets me, the way they’re always referring to the $650,000 “Ms. Omni” brought at auction–as if I got any of it. The woman in the picture is an easy target, yes. But it’s like a Jay Leno monologue where he says, “Don’t you just hate it when…” certain kinds of people do something. He’s letting the audience know they’re in no danger of being made fun of. I thought it would be funny to make a painting like that. I’m not trying to tell an important story with important social knowledge. I’m just interested in the picture, and this is a fertile situation, pictorially. A painting could grow here. The older I get and longer I paint, the more I realize this is kind of my ethnicity, and I can’t escape it. It’s like Al Pacino when he says, “I try to go away, but then they always pull me back.” That’s why I like the old stuff. It’s the only stuff I don’t hate. Somebody like Reginald Marsh–it’s that Italianate thing I don’t like… In old German art, the void is frightening, evil. It’s where the Devil creeps in. That’s why I like German art.

But when I look at “Thanksgiving,” it looks just like Italian mannerism to me.

That’s my biggest nagging doubt about the painting. It has that pyramidal structure, that Italian continuity. But there are some horrible WASP secrets in that painting. It’s not a happy family. Timothy Hutton is going to kill himself. I really wanted it to be Spanish–I saw the “Manet/Velazquez” show when I was painting it. But the radically reduced Spanish palette–black, red, yellow and white, and that’s all you’ve got–is too difficult for me to do. As far as my paintings’ being weak satires, that wasn’t my primary concern. I know that sounds like a weaselly way of getting around it. My main concern was just making a picture, making a form.

Why is it that figurative painters are always closet abstractionists–you know, “This isn’t a dragon and a knight with a sword, it’s primarily a wonderful composition of shapes and colors”?

I’ve become reactionary. I’m a great believer in figuration as the only way to get real form in painting. But I still look at photographs of the famous 1915 Malevich show, and I love Pollock. When I saw the Pollock retro at MoMA, I was astounded at what wonderful decorative objects they were, how well they’d go in a Richard Neutra house.

You’re being condescending.

No, I think decorativeness is an added value.

If somebody came along and said, " ‘Thanksgiving’ is a great decorative object," you wouldn’t be insulted?

Not at all.

Here’s something else I want to talk about. In “serious” art, it’s usually little heads on big bodies. In cartoons, it’s big heads on little bodies. You’re a serious artist. Why do you put big heads on little bodies?

The big heads aren’t always intentional. I’ve tried to make small heads, but it’s like writing with my left hand. In “Thanksgiving,” I managed to make the heads manneristically small. But I think my work gets better when it gets instinctive, when I make fewer thinking interventions.

You’ve been a good sport about this.

I wish I could have been more “Sir! I disagree with you about everything!” But that’s not the way I think about painting. One thing I do hate, though, is one critic’s comment that I’m not much of a painter but I sure am a good entrepreneur. I’m not making millions of dollars. It’s that old criticism again–of an artist as a fraud for profit.

You probably do make a lot less money than the third-string cornerback for the New York Giants.

He deserves it.