I liked Hockney a lot, then kind of drifted away from him but now I am back big time. He has moved from California back to North Yorkshire and now aged 73 he's at his masterful best. Gone are the brash sun-lit primaries, the result of the harsh brilliant uncompromising retina bashing daylight of West Coast USA. In this gloriously subtle landscape there are little echoes of Californian sunlight in the delicate yellows and greens in middle foreground. This is a view from Garrowby Hill. It's a little masterpiece of symphonic composition. The swirls and curves and twists of the foreground with their vibrant contrasting reds, ochres, yellows and emerald greens give way gently to the rhomboids, rectangles and triangles of the fading pastel-coloured landscape which gets quieter as it recedes to the horizon. Yet our attention is drawn inexplicably
to the little details. A group of trees on the horizon, a little puctuation in the haze of the distance. Unimaginable aqua-blues and fuschia pinks in those far off fields. An individual tree on the left, bounced foreward by it's personal lemon-hued back-light.
The road is not grey; it's more lavender. And it's task in the story is to take you by the hand and lead you into Hockneys dream-world. Loud and with an eel-like thrashing, it swirls into the picture yet quickly draws you in and leaves you wondering how you ever got there because it so quickly disappears without you knowing it.
The swirling reds in the fields to the left are juxtaposed with the sharp vertical reds of the tree-trunks to the right.
The picture is totally silent.
There are no birds flying, trilling, whistling, whispering or squawking.
No vehicles on the road.
No aeroplanes or hot-air ballons.
No-one working in the fields.
I suppose the scale involved would make it extremely difficult to include any of this detail. But Hockney's attention is not focused on the wild-life or indeed on the folk who fashioned the landscape. He is focused totally on the landscape.
Very little room is left at the top of the picture. Just enough to inform you of a cloudy day. So no harsh shadows.
OK Blog fans. Some thoughts. Moo-moo is on her feet and her eyes are cast inquisitively downwards, looking between and beyond her two little friends. Her eyebrows convey an expression of acceptance of what is. She is in control. Child in foreground by comparison is sitting and looks a trifle confused and bemused. Behind him his brother, also sitting, looks questioningly up seeking some kind of answer. Why are we dressed like this??? Is this normal? Do all kids have to do this??? What's in it for us??? But just look at moo-moo.....she just looks ready to cast a spell on her dumb-ass little friends!!!!!
