I Think the World is Beautiful to Look At, but Most People Don’t See It
February 18, 2022 1:17 AM Subscribe
From his home in Normandy, the eighty-four-year-old artist shows off a new series of portrait paintings and discusses all of the work he still has left to do. David Hockney Rediscovers Painting [The New Yorker; Archive]
Who was it who observed that Hockney painted in two different modes: the warm green summery pieces and the frigid blue-grey ones, which the writer termed respectively “field Hockney” and “ice Hockney?”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:37 AM on February 18, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:37 AM on February 18, 2022 [18 favorites]
ricochet biscuit: " “field Hockney” and “ice Hockney?"
Stephen Fry, in The Liar:
‘I was telling this lady,’ said the Shirt, ‘that I thought the design for The Magic Flute over there was by David Hockney.’
‘Certainly so,’ said the Tweed. ‘Hockney seems to me to paint in two styles. Wild and natural or cold and clinical. I seem to remember remarking that there are two kinds of Hockney. Field Hockney and Ice Hockney.’
‘Please?’
‘It’s a joke,’ explained the Blue Shirt.
‘Ah.’
posted by chavenet at 4:46 AM on February 18, 2022 [22 favorites]
Stephen Fry, in The Liar:
‘I was telling this lady,’ said the Shirt, ‘that I thought the design for The Magic Flute over there was by David Hockney.’
‘Certainly so,’ said the Tweed. ‘Hockney seems to me to paint in two styles. Wild and natural or cold and clinical. I seem to remember remarking that there are two kinds of Hockney. Field Hockney and Ice Hockney.’
‘Please?’
‘It’s a joke,’ explained the Blue Shirt.
‘Ah.’
posted by chavenet at 4:46 AM on February 18, 2022 [22 favorites]
There are a couple more very nice Normandy iPad drawings in this Royal Academy article.
Have the Brushes or Procreate files of any of his works been published anywhere?
posted by brachiopod at 5:09 AM on February 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Have the Brushes or Procreate files of any of his works been published anywhere?
posted by brachiopod at 5:09 AM on February 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
What a lovely interview!
(it looks like he is using the most basic standard round brush, sometimes turning down the opacity, and very occasionally a pencil brush turned up really big for texture)
posted by velebita at 7:51 AM on February 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
(it looks like he is using the most basic standard round brush, sometimes turning down the opacity, and very occasionally a pencil brush turned up really big for texture)
posted by velebita at 7:51 AM on February 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
This makes me want to play with the Procreate app on my iPad again.
posted by dnash at 8:10 AM on February 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by dnash at 8:10 AM on February 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
I love Hockney. He's very fun to listen to talk about pretty much any subject. His documentary Secret Knowledge about the use of mirrors and lenses in Flemish and Italian paintings from the 1500s is basically required annual viewing for myself.
posted by Corduroy at 8:59 AM on February 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Corduroy at 8:59 AM on February 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Conflicted to say this, but these portraits and landscapes are not wildly dissimilar to George Bush's work (which never fails to surprise me in quality/charm).
posted by wolfpants at 9:15 AM on February 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by wolfpants at 9:15 AM on February 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
I find myself having a big reaction to wolfpants comparison to George Bush (it's totally ok to have that opinion and feeling, wolfpants, this is just my personal reaction). Hockney is one of my favorite artists, so I'm heavily biased, and really has nothing to do with George Bush.
Hockney, if you look at the full breadth of his work through the decades is one of those artists who is obsessed. Obsessed with how to show people, landscapes, time, space, seasons, line, shape, form, color, medium, technology. His brain is on fire and can't stop it seems. While they may formally have similar qualities, how they arrived at that conclusion are galaxies apart.
posted by Sreiny at 9:58 AM on February 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Hockney, if you look at the full breadth of his work through the decades is one of those artists who is obsessed. Obsessed with how to show people, landscapes, time, space, seasons, line, shape, form, color, medium, technology. His brain is on fire and can't stop it seems. While they may formally have similar qualities, how they arrived at that conclusion are galaxies apart.
posted by Sreiny at 9:58 AM on February 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
The iPad Normandy pictures were shown at l'Orangerie in Paris until recently. They're amazing! I don't know where the exhibit will go afterwards but I highly recommend trying to see them.
posted by anzen-dai-ichi at 1:23 PM on February 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by anzen-dai-ichi at 1:23 PM on February 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Thanks for this post. Hockney is such an amazing painter and thinker about art.
I was thinking of having an opinion about his iPad work, and realized I am probably wrong. Maybe tomorrow, when I have reached something closer to the right opinion, I'll return to this thread. (This may read as ironic, but it really isn't. I know Hockney is wiser than me about painting and several other issues).
Because of the article, I looked up his Westminister Abbey stained glass window and was both disappointed, because I think he is a genius and that the window is absolutely not, but also a bit happy because right now I am trying to make sense of religious art, and it somehow pleased me that even Hockney struggles with that particular framework.
posted by mumimor at 1:34 PM on February 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I was thinking of having an opinion about his iPad work, and realized I am probably wrong. Maybe tomorrow, when I have reached something closer to the right opinion, I'll return to this thread. (This may read as ironic, but it really isn't. I know Hockney is wiser than me about painting and several other issues).
Because of the article, I looked up his Westminister Abbey stained glass window and was both disappointed, because I think he is a genius and that the window is absolutely not, but also a bit happy because right now I am trying to make sense of religious art, and it somehow pleased me that even Hockney struggles with that particular framework.
posted by mumimor at 1:34 PM on February 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
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