Arts Review: A Bigger Picture – David Hockney at the Royal Academy
Tony McNulty reckons that if you are only going to see one exhibition this year make it this one.
22 Jan 2012, 10:00
David Hockney
If you only manage to get to one art exhibition this year, make it ‘A Bigger Picture’, the David Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. You will not be disappointed. From the moment you walk into the first room and see The Thixendale Trees, to the Salt Mills in Saltaire, right through to the large iPad prints of Yosemite Valley at the end, every successive room is an experience that delights and mesmerises. I have never been to an exhibition where the paintings pull you in so strongly, where the walls are hung with an array of colours and themes that shout at you in joy and wonder and evoke both the fun and seriousness of seeing.
Words feel inadequate to describe the intensity, depth and vibrancy of Hockney’s colours. Although his art impresses in books, prints and on TV, you have to see the paintings in real life to appreciate the colour. The colours leap off the canvas and, in room after room, the exhibition is packed with landscapes that are large enough for you to jump into and explore from the inside – you want to go walking in Woldgate woods or through winter tunnels near Kilham. He captures the splendour of nature, but also its majesty and mysticism. The paintings look and feel like enchanted woods and fantasies, but also possess a naturalistic quality that comes from Hockney’s love of the land.
His earlier landscapes point to the subsequent direction that he followed. The photocollage work in Pearblossom Highway, 11-18 April 1986 #1 – is sublime and is one of the first uses of the grid that became so important in later work. Its importance is as much in the techniques used as it is in the wonder of the visual result. The same is true of the photocollage and painting work around the theme of the Grand Canyon. We see early signs of the colour, scale and themes that resonate throughout his later work.
The majestic The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 is a 32-canvas painting and 51 prints that record the journey from winter to spring – the impact is sensational. It is about life, transition and transformation – with all the winder of the scale, colour and depth that Hockney does so well. These skills are also captured remarkably in Hockney’s studies of The Sermon on The Mount by Claude Lorrain in 1656. His studies culminate in the marvel that is A Bigger Message, a 30-canvas painting that sucks in the time and space around it and reinvigorates all the messages and substance of the original Lorrain.
There is theatricality in the way that the works are presented by the Royal Academy – and this enhances their impact. The exhibition locates Hockney as both a great traditional artist and as one with a sophisticated understanding of how all forms of new and emerging technology can be utilised in the service of art. Take the time to tip-toe around this exhibition from room to room and make sure that you capture the fun and frivolity, depth and seriousness of every picture on every wall. Make sure you get there because everything Hockney has done from 2004-2011 in the name of landscape art needs to be seen, enjoyed and admired. It is life-enhancing and magnificent in every way – you will not be disappointed.
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I live in East Yorkshire in the town of Bridlington. David Hockney has done a fine job in showing this little known area to the rest of the world. It has made me look closer at the place and the countryside in which I live. I have noticed things that I have never seen before. Many of the places that Hockney visited to paint the Yorkshire Wolds are shown at http://www.yocc.co.uk
24/02/2012 21:51