David Hockney at the Tate

One of the most enjoyable art exhibitions I’ve ever attended is “Hockney” at Tate Britain, which I visited on Friday evening. Once I’d shaken off the two awful middle-aged English women uninterested in the exhibition but nattering loudly about their shopping or their periods or whatever sexist derision their appalling behaviour merits (I doubt that they even know who they are, but they were among the 7.30 entry), I could immerse myself in this magnificent display of six decades of genius. I was again distracted briefly when I found myself in front of one of the portraits – I think it was a small drawing of ‘Celia’ - and standing next to a young man who was almost laughing with pleasure. “This guy certainly had some fun” he chuckled, seeing my intrigued expression. I’d never thought that before, never realised it, nor heard anyone make that remark with respect to Hockney, despite umpteen books and TV programmes about the great man but, yes, absolutely spot on. Hockney has had years and years of fun. Got it in one. I replied that nobody would do all this unless it was fun.

And yet so many “modern artists” would, humourlessly churning out acres of pointless tedium, exhibiting stuff that was surely boring to make and even more boring to look at, all very serious, all very meaningful, hoping to shock (ooh, I’m shocked), to make some portentous statement about an unsatisfactory world, to acquire the approval of an “art establishment” pathetically still obsessed with what Betjeman once called “with-it-ry”. Pained souls out to impress themselves, rather than to enjoy life and art while giving pleasure to their audience. With David Hockney it is different - the sheer joy of being alive, of observing, of playing, of experimenting, of seemingly effortless achievement (of course it isn’t effortless at all), of enjoying the physical attributes of paint and of other media or techniques, of glorying in the dazzle of colour and the infinite possibilities of form, of giving his prolific gifts to the world. A one-man parable of the talents.

Not that everything which Hockney has attempted has succeeded fully or been of unvarying top quality – it’s just that most of it has. And everyone will have their own thematic or stylistic preferences. To me, what sometimes falls a little short in matters of execution – some of the Yorkshire tree paintings perhaps – still impresses nonetheless, it gets to you, overwhelms you by its scale and quantity.

I’m not sure what is my favourite Hockney period or theme. There’s so much from which to choose. Occasionally I surprise myself; although not a doggie person, I adore his doggie pictures. I first came to Hockney via his 1960s Los Angeles paintings, and still they astonish by their size and the intensity of their colour. When I first visited LA in 1975 it was partly in response to Hockney’s portrayal of the city. I tried to see it through his eyes, through his owly spectacles, the streetsigns saying “Wilshire Blvd”, the ridiculously tall spindly palms, the glare of the sunlight, the strength of the shadows. In this way I fell in love with the city.

Though I  generally don’t think much of cubism I like his quasi-cubist experiments with Polaroids and his multiple perspectives of the Grand Canyon, with their improbable yet believable and exhilarating colour contrasts. Many of his East Riding landscapes, his wolds and woods, I admire greatly, they make me want to go there and roll around. A series of charcoal drawings of Yorkshire tree scenes, on show in this exhibition, demonstrate once again his superb skills as a draughtsman; from across the room they appear photographic, close up they are almost abstract. Since I am not a great fan of technology I was surprised at how much I enjoyed his multi-screen videos of the changing seasons in Woldgate Woods, and also his i-Pad sketches, many made at or near his home in Bridlington. Often banal subjects (but then I’m a great sucker for streetlamps) portrayed with bizarre choices of colour, all of them are expressions of joy at the appearance of things, the pleasure of being alive, exercises in fluency with a new medium.

Somehow, across the decades, and via multiple techniques, Hockney has rediscovered impressionism, and landscape art in particular. A truly great artist in the British tradition – a one-off, doing his own thing, giving pleasure, enjoying life, being positive and uplifting, aware that fun is the one thing that money can’t buy. And still active and imaginative well into his seventies. It’s good that we can see him at the Tate this year, as well as at Saltaire and elsewhere.  A national treasure who one day will surely deserve a permanent gallery all to himself.