Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Details

  • 10 Pages
  • 2415 Words

Career of David Hockney

y Fineberg 241). Picasso's death in 1973 brought about a shift in Hockney's direction as he began work on paintings and prints that were a tribute and an exploration of Picasso's late style. In the previous period Hockney had been investigating the possibilities of Realism and the two crayon drawings Celia in a Black Dress with White Flowers (1972) and Celia Wearing Checked Sleeves (1973) are from that era. Even in that period, especially in the second drawing, the influence of Picasso is clear. The almost monumental quality of Celia's head and the classical appearance of the hair recall Picasso's late concentration on simply-drawn classicized women.

But Realism also "favors a persistent, even delirious embrace of the world as constituted, while always attuning itself to the endless necessity for modification of conventional doctrine and practice" (Knight 23). Since realism is the most common of the styles handed down from the past the artist who employs it faces serious challenges in attempting to add to the tradition that has preceded him or her. In part, the drawings of Celia succeed in this because of their excellence as portraiture. The woman shown is a friend of Hockney's whose face appears many times in his work and constitutes part of an ongoing project in portraiture that amounts to "a kind of pictorial family album" in which viewers get to know the faces and can see the changes and consistencies in Hockney's perception of them (Knight 23).

These two drawings are studies in the combined simplicity of means and depth of psychological portraiture at which Hockney excels. Livingstone has noted of the Celia portraits from this period that Hockney had "devised a more sensitive approach to color as well as a wispier line and more delicate, sensual effects of surface than he had yet achieved" (157). The mood of the sitter in the pictures is introspective and relaxed and Hockney has clearly put something of their relat...

< Prev Page 2 of 10 Next >

More on Career of David Hockney...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Career of David Hockney. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:08, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690516.html