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拍品专文
‘There was no question about Parade’s French ambience. The large, free-form blue, red and green shapes in L’Enfant’s garden scene are as evocative of Matisse as of childhood perceptions. Like the fauve painters, Hockney allowed himself to regard the world with innocent eyes. The final image of the garden scene is an enormous tree whose thick red trunk and branches are abstract shapes that vibrate against dense blue foliage. Because he “sees” music colouristically, he sought to match Ravel’s tonalities in colour in his opera design. It is as if the child-hero of L’Enfant had envisaged the garden’ (M. Freidman, ‘Painting into Theatre’, in Hockney Paints the Stage, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery, London, 1985, p. 43).
Reaching nearly two metres in height, David Hockney propels the viewer into another world – a child-like realm filled with primary colour, sumptuous texture and a delight in nature in Ravel’s Garden 3. Royal blues, rich, verdant greens and bright reds dance together upon the canvas to create a vibrant scene depicting three trees set in a field. This large-scale work allows the viewer to enter into the space created by Hockney, as he invites us to share in the pleasures he finds in nature – perhaps referring to his native Yorkshire, which he has painted throughout his oeuvre. Each gestural brushstroke on the grass has been left visible, as Hockney ensures that his presence is felt in this expression of a personal vision. Contrasting the flat, unbroken colour of the trees, their leaves combining into one blue mass, with the richly textural grass, Hockney presents a scene that evokes a luscious garden through his astute use of colour and surface texture.
The work was created in 1980 coinciding with his set designs for Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, shown as part of a triple-bill of operas entitled Parade at the Metropolitan Opera in 1981. Hockney was well aware that his art-historical idol, Pablo Picasso, had famously designed a stage set for Parade, and he took on the challenge with a renewed painterly energy and to great success. Inspired by the melody of L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, Hockney has produced a sumptuous piece that stands alone as an exquisite example of his work, exemplifying the artist’s on-going passion for both nature and the emotive power of pure colour. Like much of the best of Hockney’s oeuvre, the present work is remarkable for its embrace of tradition along with a restless innovation, displaying a child-like simplicity with a sophisticated range of art historical reference.
‘In the summer of 1980 … I saw the great Picasso retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and it just made me want to paint. I still had to do things for Parade, but the exhibition affected me so much I though, God, if you want to paint, just paint. I though, if Picasso was here and he had to work on Parade, what he would do would be to make paintings of the sets instead of doing them as gouaches – so that’s what I did. In London I filled Pembroke Studios’ (D. Hockney, That’s the Way I see it, London 1993, p. 62).
By flattening the picture plane and selecting only the essential details necessary to describe the form, the clarity and precision of the Arcadian scene Hockney demonstrates his ability to realise his artistic vision with a vivid immediacy. Hockney injects the painting with a vivacious energy, created by the movement of lines in all directions, from the curved branches of the trees to the abstracted blue shapes that pierced spots of bright red paint upon the ground, alongside the brushstoke-laden wash of paint that makes up the lush green grass. These painterly elements create a swirling dynamism and an internal energy; the scene appears to be pulsing with life. The surface energy provided by Hockney’s mark-making and energetic application of paint, and the resulting opulent textures, refers back to the work of Vincent Van Gogh. Hockney was always greatly moved by the work of Van Gogh; and admired the manner in which the artist was able to harness natural energy upon a flat canvas through sweeping form and layers of visible, curling brushstroke, as seen in The Mulberry Tree, 1889.
This relationship to the work of Van Gogh demonstrates Hockney’s ‘deeply ingrained memory of artistic traditions, an ability to see the landscape refracted through the accumulated work of countless generations of earlier artists’ (T. Barringer, ‘Seeing with Memory: Hockney and the Masters’ in David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2012, p. 43). In the flat application of paint upon the canvas and the abstraction of form from nature, Hockney also makes reference to the work of Paul Cezanne. Just as Henri Matisse and Picasso both studied Cézanne’s techniques with fascination, here Hockney continues this rich dialogue with the masters of early 20th-century painting who he so admired. An absolute faith in nature was one of Cezanne’s greatest legacies, defined by his renowned comment that he wanted to ‘do Poussin all over again, after nature’ – summarising his desire to reintroduce some of the permanence and classical order from Poussin’s landscapes alongside a fresh representation of natural surroundings. Hockney himself said, ‘if you want to replenish your visual thinking, you have to go back to nature because there’s the infinite there, meaning you can’t think it up’ (D. Hockney, quoted in B. Duggan ‘Why Hockney Went Back to Nature’ at http:/bigthink.com/Picture-This/why-david-hockney-went-back-to-nature [accessed 10 September 2014]).
In his autobiographical piece, That’s the way I see it, Hockney notes of his artistic inspiration and processes in 1980, when Ravel’s Garden 3 was executed, that ‘listening to that French music by Satie, Poulenc and Ravel, I thought the one thing the French were marvellous at, the great painters, was making beautiful marks: Picasso can’t make a bad mark, Dufy makes beautiful marks, Matisse makes beautiful marks’ (D. Hockney, quoted in That’s the way I see it, London 1993, p. 53). Through his mark-making, with a spontaneous application of paint and textural brushstroke, Hockney employs an almost primitivistic imagery that is evocative of our childhood perceptions and draws allusions to the Fauves. Hockney has found solace in the bravura technique and chromatic originality of Matisse and André Derain, and this greatly enriched his work. Using colour as an expression of emotion, Hockney was able to extend his artistic practice to create beautiful and vibrant works. By placing blue next to red, in the trees and the abstract forms upon the grass, Hockney exploits colour theory to produce a pulsating atmosphere, in a way akin to the work of André Derain such as The Turning Road, L’Estaque, 1906. Hockney was inspired by the French master’s expressive language of colour and has expertly harnessed his brilliance at harmonising different hues and shapes. The placement of contrasting colours, such as the blue sky next to the red tree-trunk in Derain’s piece is echoed and extended in the way that Hockney restricts his palette to four shades in Ravel’s Garden 3. In the vibrant chromatic intensity and the use of such abstracted, dynamic forms, it is clear that Hockney has learned much from the Fauves and his ability to imply recognisable forms with the most basic suggestion of pictorial elements and chromatic vitality.
Taking nature itself as his primary inspiration, Hockney’s Ravel’s Garden 3 creates a unique vision informed by the musical cadence of opera that at once draws upon the art historical canon and firmly places the artist within its pantheon of great colourists.
Reaching nearly two metres in height, David Hockney propels the viewer into another world – a child-like realm filled with primary colour, sumptuous texture and a delight in nature in Ravel’s Garden 3. Royal blues, rich, verdant greens and bright reds dance together upon the canvas to create a vibrant scene depicting three trees set in a field. This large-scale work allows the viewer to enter into the space created by Hockney, as he invites us to share in the pleasures he finds in nature – perhaps referring to his native Yorkshire, which he has painted throughout his oeuvre. Each gestural brushstroke on the grass has been left visible, as Hockney ensures that his presence is felt in this expression of a personal vision. Contrasting the flat, unbroken colour of the trees, their leaves combining into one blue mass, with the richly textural grass, Hockney presents a scene that evokes a luscious garden through his astute use of colour and surface texture.
The work was created in 1980 coinciding with his set designs for Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, shown as part of a triple-bill of operas entitled Parade at the Metropolitan Opera in 1981. Hockney was well aware that his art-historical idol, Pablo Picasso, had famously designed a stage set for Parade, and he took on the challenge with a renewed painterly energy and to great success. Inspired by the melody of L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, Hockney has produced a sumptuous piece that stands alone as an exquisite example of his work, exemplifying the artist’s on-going passion for both nature and the emotive power of pure colour. Like much of the best of Hockney’s oeuvre, the present work is remarkable for its embrace of tradition along with a restless innovation, displaying a child-like simplicity with a sophisticated range of art historical reference.
‘In the summer of 1980 … I saw the great Picasso retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and it just made me want to paint. I still had to do things for Parade, but the exhibition affected me so much I though, God, if you want to paint, just paint. I though, if Picasso was here and he had to work on Parade, what he would do would be to make paintings of the sets instead of doing them as gouaches – so that’s what I did. In London I filled Pembroke Studios’ (D. Hockney, That’s the Way I see it, London 1993, p. 62).
By flattening the picture plane and selecting only the essential details necessary to describe the form, the clarity and precision of the Arcadian scene Hockney demonstrates his ability to realise his artistic vision with a vivid immediacy. Hockney injects the painting with a vivacious energy, created by the movement of lines in all directions, from the curved branches of the trees to the abstracted blue shapes that pierced spots of bright red paint upon the ground, alongside the brushstoke-laden wash of paint that makes up the lush green grass. These painterly elements create a swirling dynamism and an internal energy; the scene appears to be pulsing with life. The surface energy provided by Hockney’s mark-making and energetic application of paint, and the resulting opulent textures, refers back to the work of Vincent Van Gogh. Hockney was always greatly moved by the work of Van Gogh; and admired the manner in which the artist was able to harness natural energy upon a flat canvas through sweeping form and layers of visible, curling brushstroke, as seen in The Mulberry Tree, 1889.
This relationship to the work of Van Gogh demonstrates Hockney’s ‘deeply ingrained memory of artistic traditions, an ability to see the landscape refracted through the accumulated work of countless generations of earlier artists’ (T. Barringer, ‘Seeing with Memory: Hockney and the Masters’ in David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2012, p. 43). In the flat application of paint upon the canvas and the abstraction of form from nature, Hockney also makes reference to the work of Paul Cezanne. Just as Henri Matisse and Picasso both studied Cézanne’s techniques with fascination, here Hockney continues this rich dialogue with the masters of early 20th-century painting who he so admired. An absolute faith in nature was one of Cezanne’s greatest legacies, defined by his renowned comment that he wanted to ‘do Poussin all over again, after nature’ – summarising his desire to reintroduce some of the permanence and classical order from Poussin’s landscapes alongside a fresh representation of natural surroundings. Hockney himself said, ‘if you want to replenish your visual thinking, you have to go back to nature because there’s the infinite there, meaning you can’t think it up’ (D. Hockney, quoted in B. Duggan ‘Why Hockney Went Back to Nature’ at http:/bigthink.com/Picture-This/why-david-hockney-went-back-to-nature [accessed 10 September 2014]).
In his autobiographical piece, That’s the way I see it, Hockney notes of his artistic inspiration and processes in 1980, when Ravel’s Garden 3 was executed, that ‘listening to that French music by Satie, Poulenc and Ravel, I thought the one thing the French were marvellous at, the great painters, was making beautiful marks: Picasso can’t make a bad mark, Dufy makes beautiful marks, Matisse makes beautiful marks’ (D. Hockney, quoted in That’s the way I see it, London 1993, p. 53). Through his mark-making, with a spontaneous application of paint and textural brushstroke, Hockney employs an almost primitivistic imagery that is evocative of our childhood perceptions and draws allusions to the Fauves. Hockney has found solace in the bravura technique and chromatic originality of Matisse and André Derain, and this greatly enriched his work. Using colour as an expression of emotion, Hockney was able to extend his artistic practice to create beautiful and vibrant works. By placing blue next to red, in the trees and the abstract forms upon the grass, Hockney exploits colour theory to produce a pulsating atmosphere, in a way akin to the work of André Derain such as The Turning Road, L’Estaque, 1906. Hockney was inspired by the French master’s expressive language of colour and has expertly harnessed his brilliance at harmonising different hues and shapes. The placement of contrasting colours, such as the blue sky next to the red tree-trunk in Derain’s piece is echoed and extended in the way that Hockney restricts his palette to four shades in Ravel’s Garden 3. In the vibrant chromatic intensity and the use of such abstracted, dynamic forms, it is clear that Hockney has learned much from the Fauves and his ability to imply recognisable forms with the most basic suggestion of pictorial elements and chromatic vitality.
Taking nature itself as his primary inspiration, Hockney’s Ravel’s Garden 3 creates a unique vision informed by the musical cadence of opera that at once draws upon the art historical canon and firmly places the artist within its pantheon of great colourists.