Fitzwilliam; Hockney's Eye

David Hockney (b.1937, Bradford) is one of the most influential artists of our time; the exhibition "Hockney's Eye: The Art and Technology of Depiction" is in both The Fitzwilliam Museum, where his art is integrated across several picture galleries against the background of his dialogue with the "Old Masters", and The Heong Gallery (part of Downing College). Hockney’s Eye explores the artist’s pioneering modern experiments in bringing hand, eye and optical instruments together inventively. 

In his use of cameras, digital drawing, the iPad and digital film, Hockney is following a tradition of creative experiments with optical devices that goes back from Ingres’ camera lucida to Canaletto’s camera obscura and right back to the birth of Renaissance naturalism in the fifteenth century. 

 Fitzwilliam

Our walk through the museum overs many aspects of his work via separate sections in several of the galleries:

Gallery 3 (British Art, 16-18th century); "Doing portraits" - his self-portrait, those of others and ipad self-portraits;  pictures are visibly related to work of predecessors such as Hogarth

Gallery 6 (Italian Art, 14-16th century); "Perspectives on perspective" - includes a very interesting video on the optical rules of linear perspective

Gallery 7 (Italian Art, 18th century); "A lens on the Grand Canal"

Gallery 8 (Spanish and Flemish Art); "Hockney and Brueghel"

Gallery 10 (Octoganal exhibition space); "Seeing them watching us" - front of house staff at the National Gallery, London

Gallery 17 (Flower Paintings, Inlaid Furniture and Clocks); "What a shadow shows us" and "How to make flowers last"

Gallery 15 (Dutch Art, 17-18th century); "Perspective; orthodox and reverse" - how can a picture convey what we actually see?

Gallery 14 (Exhibition space); "Artists and optical aids" - use of optical tools such as camera lucida, camera obscura, concave mirrors

Gallery 12 (Exhibition space); "Time Travel" - digital videos synchronised and presented on nine monitors; also ipad pictures

 Heong Gallery

This charts Hockney’s pioneering modern experiments from the 1960s to the present day in bringing hand, eye, and optical instruments together; this includes photo collages and pictures derived from the use of mirrors.

All in all, a great morning out seeing some good art and having an interesting experience.Lue lisää