Watching this incredible painter who speaks his truth. “The camera cannot compete with painting” ....”Make the paintings demonstrate the vividness of nature”. Bold, honest and brazenly honest ...at 59 I feel there is a flatness to the world which frustrates my work inside my home, that only painting can explore. I am painting from photography not in nature. Get up early, go outside....and do the work 🥰
He is right. The camera cannot pick everything that an artist sees. It might help with looking at shadows and shapes but never the details that make a painting come alive. Those brush strokes and marks that make it unique.
Excellent. Plein air painting is the only way to get to know the landscape. The camera records a split second image; the painter selects, emphasises, and by instilling emotion and a personal vision, creates a work of art. I saw this documentary when it was first aired on tv; l seem to remember a car stopping and the driver chatting to Hockney, unaware, l think, of who he was!
A painter can record in their minds the vivid recollections of seeing something continually and transfer that onto a canvas. A photographic reference does not limit your imagination.
David Hockney's paintings art are truly iconic, especially when it comes to swimming pools. I never knew he has the guts to paint landscapes on a strong windy season which pushed off his canvas and takes hours to finish it.
I agree. It was an extraordinary thing to see unfold. He had done the same for Southern California but nevertheless it was surprising that David decided to turn his visual curiosity towards his native Yorkshire, and then to continue for such an extended time.
I love his thinking and colours - simply inspiring. I have read some places that some critics say he can't really paint. Mostly it's coming from people who are trying to be a new version of various impressionists or Rembrandt and the likes..
What does can’t really paint mean ? Who has the critical ability to say what constitutes a good painting ? When Monet first showed his water lilies works he was met with a lot of harsh criticism and yet now they are deemed to be masterpieces. Art critics are often wrong as many don’t have the same foresight of vision as the artist. Much great innovative work is confusing precisely because it’s new and creates its own paradigm. It’s fine to say I don’t like or understand this work but unfortunately many people can’t separate the subjective from the objective. Hockney is going to attract much negativity precisely for these reasons. Personally, I love his work and think his naive and direct painterly style is deliberate but also misunderstood by many.
Had he not been famous already all his landscapes are pretty common works you only have to look in social sites and galleries to see thousands like it and even lot better ones.Art is commodity like anything else people appreciate what others tell them its worth...Not saying his late works are not good just not special or unique.
I disagree. I find the Yorkshire work very moving. Through his long career I feel he hit quite a few peaks of genius. Not sure what you mean by trappings. Usually this means the non-art, worldly side. In terms of getting trapped into repetition, I think he's mostly managed to avoid that, unlike many of his contemporaries (I'm thinking especially of the pop painters).
As the announcer (narrator and writer) I can probably tell you! In part the line is there to explain what David Hockney says next, about feeling empty in CA. In personal terms, a close friend of his in LA had died recently. Also his friend and lover John Fitzherbert had had visa problems and could no longer enter the US. He was also after an artistic challenge, which going back to Yorkshire to revitalise the English landscape painting tradition was to satisfy.
One can certainly appreciate Hockney's enthusiasm and dedication. However, can't agree with his observations, and hope that he will now actually learn how to paint. (Perhaps George Dubya Bush could provide him a few pointers)
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I’ve always thought his work was nothing special, along with the work of quite a few other acclaimed, contemporary artists. Not the same BS as, say, Pollock, Rothko or Robert Motherwell, just nothing special. What, unfortunately, cemented my view was one of my closest friends commenting that I was ‘not intelligent enough to understand his work’. Naturally, my pal is, therefore, ‘intelligent enough’. The same mate, who I love dearly, also rates the latest vocal offerings from Yoko Ono and can lose himself in Eric Dolphy’s ‘Out to Lunch’. Daily I count my blessings having being born so cognitively deficient.
Of course camera can photograph everything, he's strange. We paint so it doesn't look like a photo and some paint to make it indistinguishable from a photo. This was so bizarre.
David's proposition is that the camera can only represent space in a very limited way, something he has tried to argue for many years. With his polaroids and joiners he tried to show how photography could get round these limitations. In Yorkshire he was trying to show the superiority of painting in depicting space, and invited me, one might say ironically, to prove his case by recording him with my camera! The short film with David at the Getty with his Pear Blossom Highway is worth looking at: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-H7fKg8_TMpI.html
That was one of the fun parts of making the film, the dialogue between DH's painting and my (then very basic) video camera, a dialogue that could never be wholly equal! His attitude to photography has always been ambivalent. All the 'plein air' paintings were photographed by his assistant, and later in the day DH would watch the sequence of photos as a slide show, something included in the documentary. Then photography became crucial to the construction of the larger paintings. Did you like the film?
Seems a likable chap, but seriously now, he is not a very good painter. Quite sophomoric. I would say he has all the trappings of someone who has always been far overrated by most everyone.
Just like Van Gogh wasn’t a very good painter in his day - Hockney is in the same league; ahead of his time and misunderstood by many. He’s undoubtedly a modernist master and I have to disagree with your view.
@@peterelmer9114 Peter, that's fine to disagree. But I bring quite a bit to the table with my opinion as far as credentials, knowledge of art history having studied with some of the top art historians, quite a few decades focused on art and art appreciation, several degrees in fine arts, and numerous artworks in many top collections and museums. Perhaps you do too. Anyway, I am wildly appreciative of Van Gogh, have studied every work he ever did (still extant), have read every page of the 1600 page 3 volume book set of his letters, etc etc. I could go on. Anyway, I could never agree that Hockney is ahead of his time. I see him as a very minor artist who happened to do campy things in tune with the vapid superficial present day culture and times. He has more in common with someone like Grandma Moses: an unskilled oddity who is now valued and popular nonetheless.
@@KpxUrz5745 ; Obviously you have the right to your opinion and to the subjectivity of your personal vision. I’ve painted for many years and have two degrees in fine art so I come from a position of much experience too. If you don’t like Hockney that’s ok with me but I feel that you’re missing something essential about his work - especially the “Bigger Picture” series. Explaining why something is good or even possibly great is not easy but, for me, Hockney’s work is great because it is simply direct and confident; it’s naivety is its beauty and it’s the epitome of a reductive and synthetic form of kitsch modernism. I appreciate your long and thoughtful reply and it took me a while to get Hockney - it “struck” suddenly and unexpectedly - I’m so glad it did 😉
Peter, I enjoy an interesting discussion about Art. Fear not, I do not wish to perpetuate this one on Hockney, and this will be my final commentary. I see this artist as little more than a popular illustrator. An illustrator who has enjoyed more than his share of accolades and wealth. He has enjoyed his career, and congratulate him for his success. Nonetheless, he remains just an illustrator, not a painter in the long lineage of genius painters before him. You suggest that he is ahead of his time, as was Vincent van Gogh, saying that neither was duly recognized in his day. Only part of that is true: van Gogh was not recognized, had almost no sales of artworks, and in fact was psychologically averse to recognition and success, and became quite disturbed when a reviewer began to write good things about his work near the end of his life. Quite opposite the case with Hockney, who has received constant praise, large showings, vast recognition, and has seen sales reach unimaginable sums. He has, through luck, timing, or inexplicable good fortune achieved what very, very few artists ever achieve. And all certainly not because of his talents. Hockney just happens to have a light, loose, almost comical style in tune with our modern shallow values. He is a popular illustrator, as was a similar personality, Andy Warhol. Both had very little real artistic ability, but both became very, very rich after striking upon styles that achieve instant popularity with the masses who know almost nothing about painting and art. Kitsch is the fast track to shallow success. One can bring to mind any great artist of any past decade, generation, or age. Hockney cannot hold a candle to any of them. I have seen his works. And in this video I have seen him paint. I am not at all impressed by his cavalier handling of paint and the brush. Nor do I care for his cartoon-like drawing style. Yes, it is all about kitsch. And, I must say in conclusion, that kitsch is the weakest crutch that any artist can lean on and depend on for popularity. It is not serious art. It simply does not hold up. And that, my friend, is my final word on Hockney.@@peterelmer9114
@@KpxUrz5745 ; I disagree with your analysis I’m afraid. Why does good art have to be serious ? Hockney’s handling of paint is deliberately kitsch and in-line with a post-modern viewpoint challenges traditional values. The Royal academy is highly unlikely to recognise and display second-rate work and he’s famous because of the innovative nature of his style. I feel that your comparison with Grandma Moses is misaligned and as I said in my earlier comment it took me a while to “get” Hockney. Great art challenges paradigms and canons and he certainly does that.
Just awful. He's managed to convince several people, including himself, that everything he does is a work of genius regardless of how little effort he puts into it.
