I’m writing this as I am about to leave for the weekly life-drawing class I attend. I always look forward to it, and it is always able to offer an interesting challenge. The instructor invariably has some new medium or approach he wants us to try. I never have the faintest idea what will be expected of me, other than that there will be a model who will be the centre of our attention….and we will be required to look.
After breakfast this morning I was listening to an interview with David Hockney on the radio. It seems that a new exhibition is about to open in Amsterdam, which places side by side work by Hockney and by Vincent Van Gogh. What an imaginative idea! I’m tempted to make the effort to go and see it. In the interview Hockney was lauding Van Gogh’s capacity to look. This has always been a central point in Hockney’s view of what an artist is supposed to be doing. Looking and drawing are the twin pillars of his art, as I understand it.
This clearly connects with the approach taken by the instructor at the life-drawing class. The purpose and interest of all of these different technical devices and approaches he lays upon us is precisely that are compelled to look (hard) in different ways. He seems to be saying to us, “Just look!” Evidently the is a man after Hockney’s own heart.