One of our grand-daughters is staying with us at the moment, and we took advantage of her visit this afternoon to visit the David Hockney gallery in Saltaire. I suppose it is normal that although we live within five miles of Saltaire, and in theory could go there at any time, it takes the arrival of a visitor to galvanise us into action. I’ve visited the gallery on many occasions in the past, of course, but never since his new A Year in Normandy was installed there. It is an impressive achievement, but I feel that there are some unsatisfactory aspects to it.
On the positive side, I was delighted by Hockney’s ability to endow every tree with a sense of individuality. Nothing is “generic”: everything is a consequence of direct observation. I do admire his sense of light. On the other hand, I cannot believe that there was only one day of rain in a whole Norman year! Come off it! Northern France is not a land of perpetual sunshine. I came away feeling that perhaps this is not, after all, a place subjected to Hockney’s well-known capacity for careful observation, but a fantasy land …. a kind of Shangri-La. It is an impression heightened by the somewhat unnatural intensity of his greens. I couldn’t really believe in it.
This is a large art-work, and I’m sure that I need to go back again in order to form a proper impression of it. On this first encounter, however, I have to confess to having been under-whelmed. Is this a consequence of the immense hype that accompanied its unveiling to tavidhe public?