Saturday, November 21, 2009
The World Is Flat (According to David Hockney)
Color theory lends itself to several significant spatial properties.
It would seem that the "advanced" artist would use these theories to their greatest effect - using warm colors to depict closeness and cool colors to depict farness. But what of the work of David Hockney? David Hockney who seems to almost completely ignore these color theories of space works with color in a very unusual way.
The above painting seems to place color randomly. This technique is confusing to the eye that is naturally set to the Gestalt theory of seeking unity. The abstraction of reality combined with the color use forces the viewer to use their imagination. Perhaps the piece is just a depiction of random blobs of color. But what is it that makes us see a landscape in this painting? Although Hockney's use of color lends to a sense of flatness, he is sure to include other clues of space to guide the viewer. The proximity of textures and the size of the abstract shapes leads the eye to believe that it is seeing perspective in a landscape. The flat use of color makes the scene more ideal and dreamy, as if the colors actually refused to recede.
In this depiction of a pool, the importance of color is not so much ignored, but emphasized. There is definitely an unrealistic feeling to the work because of this flat use of color, but Hockney seems to be emphasizing the emotion of the piece more than anything else.
His use of single colored paper creates almost no shading and almost no color variation. It is not what Hockney actually observed. It is, however, how he felt. There is an emphasis on the thought, "the sky is blue, the grass is green". Neither of these statements are completely true but they are universally agreed upon nonetheless. The statements are not observant and not usually a motto for artistic value. Hockney is almost erasing the imperfections and creating what he feels. Perhaps he feels the world in flatness, where things do not become less important simply because they are further away. Perhaps he is simply unwilling to let go of the brilliant colors he perceives, even if they are not all perceived at the same point in time.
Hockney's work is a defiance against the "proper" rules of color. It seems, however, that Hockney is glad to live in his imaginary world of intense colors as a sort of escapism.
11:42 AM by jamie.