What Does the Diving Boy Mean in Art History

"All fine art is gimmicky, if it'south alive, and if it'southward not alive, what'southward the point of information technology?"

1 of 10

"If nosotros are to change our earth view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important task to practise. He's not a petty peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed."

2 of x

"I never thought the swimming pool pictures were at all about mere hedonist pleasure. They were about the surface of the h2o, the very thin flick, the shimmering two-dimensionality"

3 of x

"Information technology's difficult work, but I like it. Frank Auerbach said once it is a lot of fun likewise, and it is. I like making pictures, I do, yeah."

4 of 10

"The joy and urge to draw is an aboriginal, 40,000-year-old impulse."

5 of 10

"Photography is all right if you don't mind looking at the world from the point of view of a paralyzed Cyclops. Merely that'southward not what information technology is like to alive in the world."

half-dozen of 10

"It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his piece of work."

seven of 10

"Loads of people, particularly artists, hate pretty pictures. Now I've never met anyone who didn't like a pretty confront."

8 of 10

"Drawing makes you encounter things clearer, and clearer and clearer still, until your optics ache."

nine of 10

"Cartoon is rather like playing chess: your heed races alee of the moves that you eventually brand."

10 of 10

Summary of David Hockney

David Hockney's bright pond pools, split-level homes and suburban Californian landscapes are a strange brew of calm and hyperactivity. Shadows announced to take been banished from his acrylic canvases of the 1960s, slick every bit mag pages. Flat planes exist side-by-side in a patchwork, muddling our sense of altitude. Hockney's unmistakable style incorporates a broad range of sources from Baroque to Cubism and, nigh recently, computer graphics. An iconoclast obsessed with the One-time Masters, this British Popular creative person breaks every rule deliberately, delighting in the deconstruction of proportion, linear perspective, and color theory. He shows that orthodoxies are meant to exist shattered, and that opposites can coexist, a bulletin of tolerance that transcends art and has profound implications in the political and social realm.

Accomplishments

• Like other Pop artists, Hockney revived figurative painting in a mode that referenced the visual language of advertising. What separates him from others in the Pop motion is his obsession with Cubism. In the spirit of the Cubists, Hockney combines several scenes to create a blended view, choosing tricky spaces, like split-level homes in California and the Grand Canyon, where depth perception is already a challenge.
• Hockney insists on personal subject matter - some other thing that separates him from almost other Pop artists. He depicts the domestic sphere - scenes from his own life and that of friends. This aligns him with Alice Neel, Alex Katz, and others who depicted their immediate surroundings in a manner that transcends a particular category or motility.
• Hockney was openly gay, and has remained a staunch advocate for gay rights. In the context of a macho art scene that dismissed "pretty color" equally effeminate, Hockney's brilliant greens, purples, pinks, and yellows are declarative statements in support of sexual freedom.
• In actively seeking to imitate photographic furnishings in his work, Hockney is a forerunner of the Photorealists. He is likewise a heretic among purists who feel that painting should rely simply on the artist'south direct observations from nature. Though non universally accustomed, Hockney's enquiry into the history of fine art has shown that One-time Masters, from Vermeer to Canaletto, frequently used the camera obscura (an early class of camera) to enhance their optical furnishings. If the revered Old Masters could employ cameras, he implies, why can't we?

Biography of David Hockney

Uk's beloved David Hockney has a career of breaking taboos and leading the avant-garde - to the point of being recognized as the most of import artist to revitalized painting. And in his eighties, Hockney continues to be active and to make headlines.

Important Fine art by David Hockney

Progression of Art

1961

We Two Boys Together Clinging

This early on work by Hockney shows no sign of the slick landscapes or carefully observed characters that he would afterward develop. It is one of the first, withal, to address homoeroticism, an important theme in his work. In a composition that resembles a child'south drawing, ii figures kiss and comprehend. Stylized, blocky forms and scrawled words offer symbols equally opposed to descriptions of the encounter. Small horizontal lines of pigment run from 1 figure to the other, representing the erotic charge betwixt them. A sketchy swathe of blue hints at a sense of place.

Hockney's semi-abstracted figures and muted colour palette call back those of Jean Dubuffet, a stylistic preference indicative of the challenge of finding a way to represent forbidden feelings. At a time when homosexual activeness was still illegal in both the U.South. and in United kingdom, the representation of an erotic act between two men was unusual and potentially risky. The title is a direct quote from Walt Whitman, principal of homoerotic poesy, and the paradigm was inspired by a study of a climbing blow in a newspaper that read "2 Boys Cling to Cliff All Night." This unintended double pregnant delighted Hockney, who had a crush on the British pop singer, Cliff Richard. These sources in popular culture and classic poesy offered the artist a way to address same-sex relationships in a way that didn't resort to extravaganza.

Oil on board - Southbank Centre, London

1967

A Bigger Splash

Hockney painted this seminal work while at the University of California in Berkeley. A Bigger Splash was created as the final event of 2 smaller paintings in which he developed his ideas, A Little Splash (1966) and The Splash (1966). A Bigger Splash is a considerably larger work, measuring approximately 94 x 94 inches. Hockney was ane of the first artists to make all-encompassing employ of acrylic paint, which was then a relatively new artistic medium. He felt that as a fast-drying substance information technology was more suited to depicting the hot, dry landscapes of California than traditional oil paints. He painted this piece of work past stapling the sheet to his studio wall.

In A Bigger Splash, Hockney explores how to stand for the constantly moving surface of the water. The splash was based on a photograph of a pond puddle Hockney had seen in a puddle manual. He was intrigued by the idea that a photograph could capture the event of a split second, and sought to recreate this in painting. The buildings are taken from a previous drawing Hockney had washed of a Californian habitation. The dynamism of the splash contrasts strongly with the static and rigid geometry of the firm, the pool edge, the palm trees, and the hit yellow diving board, which are all carefully arranged in a grid containing the splash. This gives the painting a disjointed outcome that is absolutely intentional, and in fact one of the hallmarks of Hockney's fashion. The consequence is one of stylization and artificiality, cartoon on the aesthetic vocabulary of Pop art and fusing it with Cubism.

He said in his autobiography, "I dear the thought outset of all of painting like Leonardo, all his studies of water, swirling things. And I loved the idea of painting this thing that lasts for two seconds: information technology takes me 2 weeks to pigment this event that lasts for two seconds."

Acrylic on canvas - Collection of the Tate, United Kingdom

1968

American Collectors (Fred and Marcia Weisman)

While Hockney paints a broad range of subjects, some of his most masterful compositions are his portraits of the belatedly 1960s. These offer unrivaled, nearly cinematic, insights into the mood and culture of this transitional decade in American history. Here are Fred and Marcia Weisman, art collectors and friends of Hockney, who appear outside their residence every bit if stepping outside to greet a neighbor. Hockney'south blinding, saturated palette mimics the calorie-free of Southern California. The Weismans are surrounded past their prized fine art possessions, amid them an imposing modernist sculpture in a niche, and a totem pole that looks similar it could be a third member of the family.

Dry out humor pervades all elements of the composition. The viewer half expects to see the vertical elements - the stiff couple and their property - blast off like space ships into the blue sky. The threat of the surreal lurking in this picture underscores the consequent relationship betwixt Pop art and older movements. Too noteworthy is the manner in which the poses transgress traditional gender norms. Marcia, a full-figured matron in a robe held closed with one arm, bares her teeth, and strikes a sensual pose that is both gracious and confrontational. Fred, the man of the house, stands stiffly with his fists clenched, and is literally marginalized as he is pushed to the left-hand side.

Acrylic on Canvas - The Fine art Establish of Chicago

1984

A Visit with Christopher and Don, Santa Monica Canyon

For this view of the "Santa Monica Canyon", Hockney draws on the linguistic communication of Cubism, a strong influence on his artistic style throughout his life due to his deep admiration for the piece of work of Picasso. For this work, he extends the Cubist visual vocabulary through his use of a rich color palette borrowed from the Pop art movement.

The composition measures 6 10 20 feet, a scale normally reserved for g subjects from history or the bible. It consists of two canvases side-by-side. And yet information technology is a subject commonly reserved for smaller canvases, a household interior, in which Hockney combines representations of the California home with seaside views and portraits of himself at piece of work to the left and right. In that location are no conventional architectural or painterly boundaries betwixt the different elements of the limerick. Hockney uses apartment areas of color and texture to create distinct spaces.

This piece of work makes use of a multi-signal "reverse" perspective, pregnant that it contains several vanishing points that extend out towards the viewer rather than converging on a afar horizon. In the spirit of Cubism, Hockney offers more than one viewpoint, and extends the perspective outwards, cartoon the viewer into the scene that is so big, one feels 1 might step right into information technology.

Oil on 2 canvases

1998

A Bigger 1000 Canyon

Hockney began photographing the Grand Canyon in 1982, aiming "to photograph the unphotographable. Which is to say, space. [T]here is no question that the thrill of standing on that rim of the Grand Canyon is spatial. It is the biggest space you can wait out over that has an border." Not many artists endeavour to paint The Grand Coulee. Ane reason is that it is so big, no indicator of depth, distance, or scale can convey it. The other is that the 19^th-century painter Thomas Moran produced what is considered past many to exist the definitive version: a spectacular, monumental canvas then detailed, and then complete, and then naturalistic that information technology set up an unsurpassable standard. Unfazed past this precedent and directly inspired by Moran's famous view, ("intrigued to see how another artist grappled with representing the same vast, heroic space" according to the National Museum of American Art) Hockney produced A Bigger Grand Coulee - which is even larger than Moran's canvas. Sixty pocket-sized canvases join together to create 1 large view representing just a portion of the coulee. Hockney is poking gentle fun at tourists with cameras, artists with easels, and the absurdity of attempting to map a three-dimensional experience onto a 2-dimensional plane.

Oil on canvas

2009

Winter Timber

While many of Hockney'south best-known works were inspired by photographs, this piece of work was painted in front of the motif, at the corner of an old Roman route in Yorkshire, near his birthplace. The purple palette renders the landscape contemporary and eternal, similar a estimator-generated fairytale. It is one of the largest in a serial of timber and "totems", every bit Hockney calls the lone tree stumps depicted in these representations. Throughout his career, Hockney has been interested in returning to tradition in club to examine it, simply with an almost scientific detachment that places the viewer off-eye. This view, presented across fifteen canvases, has ii paths of perspective leading downwards the two roads through the woods. This means that the visual plane contains two vanishing points, rebuking the one-betoken perspective that has characterized Western art since the Renaissance. It too transgresses the unmarried perspective of the camera lens, the point of view that has come up to define how we see the globe in photographs. The painting'south 2 vanishing points lead outward toward us, creating a kind of double vision that heightens the kaleidoscopic, hallucinatory effect of the piece.

Oil on fifteen canvases - Guggenheim, Bilbao

2010

A Bigger Message

Created relatively late in Hockney's career, A Bigger Message is a culmination of a serial of works past Hockney inspired by The Sermon on the Mount, Claude Lorrain's 1656 painting. Lorrain was one of Hockney'southward heroes - a French Bizarre landscape painter (in English, simply "Claude"), known for revolutionizing the genre and basing his work on observation, Claude has had a strong effect on Hockney's landscapes. In order to create the painting, Hockney spent three weeks digitally cleaning the painting by Claude on his calculator. Through this process, Hockney got to know the composition better, and created a thoroughly gimmicky way of painting; rather than working from life, or even from the original work, his inspiration came from a mediated, doctored version of the Old Chief's work.

Hockney is fully aware that many art enthusiasts would pout on this process, and fully intends to tweak the nose of tradition. He is besides, all the same, following in the footsteps of another renegade, Picasso, who painted Cubist versions of Velazquez's Las Meninas based in role on reproductions from newspapers and magazines. Distance from the original allows the artist to create his own spin on the scene. Hockney takes his palette not from Claude just from Pop art, and from his ain earlier depictions of the Californian and Yorkshire landscapes. He draws more than attention to the human figures in the foreground of the image, and represents the mountain as an oversized ruby rock, imbuing the scene with a singled-out sense of drama absent from the original.

Oil on 30 canvases

Similar Art

Influences and Connections

Influences on Creative person

Influenced by Artist

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  R. B. Kitaj

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  Allen Jones

Useful Resources on David Hockney

Books

websites

articles

video clips

More than

articles

• Sotheby's: David Hockney's Iconic Masterpiece, "The Splash"

  By Sotheby's / January 13, 2020

• David Hockney: "Only because I'one thousand cheeky doesn't mean I'm not serious" Our Pick

  Past Simon Hattenstone / The Guardian / May ix, 2015

• Imagining the Grand Canyon

  By Jane Kinsman / National Gallery of Commonwealth of australia

• Painting Pioneer: Early Reflections of David Hockney

  By Steph Moffat / The Double Negative / December 11, 2013

• David Hockney: "When I'm working I feel like Picasso, I experience I'm thirty."

  Past Tim Lewis / The Guardian / Nov xvi, 2014

• David Hockney returns to LA

  By Caroline Daniel / The Financial Times / Oct 11, 2013

• David Hockney takes a drive through art history Our Selection

  By Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times / November 9, 2013

• David Hockney on the purpose of artists

  By Mary Yard. Lane / The Wall Street Journal / November 25, 2014

• How the iPhone and iPad transformed the art of David Hockney

  By Chris O'Brien / Los Angeles Times / October 27, 2013

Content compiled and written by Anne Souter

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Ruth Epstein

"David Hockney Artist Overview and Assay". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written past Anne Souter
Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Ruth Epstein
Available from:
Commencement published on xviii Feb 2016. Updated and modified regularly
[Accessed ]

russellagrecirt.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/hockney-david/

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