紐約展覽：大衛·霍克尼與California Dreaming (3)
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Last time we mentioned that after graduating from the Royal College of Art, Hockney started to attempt a new composition---double portrait. Hockneys early portraits of people, even though still under the influence of the Abstract Expressionism, are later recognized as a turning point of his art style: a regression from imagination to reality. Its when Hockney turns away from the "Demonstrations of Versatility." (In short, "Demonstrations of Versatility" represents that by being applied a pastiche of styles, Hockneys paintings achieve a synthesis of forms and feelings in order to construct relationships among images, which we have already examined in section 1.) Contrasted with his early works, Hockneys human portraits, such as The First Marriage and Men in a Museum, are no longer myths by their own, but "the mythic is resided in his [Hockneys] own experiences."
One thing to point out about this series of human portraits is the theme of "strangeness." For example, if we go back to The First Marriage...
... we can feel the "strangeness" (or as Hockney described, "tenuous") in the domestic relationship between subjects: standing/sitting stiffly, both are staring straight to the left, focusing on something we are not aware of. This portrait inevitably creates a lack of interaction between subjects, away from what we used to think of subjects on the same canvas. Its an irony that Hockney named the painting "The First Marriage," but the subjects, instead of uniting (marrying) together, are indeed disconnected.
Then Hockney started to separate the subjects in order to intensify this strangeness. For example, The Hypnotist:
Hockney was inspired after watching "The Raven" (1963), Allen Poes thematic film, in which it portrayed two dueling fifteenth-century magicians. This painting is framed by the curtain (another prominent devise of Hockneys work especially in the bathroom paintings xD) and a black stage. On the stage, two physically-separated subjects are connected by the transparent, ghostly shape on the side of the magician dressed in black suit. This ghostly shape resembles the black-suit magician, who is hypnotizing the man in red robe. Hockney later built on this pioneer work by introducing the point of perspective, for a "thorough exploration of the technical device of naturalism" (Stephens and Wilson, 55).
Heres another double portrait of Hockney:
Once more, we can observe the contrast between 2D and 3D: background lines composed the hills and mountains are influenced by American Abstractionism. However, the rock close-up and the chair are clearly realistic. This contrast is also seen through the two subjects, where the male subject is portrayed cubic and the female is flat.
Fun Fact: Hockney painted this work when he was in University of Colorado for a summer teaching job in 1965. However, he realized that theres no window in the faculty studio for him to enjoy the spectacular views of rocky mountains. Reminded of the view of Alps from a few years earlier, Hockney painted the Rocky Mountains and Tired Indians to pretend he could see the landscape.
Why is the Indian tired? Because theres a chair.
Why is there a chair? Compositional purpose only.
...According to Hockney.
(TBC)
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