You can't have failed to notice that the Olympic Games come to London this year, and to ensure those of us who aren't really that interested in sport aren't left out, the Games are accompanied by a Cultural Olympiad - a programme of events in the arts, of which the Royal Academy show is one of the flagship projects.
And flagship it seemed to be, judging by the numbers; I arrived mid-morning to an already full gallery, and settled down to an hour's queuing and amused people watching. Not wishing to be stereotypical, but it seems that the Royal Academy's appeal has not filtered down to the unwashed masses, despite the supposed universal nature of the Cultural Olympiad. I felt somewhat incongruous among my retired art critic companions.
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| David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture |
Hockney has made as his focus in this exhibition, the capturing of a particular scene as the seasons progress. This idea culminates in the pièce de résistance; a set of paintings of the coming of spring, produced on an iPad, which chart the movement from January's bare branches, through the first blooms of March, to the vivid florals of May.
Accompanying this was a giant size video installation, which filmed a drive through a stretch of country road in Yorkshire from several different cameras attached to the bonnet and doors of a car.
The hawthorn blossom room was especially beautiful, seizing a fleeting moment of the seasons where hedgerows burst into a fluffy white down.
And it was a also lovely to visit some paintings of this area of Yorkshire which I remember first seeing a couple of decades back as a small child in Saltaire in Bradford - one of those childhood trips that has a lasting effect and influence on the person you become.
To see the paintings for yourself, head over to www.hockneypictures.com, or visit the Royal Academy of Arts before 9th April 2012. It's well worth a visit.