Of all the exhibitions I saw recently whilst in London, the retrospective of David Hockney's Landscapes at the Royal Academy was leaps and bounds ahead of the others. Hockney is from Bradford and after a long stretch of his work representing the wealth and leisure of California, where he lived a while, he returned to the Yorkshire countryside. The Yorkshire Hockney depicts is a far cry from the grey-purple rolling hills I see when I visit, yet feel strangely nostalgic. Created between 2004- 2011, Hockney used a range of media to re-visit Yorkshire and it is a powerful, colourful journey that his art takes you on.
What struck me first, and continuously throughout the exhibition, was Hockney's use of colour. Like I said, Yorkshire never looked this bright to me. Hockney is no realist though, his art doesn't tell you what's there, it captures how you feel. The striking colour is a celebration of the countryside, the unspoilt land and the power of nature. The Thixendale Trees show the same scene in four seasons. These enormous images use the motif of the tree through different life stages to show the passing of time and the recurrence of themes- fitting for a retrospect.
As well as celebrating nature, Hockney embraces new media. Famous for his experiments with photography and film earlier in his career, Hockney uses this retrospective to look beyond the acceptability once more and shows a series of images he created on his iPad. It is impossible to think of these images as anything but artistic genius when they are seen, reinstating Hockney as the master of the new.
My Grandma lives in Haworth, nestled in the Yorkshire Moors. I can empathise with Hockney's desire to show off the beautiful countryside from these parts. I did worry though, that showing off Yorkshire as an idyllic symbol of rural life, in fine galleries at the Royal Academy, is potentially quite ignorant of an area of the country which is in dire financial straits. His depiction of Saltaire, a once glorious town at the height of the Industrial Revolution, bears not mark of the horrors of unemployment faced by the redundant workforce of the failed manufacturing industry. Instead, this painting shows Saltaire Mills as a proud site of Industrial heritage.
Proud is a good way to sum up the exhibition in fact. Hockney is clearly proud of his heritage and his country side, and for giving art back to the North, I'm proud of him. I certainly left the gallery feeling extremely smug to have thought 'I know where that is!' on my way around the exhibition.
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/hockney/
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