Wednesday, February 15, 2012

A veteran painter’s passion for landscapes

The Royal Academy of Arts presents the first major show of new landscape paintings by David Hockney RA. It features vivid paintings largely inspired by the East Yorkshire landscape. The large-scale artworks have been created specifically for the galleries located at the Royal Academy of Arts.

'David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture' essentially spans a five decade period to demonstrate David Hockney’s long fascination with the deft depiction of landscape and its continued exploration. The exhibit is comprised of a display of his dazzling iPad drawings plus a series of new films that have been produced using 18 cameras, displayed on multiple screens. They provide a visual journey, which is truly spellbinding, and more so through the artist’s eyes.

Overall, it demonstrates of David Hockney’s energy and curiosity in embracing the landscape art’s possibilities. In works made essentially from observation, from imagination and memory, and also with the assistance of technological as well as visual aids, his virtuosity across a wide variety of media and his innovative approach to image-making let him evoke landscape and so the space – the real ‘bigger picture’ based on his own vision.

His knowledge of, and acknowledged debt to, masters of the bygone era are in evidence, as is his usage of scale in order to broaden the landscape view. Above all, the exhibit places him firmly in the illustrious British landscape painters’ tradition, such as Constable, associated with an area of natural beauty.

The Royal Academy has tried to group most of his paintings with considerable effect into a succinct series of locational themes arranged in a sequence of galleries, which embrace you with a place even while delighting you with their seasonal variation. By incorporating a range of styles, modes and techniques of draughtsmanship, the show strives to capture the magic and inner beauty of his oeuvre – that’s what ‘A Bigger Picture of artist David Hockney RA’ is all about…

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