David Hockney - Bigger & Closer

 Love Life 

David Hockney: Bigger and Closer review – an overwhelming blast of passionless kitsch

This was the heading of Jonathan Jones's two star review, posted on February 21st 2023.  In his piece he wrote that, Gigantic projections of the painter’s work fill entire walls in this immersive audiovisual extravaganza – but there is no real art to catch the memory or move the soul....

I wonder exactly what your definition of real art is, Mr Jones?

I saw the show today, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.  I found it engaging and eye-opening and it was a wonderful contrast to the grey damp London day outside. And a wonderful contrast to the miserable world of politics and economics that enshrouds us.  

I am not a stranger to art galleries, and I would love to be able to spend time, for instance, in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam admiring (studying?) the Vermeer exhibition (though it has been sold out for weeks)..... I suppose that is your idea of real art, Mr Jones?

Video footage of David Hockney driving friends through Malibu Canyon in California with Wagner on the stereo may well not count as real art, but then I am not sure that Warhol's Marilyn, or Edvard Munch's The Scream are quite up there with Rembrandt's The Night Watch.....

This is a very clever, visually entertaining and instructive (to me, at least) show. There are sequences, with a commentary by Hockney himself, which explain something of his "art."

And there are episodes, shall we say, about various periods of, and developments in, his "art."  We may not be able to appreciate the brush work, nor to linger for as long as we may choose in front of the "real thing," but we can be immersed in something of the light and the experience.....  From California:

To the woods of Yorkshire:

The colours of winter trees:

The colours of summer fields:

The sunshine of Normandy:

And there are ideas expressed - ideas, or, perhaps, to be fair, opinions - on aspects of art and photography, such as this idea gained from a drive through the Alps into Switzerland:

Mr Jones makes some fair points about the way this show dodges from one thing to another, and about how Hockney could have been more explicit about some of his work, rather than, perhaps telling us that Brunelleschi got it wrong (though the Chinese got it right - did I understand that?  Does it matter?)

But Mr Jones ends his critique with this: He (Hockney) is sceptical of the camera’s rule over our eyes yet it’s a sad fact that, in this kind of spectacle, photography and film clips have more reality than drawings and paintings. So Hockney in his innocence has lent his fame here to a dumb contemporary fad that doesn’t – and cannot – capture the beauty of his art. It’s ultimately like seeing a great artist through the wrong end of a telescope – smaller and further away.

The phrase, dumb contemporary fad is really not helpful.  Do we have to go back to red dye on a cave wall for authenticity?  Wasn't painting on damp plaster a dumb contemporary fad once?  Leonardo (in Milan) got it wrong, but, amongst others, Michelangelo and Raphael got it right (in Rome). Shouldn't we be glad they persevered?

At least Mr Jones uses the term great artist to describe Mr Hockney, but the way he does it is condescending to both Mr Hockney and to me.  I am no art critic, but I know what I like.....

You try so hard but you don't understand 

Just what you will say when you get home 

Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is 

Do you, Mr. Jones?

Ballad of a Thin Man

Bob Dylan

As David Hockney himself says: The world is very very beautiful if you look at it, but most people don’t look very much. They scan the ground in front of them so they can walk, they don’t really look at things incredibly well, with an intensity. I do.

Thank you, David Hockney.

I recommend you see this show for yourselves....

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/feb/20/david-hockney-lightroom-immersive-bigger-closer-not-smaller-further-away?CMP=share_btn_link 

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside.....

My Funny Valentine

It is a blustery February day in Hunstanton, but at least it isn't raining, and I am walking with my valentine, who seems to see the funny side.....

My funny valentine 
Sweet comic valentine 
You make me smile with my heart 
Your looks are laughable 
Unphotographable 
Yet you're my favourite work of art

Lorenz Hart & Richard Rodgers

The lights are coming on, under a cloudy sky.....

There is something of a holiday atmosphere

- a little something.....

Parents have wrapped their kids up for the fresh sea air.....

Enraged, perhaps, that, when not striking, teachers are themselves now taking holidays.....

Not all the pleasure palaces, entertainments or vendors of delicacies are yet fully functioning (Perhaps they are on strike? Ed):

But some are creaking open their shutters:

Though without the candy floss enthusiasm that will no doubt explode later in the year:

But there are some places open where you can sit outside and enjoy (?) a warm drink:

And indeed others where you can stand and enjoy (??) a warm drink......

Or go inside for an ice cream..... (Yum, just what we need....)

Or have a breakfast by the window with a view (of the clouds):

Or, my favourite, fish and chips, to take away (and give to the seagulls):

And then you could of course buy a net to catch your own...... (fish - not chips, stupid!)

And when it's nearly over, you can stock up on souvenirs and personalised gifts (though you can't take your fish and chips inside - The Management says so!).....

Ah, yes! My valentine and I, we do love to be beside the sea, on our heavenly never-ending holidays:

Oh! [We] do like to be beside the seaside! 

[We] do like to be beside the sea! 

Oh [we] do like to stroll along the Prom, Prom, Prom! 

Where the brass bands play, "Tiddely-om-pom-pom!"

So just let [us] be beside the seaside! 

[We]'ll be beside [ourselves] with glee 

and there's lots of girls beside, 

[We] should like to be beside, beside the seaside, 

beside the sea!

John H. Glover-Kind

1907

{By the way - and far be it from me to intrude here with pedantry, but I thought you might be interested?  February derives from the Latin word, februa, which meant to cleanse.  This period was named after the Roman month-long festival of purification and atonement, then known as Februalia....

Which is obviously why we have half term holidays ..... a bit like dry January perhaps?}

Oh! And there they go!  Barnacle geese flying off into the sunset...

Back to the grindstone.....

February, month of despair,

with a skewered heart in the centre.

Margaret Atwood

February

Winter into Spring

At the still point of the turning world

It's a cold winter dawn. Thousands of Pink-footed Geese rise from the wastes of The Wash.  The air is full of their sounds - voices wink-winking while their wings strike the resistant air.  You feel for them.  The water, and the air, is cold, though they are well covered.  But families have to rise, and with what seems to be a sense of reluctance, they work their muscles to lift.  They are directed to the sugar beet fields where they will spend the day chomping rapidly on the greens, before heading back at dusk in their ragged skeins to the relative safety of The Wash.

A winter special.

On another day, the chilly air tinged toward dusk, thousands of Knot darken the horizon as the tide seeps in.

This is an astonishing spectacle.  Depending on the tides, and the winds, the time of day and your availability, you can watch while thousands (maybe even tens of) of birds explode into the air, distant ships and trees along the far coast taking no notice.....

Oystercatchers remain grounded, seemingly unperturbed by the whirring mass of Knot above their heads.....

Later in the day, however, I catch a spray of them (the Oystercatchers) heading across the waves in their turn......

Meanwhile, uncertain, skipping the incoming waters, a group of Sanderling (and a trio of Turnstone) gather on the shoreline to-ing and fro-ing like clockwork as the tide advances.

At the same time (correct me if I err) a squabble of Dunlin probe the mud, less worried about the incoming waters....

And occasionally you can see Knot as individuals - their winter plumage not unlike so many others - stabbing at the muddy shallows.  

 

While a pair of Bar-tailed Godwits (hard to believe, but.... a Bar-tailed Godwit sets world record with 13,560km continuous flight from Alaska to southern Australia - is that why they are called God Wits?) strut their stuff in the shiny shallows.....

Then a Curlew, once a common sight but now sadly diminished, whistles past, its colours again the winter camouflage as so many waders, but the downturned beak a giveaway....

Meanwhile, on the sheltered lagoon behind the sea walls a male Teal floats as easy and majestic as a tiny galleon, proud and unsinkable as can be......

As a shady Goldeneye also trims his sails and respects his plimsoll line.....

And a pair of Wigeon coast past in winter harmony.....

On the beach, flitting nervously about, bright and fancy, I espy a Snow Bunting.....

And then there's an eruption of them, springing their energies across the shingles.....

Their flights are excited and trilling, like a shower of notes from something by Liszt or Chopin - too quick to stop, but light and thrilling....

Inland, a male Stonechat, brightly takes off to evade my view......

And on a frosty fencepost a delicate Meadow Pipit poses for me....

Before realising the risk and taking flight

Though I am not the real risk.  Here a Marsh Harrier prepares for his plunge into the reed bed....

And within sight of the golden cockerel wind vane above the spire of St Mary's a Red Kite parades with the remains of some hapless chicken.....

Down to earth, a Little Egret rests on the edge of the marsh.....

And a Grey Heron stalks quietly to find a fishing hole.....

I love the world of birds - constantly uplifting, brilliantly alive. I am not twitcher, no ornithologist, nor even a birder.  I just love to see the disciples of St Francis take the air, and I love to hear their shrill calls, or their mellifluous songs.  I take solace in sharing this planet with so much diversity, so many individual lives, though I worry that today is not tomorrow, and sadly fear that we are gradually destroying what could have once been paradise.

And it is not only for the birds.  I face a gentle red-poll heifer in the frosted field, her look of bemused trust an accusation that I have not used all my power to make things better....

And later, in the shallow sunshine a hare sits softly in thought, unaware of the dangers around the corner.  What a mad world this is.

And as I slowly creep back to my overheated home, to restore my pampered bones with a bath and a glass, a tiny Wren shrieks at me to remember to love the world, and not just myself.....

And then, breaking the air waves, a swan wings over me, majestic in its sinuous agility. If only I could fly like that! If only I could walk like that! If only I could be like that......

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.

All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,

The first time on this shore,

The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

Trod with a lighter tread.

William Butler Yeats

The Wild Swans at Coole

The nights are cold, but the sun has been shining, warming the air.  Winter will be gone, though the passage to Spring is never without surprises.  The birds in my garden watch for my scattered feeds, hungry to keep themselves alive, though with gleams of the snowdrops and the rising daffodils the sap is rising in everything.  I have seen Harriers dancing and Kites prancing - it won't be long before the Hares are mad.....

At the still point of the turning world, neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

Burnt Norton

T. S. Eliot (1888 – 1965)

Let us dance.......