“Spring is very energising to me. I was in California for 30 years – you get spring there but it’s very slight – so when you come back the seasons hit you a lot more. I realised there was something I’d missed. Spring is a wonderful event to watch and I’m a very visual person.”
—David Hockney

The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) is a groundbreaking 52-part series of digital landscape works by British artist David Hockney. Depicting the gradual change from Winter to Spring, each work captures a scene from a country lane in Woldgate Woods in his native East Yorkshire.

Hockney is lauded for his innovative figurative work and expert use of colour; yet landscape painting has nevertheless remained a constant feature throughout his vast oeuvre. Whether it be distant views of the Californian hills or bright, almost fauvist interpretations of the scenery around him, the Yorkshire-born artist has always demonstrated an affinity for capturing his immediate environment. Drawing on influences from his long-established career and the beautiful surroundings of the ancient Roman road of Woldgate, this series assertively gestures Hockney’s iconic genre of landscape painting. In true Hockney fashion, the work is distinguished with the then 74-year-old’s use of an iPad in lieu of traditional paints and canvas.

In the face of a medium that lacks the traditional facets of texture and colour-blending, Hockney shows his deft command of the device with the execution of a multitude of varying brushstrokes, layers and opacity. Even as a digital series, the works retain a distinctive, painterly feel. Loose and expressive brushstrokes serve to create texture and depth, adding a sense of dynamism to a traditional subject matter, whilst warm tones of the woodland coalesce with sharp, vibrant greens of emerging vegetation. The result is a work that feels full of life and captures the timeless experience of the gentle passage of Winter into Spring.

Whilst the use of technology gives the work a uniquely contemporary feel, it is nevertheless instantly recognizable as a quintessential British landscape; reminiscent of works by titans of the genre such as Thomas Gainsborough, William Turner and Paul Nash. In particular, the picturesque vision of a winding country lane is evocative of renowned British landscape artist John Constable’s The Cornfield (1826). Much like Hockney, Constable frequently drew inspiration from his Suffolk surroundings. In The Cornfield, careful brushwork highlights the vivid foliage of late Spring, and he successfully evokes an atmosphere that invites the viewer to imagine a sunny day in the English countryside. Constable’s prowess in capturing the essence of the British landscape is something clearly referenced in Hockney’s Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, which stands as a joyous reflection of the tradition of British landscape art that stands before it.

John Constable, The Cornfield, 1826, oil on canvas, The National Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Despite nearly two centuries separating these works, both artists are successful in the evocation of a specific and familiar season within rural England. Like Hockney, Constable painted The Cornfield between January-March; however, he was restricted by having to paint a draft en plein air before finishing the work in his studio.ⁱ Hockney believes that the ‘arrival of spring can’t be done in one picture’, and he has utilised technology to create a series of works that are able to accurately capture and reflect the slow evolution from one season to another.ⁱⁱ The vibrancy and clarity of the tones produced by the iPad give the work an almost dream-like quality, and depicts the full spectrum of a British spring in a way that has not been seen before.

“His art is as remarkable for its embrace of tradition as it is for its restless innovation.”
—Tim Barringer

Consistently throughout Hockney’s work, he teases a nuanced duality between traditional art history and pursuing work that feels fresh and new. Over the span of forty years, he has employed the latest technology - the camera, the fax machine, the iPhone and the iPad – as a means of furthering the possibilities of his art. The present example results in a work that feels both classical and progressive; an homage to the great British tradition of landscape painting in a decisively 21^st Century medium.

ⁱ The National Gallery, John Constable, The Cornfield, online.

ⁱⁱJackie Wullschlager, ‘Blue-sky painting’, The Financial Times, 13 January 2012, online.
- 來源
  紐約佩斯畫廊
  現藏者購自上述來源
- 過往展覽
  London, Royal Academy of Arts; Bilbao, Guggenheim Museum; Cologne, Museum Ludwig, David Hochney RA: A Bigger Picture, 21 January - 4 February 2013, pl. 119.12, p. 230 (another example exhibited and illustrated)
- 藝術家簡介
  大衛．霍克尼
  David Hockney (b. 1937) is one of the most well-known and celebrated artists of the
  20th and 21st centuries. He works across many mediums, including painting, collage,
  and more recently digitally, by creating print series on iPads. His works show semi-
  abstract representations of domestic life, human relationships, floral, fauna, and the
  changing of seasons.
  
  Hockney has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Royal
  Academy of Arts in London, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, among many
  other institutions. On the secondary market, his work has sold for more than $90
  million.
  
  瀏覽更多作品