Homage to Hockney

Hockney's Eye

Hockney's Eye is the title of an exhibition (until 29 August 2022) at The Fitzwilliam Museum and The Heong Gallery in Cambridge.  The exhibition is the first to explore the many ways of seeing in the art of David Hockney. 

Beautiful Tulips

And I am in Cambridge to see this show.  The first time I have been out of Norfolk for months....  The first time on a train this year.  And, Oh, the crowds!  I thought there was a pandemic on, but it seems as if I am the only one cautious enough to mask my face....

Oh, now I see what a halo is!

Annunciation II, after Fra Angelico

Nothing and no-one can better Fra Angelico.  The delicacy of his mid-fifteenth century frescoed Annunciation on the wall of the convent of San Marco in Florence is lace dipped in champagne to soothe a fevered heart.  Apparently the awareness of space shown in the picture signals the emergence of art from the Gothic to the Renaissance.  The wonderful thing about Hockney's take on this is that while he captures the dynamic between Gabriel and Mary his is not a mere copy nor a paltry likeness - he changes the perspective without losing the narrative, and freshens the colour to delight the modern eye.....  Cosimo de Medici may not have been impressed, but times have changed....

This exhibition is integrated with the permanent  show at the Fitzwilliam, so that Hockney's pieces are a part of the History of Art, at one with the development of representational painting.  The convention of attempting to transfer three dimensions to a flat picture is something that all artists have struggled with, before and after an understanding of perspective was developed.  

My all time favourite painting is Meindert Hobbema's The Avenue at Middelharnis, (usually on display in the National Gallery, London).  I am not entirely sure what attracts me to this picture, though there is certainly something about the relaxed attitudes of the figures here and there in sight that bring a sense of ease.  And then there is the disappearing avenue with its wavering cart tracks....  

Anyway, it transpires that this is also one of Hockney's faves, and here he is paying his respect to the Old Master....

After Hobbema (Useful Knowledge). 2017

Again, it is not a copy, nor is it a clever reinterpretation.  It is a revisiting and a way of recognising the genius of the original.  Perhaps (?) it is like playing Bach on the piano - not how it was written to be, but a way to enjoy this in the modern age?

Another examination of perspective and vanishments is Le Parc des Sources, Vichy. 1970.  Here, an empty chair invites the onlooker to join Hockney's friends in admiring the distance.

And sure enough, we are soon wondering if we may join the party.....

I wish I was there.....

Hockey himself is very present in this exhibition.  There are videos of him explaining his work - notably one on the Camera Lucida - and there are panels which show the entire process of creation on his iPad.  This sequence shows just three moments in a continuum where the artist builds an impression of a riverside:

 

I tell you I love it.  In this age where darkness falls at dawn every day, it is uplifting to be reminded that there is light in life.  It is wonderful to engage with the artist in his enjoyment of a frosty lane as captured by nine cameras mounted on his car:

And it is magnificent to see his wide angle view of the Grand Canyon, where perspective becomes almost 180 degrees and colour is rainbow simplification....  

Somehow you can taste the aridity....

Grand Canyon I. 2017

Hockney himself also welcomes you to The Heong Gallery, where he is discussing oriental art by the gardens of Downing College:

While at the end of the hall I find Viewers Looking at a Readymade with Skull and Mirrors, 2018, an extraordinary invention of mirrored stillness.....

It's a picture that brings to mind Diego Velázquez's Las Meninas....

But that just goes to show how our eyes are connected to our brains and to our hearts.  As the exhibition notes suggest, We see things through the filters of memory and feeling....  And we are all different.

I do recommend this exhibition. When times are difficult, it is good to know there is another world..... And it is good not to dwell for a moment on which world is illusory.

*    *    *

All the artworks shown here, with the exception of Meindert Hobbema's The Avenue at Middelharnis, are copyright of David Hockney - I have taken the liberty of sharing them simply to encourage others to visit the exhibition and to admire, as I do, his art.  I have no financial or professional interest in this.

[Should anyone object to the use of these images I will immediately take them down, with apologies for my presumption.]

A shadow admires

Thank you David.....

No Photographs, Please.... We're Royal

Acute Mourning Sickness

I am in bed.  I have been so for more than a week.  The death of Larry Hagman has laid me low, and were it not for a serious lack of Bupa I would be in a private hospital.  A cute mourning sickie they call it.  Terminal Dynastic Syndrome.  I could not go on.  A world without JR.  How could that be?

I have been infected with a worldwide virus.  Somehow someone none of us knew has affected all with deep superficiality.  OK someone shot JR.  But someone shot JFK and then Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald and then James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King and then two months later Sirhan Sirhan shot Bobby Kennedy, and then Squeaky Fromme tried to shoot Gerald Ford but misfired, then John Hinckley Jr had a go at Ronald Reagan (but only punctured a lung).  I mean.  People shoot people (when they have guns).

I am distressed.  The word Dynasty sends me into tube stations or finds me buying sandbags on ebay.  This virus is dangerous, and it seems that millions may be infected without even recognising the symptoms.

Not that I ever watched soap.  My closest encounter with the genre was when, in 1969, I asked Warren Beatty how he was getting on in “Compact.”  Never been good with names.  I should have known it was Doug Beatty I wanted to meet.  Ever since then, perhaps in subliminal shame, I have eschewed all TV programmes that run in sequences.  There was something called “Beautiful” my wife used to watch when we lived in Italy, but I would leave the room at the opening chord of the theme.  Same with Corrie, East Enders, and so on…..

Then Larry Hagman suffered and degenerated into dust.  Ozymandias.  And yet I am brung down.  My feelings outweigh my understanding.  Black holes appear all over my body and I find myself in need of a House Doctor. 

So I am wasting away.  Made ill by the absence of a Dynasty I no more asked for than I elected to invade Britain with Willie the Conqu.  The subconscious is a wonderful thing.  As long as it doesn’t surface.  In my bed I play mental scrabble with myself to while away the hours and forget Dallas.  I have the letters SXAECBGURO in my hand and cannot think of a word or phrase (valid since 1917 – the Windsor Rules) that I can make with this.

Tish.  My nurse brings me a cold compress.  A tisane. Royal Jelly.  Anything to soothes my frets.

And then I hear that the Duchy of Cambridge is pregnant.  The third in line to the thrown is about to be bored.  A certain Dynasty is not to be Terminated. Yea!! I can rise from my frailty, cast off my mourning shrouds and breathe again the cool air of Windsor….. Hyperemesis gravidarum notwithstanding (and no memory of my stopping the family commute every day for weeks for my wife to gracefully vomit on the verge before work will affect this); I wish no one ill, but I want to dance down the street, shimmy on the trestle tables left out from the Jumbly party, and shout Halleluiah, Who Cares!  The Dynasty is on the road again!  Without any rancour we can all look forward to a secure future of Honours and privilege and everything that Grates about Britain….

Bring back Larry Hagman.  At least he was a star! 

The Larry Hagman Foundation: 

“Evil does Good” (That's what it says!)

http://www.larryhagman.com/