the arrival of spring in woldgate, east yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) (detail)
one of a 52 part work, oil on 32 canvases
each 91.4 x 121.9 cm
Image © David Hockney. All Rights Reserved.
Complete image
From: David Hockney - A Bigger Picture, UK Book.
20.01.12: painting details
Woldgate is a road in the country outside Bridlington, East Yorkshire. In the 2012 Royal Academy A Biggger Picture exhibition this would be, for me, the central pont to the whole exhibition though that is subjective. But its size blows me away every time I think of it. You, the invisible viewer, could be on that pathway, walking into a forest of bright colours to a place better than anything you have ever known. We, the viewer, are there, before it, a pathway leading into the bright colours of a kind of Heaven on Earth.
The foliage in the foreground seems to float, the branches acting like the supposedly 'unseen' which held the spacecrafts up in the classic film War of the Worlds. Magically, they appear in the air, and give the overall picture an ethereal quality.
It is really one of those pictures that needs to be seen in the flesh to fully appreciate it, maybe even love it. But it stands alone even among the marvellous ipad drawings or, at least acts like a kind of Queen Bee for its ipad helpers to serve.
Is David Hockney the greatest living Englishman? I can't think of anyone better.
Text: Paul Page, 2012
20.01.12: a bigger picture book & exhibition
David Hockney - A Bigger Picture, UK Book.
Accompanies the acclaimed 2012 Royal Academy Exhibition. Details: here. Details: exhibition.
Book Available: Amazon.co.uk
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Image © David Hockney
All Rights Reserved.