- Venue
- Royal Academy of Arts
- Location
- United Kingdom
Yesterday I battled through the wind and past a queue of umbrellas lining the Royal Academy Courtyard, to push into a bundle of my fellow twelve o’clock ticket holders. When the time came, we swarmed into the first gallery, appreciating the body heat, to be confronted by images of the four seasons by David Hockney.
The show is a dynamic, contemporary rendition of landscape painting, taking full advantage of the gifts of nature and her seasons. A fellow group member didn’t recognise this art, only being familiar with the artist’s Californian work. Hockney has grown and developed, and may in fact, in his seventy-fourth year, now be in his artistic prime. From the small bit of development we are granted with in the exhibition, (there are a handful of earlier works), we can see the progression of this artist has been extraordinary. His early landscapes look like early, realist van Gogh’s with their dull, muddy palettes and twilight effects. His later landscapes, to which the show is dedicated, look like expressionist infused, Cezanne-esque, well, later van Gogh’s. Colours swirl in the sky and every form comes alive through the dynamic rendition. However instead of becoming threatening and oppressive, the dynamism in these paintings makes them friendly and fantastical. Hockney’s style has developed like that of a true artistic great, yet has ended up coming to a completely original conclusion. A retrospective of his works should be greatly anticipated.
But for now I am busy in the present display, and my favourite painted season it is decided, is spring. (Perhaps this is just wishful thinking). The age of visitors in my twelve o’clock viewing time was wonderfully diverse, including many with young families. And why? These images are accessible. The children of Britain are attracted and amused by the bright hues Hockney manages to find amongst our landscapes. They can relate to the familiar imagery of nature which they may in fact have seen similar in their own back garden. Within these paintings they can find their favourite colour, they can make faces from the stylised patterns in the trees, and they can drive their parents insane over getting an iPad. Hockney’s imagination and way of transforming these iconic, maybe mundane, always recognisable scenes into diverse, dynamic, magical, almost celestial zones reminds us of when we saw the world through the eyes of a child. I do not mean this at all in a patronising manner. In fact, this style of painting the world is wonderfully imaginative and refreshing. As a viewer we view playfully. Our eyes are drawn to incredible colours and bold shapes, between being sucked to the back of his landscapes before being abruptly halted by totally flat obstructions. We recall what the world looked like when we saw it first. Hockney depicts the world for us in a way that we all used to see it, but have forgotten to continue to do so. How wonderful it is to be forced to remember.
