Well, that's nice to hear about Mike's (and Mrs Mike's) Paris jaunt, isn't it? And I'm really looking forward to part two. Ou la partie deux, I suppose I ought to say.
So let's stick with all that French stuff for a bit, because yesterday I popped along to Tate Britain (as one does) to take a peek at 'Peinture Sur Le Motif Pour Le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique'. Not a title that you're familiar with, I would imagine. But if I tell you that the English title is 'Bigger Trees Near Warter', then you might then work out that I'm talking about the biggest painting that David Hockney has ever produced, and which he has donated to the Tate. And boy, it certainly is big.
This is my hasty snap of it, which doesn't do it justice at all - but it does give you some idea of the scale. What this picture doesn't show, though, nor any other that I've seen, is that actually the painting covers three walls of the gallery. That was something that disconcerted me when I first walked in: because I hadn't expected to see three of the things. And at first I couldn't quite work out what was going on. Because my brain was telling me that here were three separate paintings, with the assumption that they must somehow be different to each other. But a closer examination revealed that the two on the flanking walls were colour photographic copies. But it took me a little while to work it out. That's a clever trick that Hockney's pulled off there. Because it makes one consider (or at least it made me consider) the differences between the painting itself and the photographic copies. Because, make no mistake about it, those copies are as faithful as one can get. But the more you look, the more you realise there's a subtlety and a 'soul' to what's on canvas which pixels alone simply can't capture. And if you want to know what I'm talking about, go along and have a very careful look at the area of pink branches to the left of that woman in my snap above. Consider just how many different pinks you can see in that cluster of branches - then compare to the photographic copies, and you'll see exactly what I mean.
And while you're about it, go up really close and take a good look at the third canvas up on the far left and in the top right-hand corner you might spot a stray pubic hair trapped in the oil paint which defines one of the single branches. Whether or not it's David Hockney's though, I couldn't tell you.
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