#42
David Hockney’s lengthy sojourns in America Royal Academy is A Closer Grand Canyon , 1998[2] . This is defined by its label as “Oil on 60 canvases. 81 x 291 inches, overall.” Yes, that is correct: sixty canvases. I didn’t believe it either, until I had counted them.
The works have been arranged so as to conduct you from California and the American West to the Wolds of the East Riding of Yorkshire – and back again. As you leave the exhibition, America recurs and you pass under, literally, towering images of Yosemite National Park , California
Everywhere you look, Hockney shows the clarity, the light and the brightness that are to be found in the landscape of the Wolds . He proves to you that the colours he uses are all in plain sight; there for you to see. He has found his colours in and under the trees, scattered across the fields, drifting through the woods or dancing along the hedgerows. His compositions draw you in, almost folding the landscape around you. The brilliance of his palette conveys not just colours; the vibrancy is such that you begin to hear the paintings even before you see them.
This is an exhibition characterised by thoroughness. Hockney conducts an almost forensic examination of his chosen trees and of the lane he calls The Tunnel. Each study is redeemed from being clinical by Hockney’s consummate skills in drawing and the generous deployment of colour. His drawings record shapes and textures and spatial relationships with an incredible economy of line. The sketchbooks on show together with his iPad drawings reveal mark-making that is accurate, evocative and yet quick enough to capture the moment in landscapes where everything moves and the light is constantly changing.
As you move through the galleries you become aware that these works are actually all about knowing. They are about the knowing of trees and leaves and time and light and the seasons. The Woldgate Woods series have a great particularity. They strive to reveal the uniqueness of every tree, every branch and every leaf and to link that identity to the time of year and even the time of day.
In Gallery 8, Trees & Totems, the charcoal sketches read like entries in a diary. And like any good diarist, Hockney is explicit about what delights, disturbs or excites him. His celebrations of Hawthorn blossom in Room 7 approach being acts of gluttony. It is a feast begun with the arrival of spring (see Hawthorn Blossom near Rudston, 2008) which culminates in Hawthorn Blossom on the Roman Road, 2009 (Oil on 8 canvases). Here, under a livid sky and on the very cusp of summer, the creamy richness of the pulsating blossom appears to be mutating into giant larvae, gorging themselves on the last of springtime.
Back outside in the urban night, we walk along Piccadilly passing banners advertising the exhibition. These all show a back view of David Hockney now and forever touching-in some paint on Winter Timber, 2009 (oil on 15 canvases). From behind, in his cloth cap, shirtsleeves and braces he looks every inch the northern working man. You could almost mistake him for the late Fred Dibnah, albeit a Lancastrian and possessed by a more industrial sensibility. Fred was, nonetheless, an honest toiler of a similar vintage.
“They three big trees over yonder? Don’t fret, Mr Hockney, we’ll soon have they boogers down for thee. Happen it’ll be quicker than thou canst put t’kettle on. Now then, which side of t’midden are we wanting them to fall?”
[1] David Hockney RA A Bigger Picture. Royal Academy
[2] For illustrations, go to www.hockneypictures.com/home.php
No comments:
Post a Comment