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.
