A Longer Look: When Hockney Met Piero
One of the UK's major living artists comes face-to-face with his inspiration in The National Gallery's latest exhibition...
August 22, 2024
Is an hour too long to look at a painting? The National Gallery’s Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look, illuminating the influence of Renaissance master Piero della Francesca on Pop Art sensation David Hockney is all about close observation. The exhibition centres around a painting that has played a pivotal role in inspiring British Modernism: Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (c.1437–45). When asked in 1979 whether he bought works of art, Hockney answered ‘No, but I’d love to have that [pointing to a reproduction of The Baptism pinned to his studio wall], just so I could look at it every day for an hour’.
This exhibition draws on a series The National Gallery ran between 1977 and 1990 inviting artists to choose, display and discuss paintings from its collection. When, in 1981, David Hockney was asked, he titled his exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Room, a play on the title of his painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen, depicting curator and art critic Henry Geldzahler looking at a screen, on which is pinned four paintings - one being The Baptism.
Looking at Pictures in a Room examined the way we look at paintings; in a poster he designed for the exhibition, a recreation of Looking at Pictures on a Screen appears. Here, a photograph of the scene replaced Geldzahler with Hockney, while he Baptism poster is replaced with Hockney’s own painting. In the gallery space, Hockney set up the same backdrop to allow viewers to compare the actual gallery posters on the screen with the original artworks and those in Hockney’s painting. Hockney alludes to the reproduction of great works of art and the timelessness of art by playfully naming the booklet which accompanied the exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Book, which included eight postcards of The Baptism in full scale as well as details.
A Longer Look is part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary celebrations, drawing attention to the powerful, hidden stories of its permanent collection as a catalyst for creativity, while paying homage to Hockney’s original exhibition and demonstrating that encouraging contemporary artists to draw inspiration from the collection has always been a central facet of the gallery’s mission.
But what conclusions can we draw from ‘careful looking’ in this conversation between three paintings? Certainly, all three paintings foster contemplation - of course The Baptism has a further religious layer, but even for the atheist or agnostic the stillness of Peiro’s work creates a sense of timeless stability in which one can be transfixed. This is achieved by a slow method of painting in which every detail is given the same exacting attention. Piero’s flat matte, geometric planes inspired not only Hockney but British modernists before him including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The art critic Roger Fry promoted The Baptism as a work of modernism drawing comparisons between Seurat’s motionless groups, for example in Bathers at Asnières (1884) - also in the National Gallery’s collection and hanging in the adjacent room to this exhibition - as well as the monumentality of Paul Cezanne’s work. French painter-critic André Lhote went as far as to hail Piero as the ‘first Cubist’.
The use of sharp contours, typical of 15th-century painting particularly in tempera (in which blending of colours is difficult), emphasises the use of planes of colour to build the image. This is clear to the viewer when standing two feet in front of these vast canvasses, an impression not possible in printed reproductions. The thick contours delineate forms, for example above the purple rug on the right in My Parents (1977). The soft matte colours accentuate the stillness of the painting, and while oil was first used to provide softer contours and the natural selective focus of the eye, Piero’s influence on Hockney led to a use of oils in favour of in a geometric approach to perspective. Here, every detail is in focus, closer to a photograph than natural sight, a way of painting which creates a frozen effect typical of early Renaissance paintings. This effect was described by The Illustrated London News as ‘stiff’ in its assessment of The Baptism in 1885. But, as Roger Fry put it, ‘each generation… has to remake its old Masters. If we did not [...] they would not only be old but dead.’
Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look is showing at The National Gallery until 27 October.
Is an hour too long to look at a painting? The National Gallery’s Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look, illuminating the influence of Renaissance master Piero della Francesca on Pop Art sensation David Hockney is all about close observation. The exhibition centres around a painting that has played a pivotal role in inspiring British Modernism: Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (c.1437–45). When asked in 1979 whether he bought works of art, Hockney answered ‘No, but I’d love to have that [pointing to a reproduction of The Baptism pinned to his studio wall], just so I could look at it every day for an hour’.
This exhibition draws on a series The National Gallery ran between 1977 and 1990 inviting artists to choose, display and discuss paintings from its collection. When, in 1981, David Hockney was asked, he titled his exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Room, a play on the title of his painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen, depicting curator and art critic Henry Geldzahler looking at a screen, on which is pinned four paintings - one being The Baptism.
Looking at Pictures in a Room examined the way we look at paintings; in a poster he designed for the exhibition, a recreation of Looking at Pictures on a Screen appears. Here, a photograph of the scene replaced Geldzahler with Hockney, while he Baptism poster is replaced with Hockney’s own painting. In the gallery space, Hockney set up the same backdrop to allow viewers to compare the actual gallery posters on the screen with the original artworks and those in Hockney’s painting. Hockney alludes to the reproduction of great works of art and the timelessness of art by playfully naming the booklet which accompanied the exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Book, which included eight postcards of The Baptism in full scale as well as details.
A Longer Look is part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary celebrations, drawing attention to the powerful, hidden stories of its permanent collection as a catalyst for creativity, while paying homage to Hockney’s original exhibition and demonstrating that encouraging contemporary artists to draw inspiration from the collection has always been a central facet of the gallery’s mission.
But what conclusions can we draw from ‘careful looking’ in this conversation between three paintings? Certainly, all three paintings foster contemplation - of course The Baptism has a further religious layer, but even for the atheist or agnostic the stillness of Peiro’s work creates a sense of timeless stability in which one can be transfixed. This is achieved by a slow method of painting in which every detail is given the same exacting attention. Piero’s flat matte, geometric planes inspired not only Hockney but British modernists before him including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The art critic Roger Fry promoted The Baptism as a work of modernism drawing comparisons between Seurat’s motionless groups, for example in Bathers at Asnières (1884) - also in the National Gallery’s collection and hanging in the adjacent room to this exhibition - as well as the monumentality of Paul Cezanne’s work. French painter-critic André Lhote went as far as to hail Piero as the ‘first Cubist’.
The use of sharp contours, typical of 15th-century painting particularly in tempera (in which blending of colours is difficult), emphasises the use of planes of colour to build the image. This is clear to the viewer when standing two feet in front of these vast canvasses, an impression not possible in printed reproductions. The thick contours delineate forms, for example above the purple rug on the right in My Parents (1977). The soft matte colours accentuate the stillness of the painting, and while oil was first used to provide softer contours and the natural selective focus of the eye, Piero’s influence on Hockney led to a use of oils in favour of in a geometric approach to perspective. Here, every detail is in focus, closer to a photograph than natural sight, a way of painting which creates a frozen effect typical of early Renaissance paintings. This effect was described by The Illustrated London News as ‘stiff’ in its assessment of The Baptism in 1885. But, as Roger Fry put it, ‘each generation… has to remake its old Masters. If we did not [...] they would not only be old but dead.’
Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look is showing at The National Gallery until 27 October.
Is an hour too long to look at a painting? The National Gallery’s Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look, illuminating the influence of Renaissance master Piero della Francesca on Pop Art sensation David Hockney is all about close observation. The exhibition centres around a painting that has played a pivotal role in inspiring British Modernism: Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (c.1437–45). When asked in 1979 whether he bought works of art, Hockney answered ‘No, but I’d love to have that [pointing to a reproduction of The Baptism pinned to his studio wall], just so I could look at it every day for an hour’.
This exhibition draws on a series The National Gallery ran between 1977 and 1990 inviting artists to choose, display and discuss paintings from its collection. When, in 1981, David Hockney was asked, he titled his exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Room, a play on the title of his painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen, depicting curator and art critic Henry Geldzahler looking at a screen, on which is pinned four paintings - one being The Baptism.
Looking at Pictures in a Room examined the way we look at paintings; in a poster he designed for the exhibition, a recreation of Looking at Pictures on a Screen appears. Here, a photograph of the scene replaced Geldzahler with Hockney, while he Baptism poster is replaced with Hockney’s own painting. In the gallery space, Hockney set up the same backdrop to allow viewers to compare the actual gallery posters on the screen with the original artworks and those in Hockney’s painting. Hockney alludes to the reproduction of great works of art and the timelessness of art by playfully naming the booklet which accompanied the exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Book, which included eight postcards of The Baptism in full scale as well as details.
A Longer Look is part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary celebrations, drawing attention to the powerful, hidden stories of its permanent collection as a catalyst for creativity, while paying homage to Hockney’s original exhibition and demonstrating that encouraging contemporary artists to draw inspiration from the collection has always been a central facet of the gallery’s mission.
But what conclusions can we draw from ‘careful looking’ in this conversation between three paintings? Certainly, all three paintings foster contemplation - of course The Baptism has a further religious layer, but even for the atheist or agnostic the stillness of Peiro’s work creates a sense of timeless stability in which one can be transfixed. This is achieved by a slow method of painting in which every detail is given the same exacting attention. Piero’s flat matte, geometric planes inspired not only Hockney but British modernists before him including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The art critic Roger Fry promoted The Baptism as a work of modernism drawing comparisons between Seurat’s motionless groups, for example in Bathers at Asnières (1884) - also in the National Gallery’s collection and hanging in the adjacent room to this exhibition - as well as the monumentality of Paul Cezanne’s work. French painter-critic André Lhote went as far as to hail Piero as the ‘first Cubist’.
The use of sharp contours, typical of 15th-century painting particularly in tempera (in which blending of colours is difficult), emphasises the use of planes of colour to build the image. This is clear to the viewer when standing two feet in front of these vast canvasses, an impression not possible in printed reproductions. The thick contours delineate forms, for example above the purple rug on the right in My Parents (1977). The soft matte colours accentuate the stillness of the painting, and while oil was first used to provide softer contours and the natural selective focus of the eye, Piero’s influence on Hockney led to a use of oils in favour of in a geometric approach to perspective. Here, every detail is in focus, closer to a photograph than natural sight, a way of painting which creates a frozen effect typical of early Renaissance paintings. This effect was described by The Illustrated London News as ‘stiff’ in its assessment of The Baptism in 1885. But, as Roger Fry put it, ‘each generation… has to remake its old Masters. If we did not [...] they would not only be old but dead.’
Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look is showing at The National Gallery until 27 October.
Is an hour too long to look at a painting? The National Gallery’s Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look, illuminating the influence of Renaissance master Piero della Francesca on Pop Art sensation David Hockney is all about close observation. The exhibition centres around a painting that has played a pivotal role in inspiring British Modernism: Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (c.1437–45). When asked in 1979 whether he bought works of art, Hockney answered ‘No, but I’d love to have that [pointing to a reproduction of The Baptism pinned to his studio wall], just so I could look at it every day for an hour’.
This exhibition draws on a series The National Gallery ran between 1977 and 1990 inviting artists to choose, display and discuss paintings from its collection. When, in 1981, David Hockney was asked, he titled his exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Room, a play on the title of his painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen, depicting curator and art critic Henry Geldzahler looking at a screen, on which is pinned four paintings - one being The Baptism.
Looking at Pictures in a Room examined the way we look at paintings; in a poster he designed for the exhibition, a recreation of Looking at Pictures on a Screen appears. Here, a photograph of the scene replaced Geldzahler with Hockney, while he Baptism poster is replaced with Hockney’s own painting. In the gallery space, Hockney set up the same backdrop to allow viewers to compare the actual gallery posters on the screen with the original artworks and those in Hockney’s painting. Hockney alludes to the reproduction of great works of art and the timelessness of art by playfully naming the booklet which accompanied the exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Book, which included eight postcards of The Baptism in full scale as well as details.
A Longer Look is part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary celebrations, drawing attention to the powerful, hidden stories of its permanent collection as a catalyst for creativity, while paying homage to Hockney’s original exhibition and demonstrating that encouraging contemporary artists to draw inspiration from the collection has always been a central facet of the gallery’s mission.
But what conclusions can we draw from ‘careful looking’ in this conversation between three paintings? Certainly, all three paintings foster contemplation - of course The Baptism has a further religious layer, but even for the atheist or agnostic the stillness of Peiro’s work creates a sense of timeless stability in which one can be transfixed. This is achieved by a slow method of painting in which every detail is given the same exacting attention. Piero’s flat matte, geometric planes inspired not only Hockney but British modernists before him including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The art critic Roger Fry promoted The Baptism as a work of modernism drawing comparisons between Seurat’s motionless groups, for example in Bathers at Asnières (1884) - also in the National Gallery’s collection and hanging in the adjacent room to this exhibition - as well as the monumentality of Paul Cezanne’s work. French painter-critic André Lhote went as far as to hail Piero as the ‘first Cubist’.
The use of sharp contours, typical of 15th-century painting particularly in tempera (in which blending of colours is difficult), emphasises the use of planes of colour to build the image. This is clear to the viewer when standing two feet in front of these vast canvasses, an impression not possible in printed reproductions. The thick contours delineate forms, for example above the purple rug on the right in My Parents (1977). The soft matte colours accentuate the stillness of the painting, and while oil was first used to provide softer contours and the natural selective focus of the eye, Piero’s influence on Hockney led to a use of oils in favour of in a geometric approach to perspective. Here, every detail is in focus, closer to a photograph than natural sight, a way of painting which creates a frozen effect typical of early Renaissance paintings. This effect was described by The Illustrated London News as ‘stiff’ in its assessment of The Baptism in 1885. But, as Roger Fry put it, ‘each generation… has to remake its old Masters. If we did not [...] they would not only be old but dead.’
Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look is showing at The National Gallery until 27 October.
Is an hour too long to look at a painting? The National Gallery’s Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look, illuminating the influence of Renaissance master Piero della Francesca on Pop Art sensation David Hockney is all about close observation. The exhibition centres around a painting that has played a pivotal role in inspiring British Modernism: Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (c.1437–45). When asked in 1979 whether he bought works of art, Hockney answered ‘No, but I’d love to have that [pointing to a reproduction of The Baptism pinned to his studio wall], just so I could look at it every day for an hour’.
This exhibition draws on a series The National Gallery ran between 1977 and 1990 inviting artists to choose, display and discuss paintings from its collection. When, in 1981, David Hockney was asked, he titled his exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Room, a play on the title of his painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen, depicting curator and art critic Henry Geldzahler looking at a screen, on which is pinned four paintings - one being The Baptism.
Looking at Pictures in a Room examined the way we look at paintings; in a poster he designed for the exhibition, a recreation of Looking at Pictures on a Screen appears. Here, a photograph of the scene replaced Geldzahler with Hockney, while he Baptism poster is replaced with Hockney’s own painting. In the gallery space, Hockney set up the same backdrop to allow viewers to compare the actual gallery posters on the screen with the original artworks and those in Hockney’s painting. Hockney alludes to the reproduction of great works of art and the timelessness of art by playfully naming the booklet which accompanied the exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Book, which included eight postcards of The Baptism in full scale as well as details.
A Longer Look is part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary celebrations, drawing attention to the powerful, hidden stories of its permanent collection as a catalyst for creativity, while paying homage to Hockney’s original exhibition and demonstrating that encouraging contemporary artists to draw inspiration from the collection has always been a central facet of the gallery’s mission.
But what conclusions can we draw from ‘careful looking’ in this conversation between three paintings? Certainly, all three paintings foster contemplation - of course The Baptism has a further religious layer, but even for the atheist or agnostic the stillness of Peiro’s work creates a sense of timeless stability in which one can be transfixed. This is achieved by a slow method of painting in which every detail is given the same exacting attention. Piero’s flat matte, geometric planes inspired not only Hockney but British modernists before him including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The art critic Roger Fry promoted The Baptism as a work of modernism drawing comparisons between Seurat’s motionless groups, for example in Bathers at Asnières (1884) - also in the National Gallery’s collection and hanging in the adjacent room to this exhibition - as well as the monumentality of Paul Cezanne’s work. French painter-critic André Lhote went as far as to hail Piero as the ‘first Cubist’.
The use of sharp contours, typical of 15th-century painting particularly in tempera (in which blending of colours is difficult), emphasises the use of planes of colour to build the image. This is clear to the viewer when standing two feet in front of these vast canvasses, an impression not possible in printed reproductions. The thick contours delineate forms, for example above the purple rug on the right in My Parents (1977). The soft matte colours accentuate the stillness of the painting, and while oil was first used to provide softer contours and the natural selective focus of the eye, Piero’s influence on Hockney led to a use of oils in favour of in a geometric approach to perspective. Here, every detail is in focus, closer to a photograph than natural sight, a way of painting which creates a frozen effect typical of early Renaissance paintings. This effect was described by The Illustrated London News as ‘stiff’ in its assessment of The Baptism in 1885. But, as Roger Fry put it, ‘each generation… has to remake its old Masters. If we did not [...] they would not only be old but dead.’
Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look is showing at The National Gallery until 27 October.
Is an hour too long to look at a painting? The National Gallery’s Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look, illuminating the influence of Renaissance master Piero della Francesca on Pop Art sensation David Hockney is all about close observation. The exhibition centres around a painting that has played a pivotal role in inspiring British Modernism: Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (c.1437–45). When asked in 1979 whether he bought works of art, Hockney answered ‘No, but I’d love to have that [pointing to a reproduction of The Baptism pinned to his studio wall], just so I could look at it every day for an hour’.
This exhibition draws on a series The National Gallery ran between 1977 and 1990 inviting artists to choose, display and discuss paintings from its collection. When, in 1981, David Hockney was asked, he titled his exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Room, a play on the title of his painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen, depicting curator and art critic Henry Geldzahler looking at a screen, on which is pinned four paintings - one being The Baptism.
Looking at Pictures in a Room examined the way we look at paintings; in a poster he designed for the exhibition, a recreation of Looking at Pictures on a Screen appears. Here, a photograph of the scene replaced Geldzahler with Hockney, while he Baptism poster is replaced with Hockney’s own painting. In the gallery space, Hockney set up the same backdrop to allow viewers to compare the actual gallery posters on the screen with the original artworks and those in Hockney’s painting. Hockney alludes to the reproduction of great works of art and the timelessness of art by playfully naming the booklet which accompanied the exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Book, which included eight postcards of The Baptism in full scale as well as details.
A Longer Look is part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary celebrations, drawing attention to the powerful, hidden stories of its permanent collection as a catalyst for creativity, while paying homage to Hockney’s original exhibition and demonstrating that encouraging contemporary artists to draw inspiration from the collection has always been a central facet of the gallery’s mission.
But what conclusions can we draw from ‘careful looking’ in this conversation between three paintings? Certainly, all three paintings foster contemplation - of course The Baptism has a further religious layer, but even for the atheist or agnostic the stillness of Peiro’s work creates a sense of timeless stability in which one can be transfixed. This is achieved by a slow method of painting in which every detail is given the same exacting attention. Piero’s flat matte, geometric planes inspired not only Hockney but British modernists before him including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The art critic Roger Fry promoted The Baptism as a work of modernism drawing comparisons between Seurat’s motionless groups, for example in Bathers at Asnières (1884) - also in the National Gallery’s collection and hanging in the adjacent room to this exhibition - as well as the monumentality of Paul Cezanne’s work. French painter-critic André Lhote went as far as to hail Piero as the ‘first Cubist’.
The use of sharp contours, typical of 15th-century painting particularly in tempera (in which blending of colours is difficult), emphasises the use of planes of colour to build the image. This is clear to the viewer when standing two feet in front of these vast canvasses, an impression not possible in printed reproductions. The thick contours delineate forms, for example above the purple rug on the right in My Parents (1977). The soft matte colours accentuate the stillness of the painting, and while oil was first used to provide softer contours and the natural selective focus of the eye, Piero’s influence on Hockney led to a use of oils in favour of in a geometric approach to perspective. Here, every detail is in focus, closer to a photograph than natural sight, a way of painting which creates a frozen effect typical of early Renaissance paintings. This effect was described by The Illustrated London News as ‘stiff’ in its assessment of The Baptism in 1885. But, as Roger Fry put it, ‘each generation… has to remake its old Masters. If we did not [...] they would not only be old but dead.’
Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look is showing at The National Gallery until 27 October.
Is an hour too long to look at a painting? The National Gallery’s Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look, illuminating the influence of Renaissance master Piero della Francesca on Pop Art sensation David Hockney is all about close observation. The exhibition centres around a painting that has played a pivotal role in inspiring British Modernism: Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (c.1437–45). When asked in 1979 whether he bought works of art, Hockney answered ‘No, but I’d love to have that [pointing to a reproduction of The Baptism pinned to his studio wall], just so I could look at it every day for an hour’.
This exhibition draws on a series The National Gallery ran between 1977 and 1990 inviting artists to choose, display and discuss paintings from its collection. When, in 1981, David Hockney was asked, he titled his exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Room, a play on the title of his painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen, depicting curator and art critic Henry Geldzahler looking at a screen, on which is pinned four paintings - one being The Baptism.
Looking at Pictures in a Room examined the way we look at paintings; in a poster he designed for the exhibition, a recreation of Looking at Pictures on a Screen appears. Here, a photograph of the scene replaced Geldzahler with Hockney, while he Baptism poster is replaced with Hockney’s own painting. In the gallery space, Hockney set up the same backdrop to allow viewers to compare the actual gallery posters on the screen with the original artworks and those in Hockney’s painting. Hockney alludes to the reproduction of great works of art and the timelessness of art by playfully naming the booklet which accompanied the exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Book, which included eight postcards of The Baptism in full scale as well as details.
A Longer Look is part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary celebrations, drawing attention to the powerful, hidden stories of its permanent collection as a catalyst for creativity, while paying homage to Hockney’s original exhibition and demonstrating that encouraging contemporary artists to draw inspiration from the collection has always been a central facet of the gallery’s mission.
But what conclusions can we draw from ‘careful looking’ in this conversation between three paintings? Certainly, all three paintings foster contemplation - of course The Baptism has a further religious layer, but even for the atheist or agnostic the stillness of Peiro’s work creates a sense of timeless stability in which one can be transfixed. This is achieved by a slow method of painting in which every detail is given the same exacting attention. Piero’s flat matte, geometric planes inspired not only Hockney but British modernists before him including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The art critic Roger Fry promoted The Baptism as a work of modernism drawing comparisons between Seurat’s motionless groups, for example in Bathers at Asnières (1884) - also in the National Gallery’s collection and hanging in the adjacent room to this exhibition - as well as the monumentality of Paul Cezanne’s work. French painter-critic André Lhote went as far as to hail Piero as the ‘first Cubist’.
The use of sharp contours, typical of 15th-century painting particularly in tempera (in which blending of colours is difficult), emphasises the use of planes of colour to build the image. This is clear to the viewer when standing two feet in front of these vast canvasses, an impression not possible in printed reproductions. The thick contours delineate forms, for example above the purple rug on the right in My Parents (1977). The soft matte colours accentuate the stillness of the painting, and while oil was first used to provide softer contours and the natural selective focus of the eye, Piero’s influence on Hockney led to a use of oils in favour of in a geometric approach to perspective. Here, every detail is in focus, closer to a photograph than natural sight, a way of painting which creates a frozen effect typical of early Renaissance paintings. This effect was described by The Illustrated London News as ‘stiff’ in its assessment of The Baptism in 1885. But, as Roger Fry put it, ‘each generation… has to remake its old Masters. If we did not [...] they would not only be old but dead.’
Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look is showing at The National Gallery until 27 October.
Is an hour too long to look at a painting? The National Gallery’s Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look, illuminating the influence of Renaissance master Piero della Francesca on Pop Art sensation David Hockney is all about close observation. The exhibition centres around a painting that has played a pivotal role in inspiring British Modernism: Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (c.1437–45). When asked in 1979 whether he bought works of art, Hockney answered ‘No, but I’d love to have that [pointing to a reproduction of The Baptism pinned to his studio wall], just so I could look at it every day for an hour’.
This exhibition draws on a series The National Gallery ran between 1977 and 1990 inviting artists to choose, display and discuss paintings from its collection. When, in 1981, David Hockney was asked, he titled his exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Room, a play on the title of his painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen, depicting curator and art critic Henry Geldzahler looking at a screen, on which is pinned four paintings - one being The Baptism.
Looking at Pictures in a Room examined the way we look at paintings; in a poster he designed for the exhibition, a recreation of Looking at Pictures on a Screen appears. Here, a photograph of the scene replaced Geldzahler with Hockney, while he Baptism poster is replaced with Hockney’s own painting. In the gallery space, Hockney set up the same backdrop to allow viewers to compare the actual gallery posters on the screen with the original artworks and those in Hockney’s painting. Hockney alludes to the reproduction of great works of art and the timelessness of art by playfully naming the booklet which accompanied the exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Book, which included eight postcards of The Baptism in full scale as well as details.
A Longer Look is part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary celebrations, drawing attention to the powerful, hidden stories of its permanent collection as a catalyst for creativity, while paying homage to Hockney’s original exhibition and demonstrating that encouraging contemporary artists to draw inspiration from the collection has always been a central facet of the gallery’s mission.
But what conclusions can we draw from ‘careful looking’ in this conversation between three paintings? Certainly, all three paintings foster contemplation - of course The Baptism has a further religious layer, but even for the atheist or agnostic the stillness of Peiro’s work creates a sense of timeless stability in which one can be transfixed. This is achieved by a slow method of painting in which every detail is given the same exacting attention. Piero’s flat matte, geometric planes inspired not only Hockney but British modernists before him including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The art critic Roger Fry promoted The Baptism as a work of modernism drawing comparisons between Seurat’s motionless groups, for example in Bathers at Asnières (1884) - also in the National Gallery’s collection and hanging in the adjacent room to this exhibition - as well as the monumentality of Paul Cezanne’s work. French painter-critic André Lhote went as far as to hail Piero as the ‘first Cubist’.
The use of sharp contours, typical of 15th-century painting particularly in tempera (in which blending of colours is difficult), emphasises the use of planes of colour to build the image. This is clear to the viewer when standing two feet in front of these vast canvasses, an impression not possible in printed reproductions. The thick contours delineate forms, for example above the purple rug on the right in My Parents (1977). The soft matte colours accentuate the stillness of the painting, and while oil was first used to provide softer contours and the natural selective focus of the eye, Piero’s influence on Hockney led to a use of oils in favour of in a geometric approach to perspective. Here, every detail is in focus, closer to a photograph than natural sight, a way of painting which creates a frozen effect typical of early Renaissance paintings. This effect was described by The Illustrated London News as ‘stiff’ in its assessment of The Baptism in 1885. But, as Roger Fry put it, ‘each generation… has to remake its old Masters. If we did not [...] they would not only be old but dead.’
Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look is showing at The National Gallery until 27 October.
Is an hour too long to look at a painting? The National Gallery’s Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look, illuminating the influence of Renaissance master Piero della Francesca on Pop Art sensation David Hockney is all about close observation. The exhibition centres around a painting that has played a pivotal role in inspiring British Modernism: Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (c.1437–45). When asked in 1979 whether he bought works of art, Hockney answered ‘No, but I’d love to have that [pointing to a reproduction of The Baptism pinned to his studio wall], just so I could look at it every day for an hour’.
This exhibition draws on a series The National Gallery ran between 1977 and 1990 inviting artists to choose, display and discuss paintings from its collection. When, in 1981, David Hockney was asked, he titled his exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Room, a play on the title of his painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen, depicting curator and art critic Henry Geldzahler looking at a screen, on which is pinned four paintings - one being The Baptism.
Looking at Pictures in a Room examined the way we look at paintings; in a poster he designed for the exhibition, a recreation of Looking at Pictures on a Screen appears. Here, a photograph of the scene replaced Geldzahler with Hockney, while he Baptism poster is replaced with Hockney’s own painting. In the gallery space, Hockney set up the same backdrop to allow viewers to compare the actual gallery posters on the screen with the original artworks and those in Hockney’s painting. Hockney alludes to the reproduction of great works of art and the timelessness of art by playfully naming the booklet which accompanied the exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Book, which included eight postcards of The Baptism in full scale as well as details.
A Longer Look is part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary celebrations, drawing attention to the powerful, hidden stories of its permanent collection as a catalyst for creativity, while paying homage to Hockney’s original exhibition and demonstrating that encouraging contemporary artists to draw inspiration from the collection has always been a central facet of the gallery’s mission.
But what conclusions can we draw from ‘careful looking’ in this conversation between three paintings? Certainly, all three paintings foster contemplation - of course The Baptism has a further religious layer, but even for the atheist or agnostic the stillness of Peiro’s work creates a sense of timeless stability in which one can be transfixed. This is achieved by a slow method of painting in which every detail is given the same exacting attention. Piero’s flat matte, geometric planes inspired not only Hockney but British modernists before him including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The art critic Roger Fry promoted The Baptism as a work of modernism drawing comparisons between Seurat’s motionless groups, for example in Bathers at Asnières (1884) - also in the National Gallery’s collection and hanging in the adjacent room to this exhibition - as well as the monumentality of Paul Cezanne’s work. French painter-critic André Lhote went as far as to hail Piero as the ‘first Cubist’.
The use of sharp contours, typical of 15th-century painting particularly in tempera (in which blending of colours is difficult), emphasises the use of planes of colour to build the image. This is clear to the viewer when standing two feet in front of these vast canvasses, an impression not possible in printed reproductions. The thick contours delineate forms, for example above the purple rug on the right in My Parents (1977). The soft matte colours accentuate the stillness of the painting, and while oil was first used to provide softer contours and the natural selective focus of the eye, Piero’s influence on Hockney led to a use of oils in favour of in a geometric approach to perspective. Here, every detail is in focus, closer to a photograph than natural sight, a way of painting which creates a frozen effect typical of early Renaissance paintings. This effect was described by The Illustrated London News as ‘stiff’ in its assessment of The Baptism in 1885. But, as Roger Fry put it, ‘each generation… has to remake its old Masters. If we did not [...] they would not only be old but dead.’
Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look is showing at The National Gallery until 27 October.
Is an hour too long to look at a painting? The National Gallery’s Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look, illuminating the influence of Renaissance master Piero della Francesca on Pop Art sensation David Hockney is all about close observation. The exhibition centres around a painting that has played a pivotal role in inspiring British Modernism: Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (c.1437–45). When asked in 1979 whether he bought works of art, Hockney answered ‘No, but I’d love to have that [pointing to a reproduction of The Baptism pinned to his studio wall], just so I could look at it every day for an hour’.
This exhibition draws on a series The National Gallery ran between 1977 and 1990 inviting artists to choose, display and discuss paintings from its collection. When, in 1981, David Hockney was asked, he titled his exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Room, a play on the title of his painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen, depicting curator and art critic Henry Geldzahler looking at a screen, on which is pinned four paintings - one being The Baptism.
Looking at Pictures in a Room examined the way we look at paintings; in a poster he designed for the exhibition, a recreation of Looking at Pictures on a Screen appears. Here, a photograph of the scene replaced Geldzahler with Hockney, while he Baptism poster is replaced with Hockney’s own painting. In the gallery space, Hockney set up the same backdrop to allow viewers to compare the actual gallery posters on the screen with the original artworks and those in Hockney’s painting. Hockney alludes to the reproduction of great works of art and the timelessness of art by playfully naming the booklet which accompanied the exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Book, which included eight postcards of The Baptism in full scale as well as details.
A Longer Look is part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary celebrations, drawing attention to the powerful, hidden stories of its permanent collection as a catalyst for creativity, while paying homage to Hockney’s original exhibition and demonstrating that encouraging contemporary artists to draw inspiration from the collection has always been a central facet of the gallery’s mission.
But what conclusions can we draw from ‘careful looking’ in this conversation between three paintings? Certainly, all three paintings foster contemplation - of course The Baptism has a further religious layer, but even for the atheist or agnostic the stillness of Peiro’s work creates a sense of timeless stability in which one can be transfixed. This is achieved by a slow method of painting in which every detail is given the same exacting attention. Piero’s flat matte, geometric planes inspired not only Hockney but British modernists before him including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The art critic Roger Fry promoted The Baptism as a work of modernism drawing comparisons between Seurat’s motionless groups, for example in Bathers at Asnières (1884) - also in the National Gallery’s collection and hanging in the adjacent room to this exhibition - as well as the monumentality of Paul Cezanne’s work. French painter-critic André Lhote went as far as to hail Piero as the ‘first Cubist’.
The use of sharp contours, typical of 15th-century painting particularly in tempera (in which blending of colours is difficult), emphasises the use of planes of colour to build the image. This is clear to the viewer when standing two feet in front of these vast canvasses, an impression not possible in printed reproductions. The thick contours delineate forms, for example above the purple rug on the right in My Parents (1977). The soft matte colours accentuate the stillness of the painting, and while oil was first used to provide softer contours and the natural selective focus of the eye, Piero’s influence on Hockney led to a use of oils in favour of in a geometric approach to perspective. Here, every detail is in focus, closer to a photograph than natural sight, a way of painting which creates a frozen effect typical of early Renaissance paintings. This effect was described by The Illustrated London News as ‘stiff’ in its assessment of The Baptism in 1885. But, as Roger Fry put it, ‘each generation… has to remake its old Masters. If we did not [...] they would not only be old but dead.’
Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look is showing at The National Gallery until 27 October.
Is an hour too long to look at a painting? The National Gallery’s Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look, illuminating the influence of Renaissance master Piero della Francesca on Pop Art sensation David Hockney is all about close observation. The exhibition centres around a painting that has played a pivotal role in inspiring British Modernism: Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (c.1437–45). When asked in 1979 whether he bought works of art, Hockney answered ‘No, but I’d love to have that [pointing to a reproduction of The Baptism pinned to his studio wall], just so I could look at it every day for an hour’.
This exhibition draws on a series The National Gallery ran between 1977 and 1990 inviting artists to choose, display and discuss paintings from its collection. When, in 1981, David Hockney was asked, he titled his exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Room, a play on the title of his painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen, depicting curator and art critic Henry Geldzahler looking at a screen, on which is pinned four paintings - one being The Baptism.
Looking at Pictures in a Room examined the way we look at paintings; in a poster he designed for the exhibition, a recreation of Looking at Pictures on a Screen appears. Here, a photograph of the scene replaced Geldzahler with Hockney, while he Baptism poster is replaced with Hockney’s own painting. In the gallery space, Hockney set up the same backdrop to allow viewers to compare the actual gallery posters on the screen with the original artworks and those in Hockney’s painting. Hockney alludes to the reproduction of great works of art and the timelessness of art by playfully naming the booklet which accompanied the exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Book, which included eight postcards of The Baptism in full scale as well as details.
A Longer Look is part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary celebrations, drawing attention to the powerful, hidden stories of its permanent collection as a catalyst for creativity, while paying homage to Hockney’s original exhibition and demonstrating that encouraging contemporary artists to draw inspiration from the collection has always been a central facet of the gallery’s mission.
But what conclusions can we draw from ‘careful looking’ in this conversation between three paintings? Certainly, all three paintings foster contemplation - of course The Baptism has a further religious layer, but even for the atheist or agnostic the stillness of Peiro’s work creates a sense of timeless stability in which one can be transfixed. This is achieved by a slow method of painting in which every detail is given the same exacting attention. Piero’s flat matte, geometric planes inspired not only Hockney but British modernists before him including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The art critic Roger Fry promoted The Baptism as a work of modernism drawing comparisons between Seurat’s motionless groups, for example in Bathers at Asnières (1884) - also in the National Gallery’s collection and hanging in the adjacent room to this exhibition - as well as the monumentality of Paul Cezanne’s work. French painter-critic André Lhote went as far as to hail Piero as the ‘first Cubist’.
The use of sharp contours, typical of 15th-century painting particularly in tempera (in which blending of colours is difficult), emphasises the use of planes of colour to build the image. This is clear to the viewer when standing two feet in front of these vast canvasses, an impression not possible in printed reproductions. The thick contours delineate forms, for example above the purple rug on the right in My Parents (1977). The soft matte colours accentuate the stillness of the painting, and while oil was first used to provide softer contours and the natural selective focus of the eye, Piero’s influence on Hockney led to a use of oils in favour of in a geometric approach to perspective. Here, every detail is in focus, closer to a photograph than natural sight, a way of painting which creates a frozen effect typical of early Renaissance paintings. This effect was described by The Illustrated London News as ‘stiff’ in its assessment of The Baptism in 1885. But, as Roger Fry put it, ‘each generation… has to remake its old Masters. If we did not [...] they would not only be old but dead.’
Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look is showing at The National Gallery until 27 October.
