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David Hockney
British Contemporary Artist
Born 1937 Bradford
David Hockney
British Contemporary Artist
Born 1937 Bradford
Subject
Matter
Choice of subject matter; sources of inspiration and
influence; effect on the work.
Style
Influences on the artist. ’Trademark’ response to the
subject in terms of how the artist has used the media.
Media
Handling
Choice of subject matter and media; how the artist has
used the media and used sources of inspiration and
influence.
Visual
Elements
Line; Tone;Colour;Shape; Texture; Pattern; how they
Have been combined/ applied; their effect on the work.
Composition
Scale
Mood
And
Atmosphere
Arrangement; (pose in figure); viewpoint; focal point;
how things are arranged on the canvas; how space is
used.
The size of the work; the artist’s choice of scale to
create effect in the work; the comparison between
items of differing scale.
How the mood and atmosphere of the work has
been created; what the work communicates
to the viewer; how it makes them feel.
David Hockney
David Hockney is a British contemporary artist.
He is a fascinating artist because his work has
developed so much over the course of his career.
He has continuously found new subject matter and
ways of producing his work. He is currently
working with draw and paint applications,
producing images on his i pad and
i phone.
His working life to date spans approximately sixty
years. Throughout this time Hockney has
experimented with many different types of media,
including watercolour, oil and acrylic paint, and
photography.
Hockney was influenced by the impressionist and
post impressionist styles; particularily
expressionism and cubism. Pop Art too influenced
his working style in the 1960’s and 70’s
He was born in Bradford, Yorkshire. He attended
Bradford College of Art and The Royal College of
Art in London.
Born 1937
Impressionism was the
name given to a new style of painting adopted by
a group of artists in France around . The name
‘Impressionism’ suggests that the artists were
trying to capture an impression or ‘the moment’
in their work. These artists worked quickly using
short brushstrokes and dabs of pure colour. They
worked ‘in situ’. This means that they worked in
the situation e.g. outdoors, or with the subjects
present so that they could capture what they
could see. Monet, Pissaro, Degas, Cezanne &
Renoir are regarded as famous impressionist
artists.
Impression Sunrise 1872 Claude Monet
Modern life and the way that ordinary people
spent their free time were popular subjects with
many Impressionist painters. They showed us
the theatres, cafés, and popular countryside
resorts of late 19th-century Paris.
Luncheon of the boating party 1881
Auguste Renoir
Post Impressionism was
the name given to the style adopted by many artists
who were influenced by the work of the impressionist
artists early on in their careers. They then continued
to develop and exaggerate their own style. Cezanne,
Van Gogh, Matisse, Gauguin & Seurat are all post
impressionist artists. Pointillism, Expressionism,
Cubism and Fauvism are all styles whose
foundations are found within the Post Impressionist
movement.
Van Gogh ... Expressionism
Cezanne … Cubism
Seurat … Pointillism
Matisse … Fauvism
Hockney’s
Subject
Matter
Portraits
Friends, parents, and
lovers.
Landscape
Swimming pools, the
Hollywood Hills,
American landscapes,
Yorkshire landscapes.
Still Life
Plants and flowers, fruit,
table tops with assorted
objects
Hockney’s Style
1960’s – 70’s
In his earliest work Hockney painted in an
impressionistic way. With subdued colours and
brushstrokes in evidence. However when he left
England to go to America in the 1960’s his work
became much bolder, brighter and more colourful.
This was mostly because of the different climate in
California. Blue skies and bright sunshine meant
that colour became more vibrant.
Hockney was influenced by Pop Art. This means
that images depicting popular American culture
feature in paintings. For Hockney, swimming pools
in back gardens were an example of this culture: in
stark contrast to the lives of ordinary British people
at that time. Hockney used acrylic paint and
applied it flat in a less realistic style.
In this painting Hockney was determined to
capture ‘the moment’ of the splash.
Flat blocks of colour, shape and pattern is evident
in Hockney’s work from this period.
A Bigger Splash
1967
My parents
1977
Hockney’s Style
Between 1970 and 1986, Hockney created
photomontages, calling them joiners. He began
this style of art by taking Polaroid photographs
of one subject and arranging them into a grid
layout. The subject moved while being
photographed, so that the pieces show the
movements of the subject from the camera's
perspective. In later works, Hockney changed
the technique, moving the camera around the
subject.
Creation of the "joiners" occurred accidentally.
He noticed in the late sixties that photographers
were using cameras with wide-angle lenses. He
did not like these photographs because they
looked somewhat distorted. He began to work
more with photography and stopped painting for
a while to exclusively pursue this new
technique. Frustrated with the limitations of
photography and its 'one eyed' approach,
however, he returned to painting.
1980’s 1990’s
Mother
Pearlblossom Highway April 11-18 1986
Hockney’s
Style
During the late 1990’s Hockney returned to
England and began to re-discover the
landscape that he had left behind for sunny
California in the 1960’s.
He found the landscape of east Yorkshire to
be beautiful and was very taken with the
subtlety of colour.
His painting style became very focused on
colour, shape pattern and texture. His work
from this time is not representational but is
stylised and decorative.
Brushstrokes are evident. He uses dashes
and dabs. In some areas the paint is applied
flat and without tone. Outline is sometimes
used. Refer to Impressionism, Post
Impressionism, especially Expressionism
and Fauvism.
1990’s - 2009
Hockney’s
Style
Since 2009, Hockney has painted
hundreds of portraits, still lifes and
landscapes using the Brushes iPhone
and iPad application, often sending
them to his friends. His show Fleurs
fraîches (Fresh flowers) was held at La
Fondation Pierre Bergé in Paris. A
Fresh-Flowers exhibition opened in
2011 at the Royal Ontario Museum in
Toronto, Canada, featuring more than
100 of his drawings on 25 iPads and
20 iPods. In late 2011, Hockney
revisited California to paint Yosemite
National Park on his iPad.
In these paintings Hockney’s style
remains as before; looking for colour,
light, shape, pattern and texture but
using a different medium.
2009 -
Hockney’s
Media
Handling
Hockney has experimented with many different types of media during his career.
Oil Paint
Hockney has applied the paint thickly in
order to achieve the texture in this
landscape. The paint stands up off the
surface of the painting. Brushstrokes are
evident here.
How has Hockney used the tools in his
‘Brushes’ app to show all the visual
elements in this still life?
i Pad
Hockney’s
Media
Handling
Photographs
Acrylic Paint
Acrylic paint can be applied flat in order to
give a smooth surface. Colours can be
blended giving an almost realistic but
stylised appearance.
Using Polaroid snaps or photo lab-prints of a single subject, Hockney arranged a
patchwork to make a composite image. Because the photographs are taken from
different perspectives and at slightly different times, the result is work that has an affinity
with Cubism.
Cubism
from Post Impressionism
“ Treat nature in terms of the cylinder, the cube and
the cone”
Cubism was one of the most influential visual art styles of the
early twentieth century. It was created by Pablo Picasso
(Spanish, 1881–1973) and Georges Braque (French, 1882–
1963) in Paris between 1907 and 1914. The French art critic
Louis Vauxcelles coined the term Cubism after seeing the
landscapes Braque had painted in 1908 at L'Estaque in the
style of of Cézanne. Vauxcelles called the geometric forms in
the highly abstracted works "cubes." Other influences on early
Cubism have been linked to African art. Picasso had first seen
African art when, in May or June 1907, he visited the
ethnographic museum in the Palais du Trocadéro in Paris.
Weeping Woman
Picasso
The Cubist painters rejected the idea that art should copy
nature, or that they should adopt the traditional techniques of
perspective and modelling. They wanted instead to emphasize
the two-dimensionality of the canvas. So they reduced and
fractured objects into geometric forms, and then realigned
these within a shallow, relieflike space. They also used multiple
or contrasting vantage points.
Terrace of Hotel Mistral
Braque
Hockney’s
Visual
Elements
The use of Colour in this
landscape is non representational,
and the use of contrasting
colours is very effective.
Yellow / Purple
Red / Green
Blue / Orange
Shape is very evident in this double
portrait. The two figures form bold shapes
against the paler background. Each
object makes a shape arranged carefully
within the composition. Even the
background is divided into areas or
shapes.
In this painting the logs form
Lines which draw our eyes
in to the Focal
Point
Tone
Texture and Pattern are very
evident in this landscape which is
made up of six separate paintings.
is used in a
representational
way in this i pad
still life drawing
and in these
portraits.
Hockney’s
Composition
A sense of perspective is very clear in many
of Hockney’s paintings. Your eye is drawn to
the focal point because of angles and lines
in the composition.
Hockney uses classic composition
techniques incorporating triangles and
diagonals within his work. Like many
other artists and photographers he uses
the rule of thirds.
Hockney’s
Scale
Much of Hockney’s work is very large in scale.
Especially in the latest landscape paintings of Yorkshire
and in his ‘Joiners’.
Hockney shows the grandeur of each scene by working
in such a large scale and each canvas or photograph is
treated as an individual study, with all the visual
elements evident in each one.
Hockney’s
Scale
Hockney’s
Mood and
Atmosphere
The Mood and Atmosphere of
Hockney’s work has changed
dramatically from his early subtle,
muddy, colours and dull atmospheres
to the bright, sunny California
paintings.
1971
Colour and light contribute to Mood and
Atmosphere. The Impressionists and Post
Impressionists tried to capture ‘the moment’;
the changing effects of light. They
influenced Hockney and many modern
painters in trying to create Mood and
Atmosphere in this way
1956
Hockney’s
Mood and
Atmosphere
In Hockney’s more recent work he has
returned to his native Yorkshire and is
delighting in the glowing and rich
colours he sees in this landscape. The
mood and Atmoshere in these paintings
is again suggested by light and colour.
Often there is no sun and the scene
appears cold as none of the colours
used are warm or glow. Bright sunlight
or strong directional light lifts the mood
in the still life and landscape below..
Hockney’s
Mood and
Atmosphere
In this double portrait of
Hockney’s parents, Mood and
Atmosphere is created by
colour, light, composition and
how his parents relate to one
another. Hockney’s mother is
sitting quietly, patiently while
her husband is simply reading
the newspaper, not willing to
‘just sit’. Neither is talking but
we have the feeling that they
are content in each other’s
company, each doing
something different, but
together at the same time. The
sideboard placed between
them seems to give a sense of
distance.
Hockney’s
Media
Handling
Here is a short film which explains how Hockney made the
landscape paintings in his exhibition
‘A Bigger Picture’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IZCaeF3
AdgHockney on A Bigger Picture