Hockney takes us on a tour of the Fitzwilliam

 

Hockney makes us look at pictures again: not just at his own pictures, but as assembled here, alongside classic art, and, whether his ideas are right or wrong, he forces us to view the familiar images differently. 

The layout is simple. Instead of a room full of Hockney works, his works, and almost as important, his comments, are distributed around the entire Fitzwilliam. Here is an artist willing to engage with the existing historical art – a brave man. He makes so many claims! For example, that the detailed topographical 18th-century works by Canaletto and relatives were probably done using an optical device to display an image on the paper or canvas. Similarly, portraits by Ingres and others used the same tools. He then openly tells you how his own works are done using the camera lucida, or the camera obscura, or simply from photographs. He appears to tear up the rules, or, more precisely, makes you think about what the rules are.

His take on perspective is marvellous: not for Hockney a slavish one-point or two-point perspective, but a painting that appears to converge on the viewer. 

His view of photography? There is nothing wrong with it, except that it has only a single viewpoint. To demonstrate his point, there is a video installation with nine screens, showing the same country road landscape. Except that as you look at the screens you realise that what you thought was nine linked images is  shot from a slightly different viewpoint.  The effect is slightly disorienting, but a remarkable comment on static viewpoints. He claims that as you move around you see a landscape from many different viewpoints, while photography can capture only one. 

Are his own works all based on mechanical devices? It would seem not. Some of this most effective works were done on an iPad, and do not appear to be based on any kind of template. They are in a simplified, caricature-like style that is very distinctive, but respectful of the landscape depicted.

Hockney is humble, which is remarkable for an artist of his stature, and you feel you are looking at the Fitzwilliam paintings with a fresh eye: Hockney’s.