Hockney - a true master

With the passing of David Hockney we have lost something precious: a master of his work.  I tend to think there are three pre-requisites for genuine artistry: that the artist should first be a complete master of the technicalities - craft before art; that they should have a fine eye (or ear) for abstraction; and boundless productivity.  Some might say that Vermeer provides a counter-example to the third of these, but I'd say that's a rarity.

Hockney had it all.   His output was legendary, of course: and his technical skills were that of an outright genius.  I recall a small, simple drawing he made of a muddy lane, and you could tell that what one was looking at was the indentations in the soft ground of where a pile of logs had been resting until recently at the roadside.  As if one was there. This is extraordinary stuff.

Crayon sketch: I did this - in homage - 50 years ago

The quick Guardian obit refers to "his fascination with perspective" but I don't think that's quite right.  Mere perspective is old hat: it was a fascination with depth, and how it can be conveyed in two-dimensional media - and in this, he was truly a revolutionary, going way beyond other depth-masters (Monet comes first to mind) in finding new ways to convey what all sighted people with two eyes experience all the time.  In particular, he worked on depth in its 4 dimensions, finding tech-facilitated ways to capture and portray the temporal aspect that always arises, because we can often only perceive depth by changing our point of view over an interval of time.   

His extremely well thought-out views on abstraction are important, too: and the accuracy of his eye in this regard was never in doubt.  In terms of mastery, abstraction and output he was the equal of Picasso (possibly also as innovator), though to different effect as he never really sought to go beyond the figurative.  He knew, though, as every good photographer does, that abstraction is at the heart of figurative representation.

ND