The painter David Hockney is enjoying his lockdown, painting the arrival of spring in Normandy, France. He said on The Andrew Marr Show he was surrounded by “hawthorn blossom … apple blossom, pear blossom, plum blossom, cherry blossom (and) apricot blossom.” And offered advice to those feeling trapped or bored in the lockdown. “If you look at the world and really look at it, it’s very beautiful. Nature is always beautiful, it’s always harmonious. But you’ve really got to look at it. You’ve got to look at it to see colour. You’ve really got to look at it intensely.”
He is planning to show “one big, long picture like the Bayeux Tapestry which is going to be 88 metres long” depicting the whole year in Normandy, in a show in Paris.
Born 9 July 1937, he is regarded as one of the most influential of British artists, a significant contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s. Three years ago one of his swimming pool paintings broke the world record for a living artist selling for $90 million in New York.
He is a Sun Mercury in Cancer trine a determined Mars in Scorpio and sextile an innovative Uranus in Taurus as well as sextile Neptune His Mars is also in an even more tenacious trine to Pluto. He has a wide Earth Grand Trine of Uranus in an inspirational trine to Neptune trine Jupiter in ambitious Capricorn. His Jupiter is in a pushily-confident opposition to Pluto. His Earth Grand Trine will give him a love of nature and the earth as well as business and practical skills.
He’s always stuck to his guns about what he’ll do and not do, disregarding his Royal Art College diploma requirements, which later caused them to change their regulations. He’s an inveterate smoker still at 83 which is why France is a better choice than California where he has lived on and off for many years.
He has – not surprisingly – strong creative 5th and 7th harmonics, as well as an enduring11H and a breakthrough-genius, exploring the unorthodox 13H.
Whatever your views of his paintings he’s a delightful free spirit.
Pic: By Connaissance des Arts, CC BY 3.0,
A nod to the visual treats bestowed here on star4cast. Always satisfying, and most lovely above.
Virgoflake, I agree with you. Recently I bought some pink tulips by mistake. They were glorious and I’m afraid that I’ll be moonpigging it for my daughter-in-law’s birthday I thought I was buying her a birthday card. I know, expensive birthday card. But for that short time, I was in heaven. I am afraid that today’s fashion for monochrome and white, white everything leaves me cold. I feel a deep personal need for colour to be introduced into our lives and not as granny’s little secret.
Oh I have to have colour around me so I’m with you on the monochrome front, Linda. I love putting colours together too. I wouldn’t thrive in a black, beige, grey and white world.
He’s so completely himself. I love that – I expected Taurus to be strong, but Venus is his vocational indicator (Sakoian @ Acker) and it’s in Gemini….he originally began with printing, graphics, which is totally fitting, but I had the fixed expectation of Venus in Taurus – naaah!. I remember standing in front of a couple of his paintings at a summer exhibition (1990’s?) in London and the passionate disagreement talking with two guys who challenged the meanings of two of his most famous paintings (swimming pool etc)… I’m afraid I was as ignorant about paintings as I was then, but he does have the most authentic, grounded vision. This is the one person I would like to have lunch with, and hear about his real take on the world. Genius, really.
That painting really cheered me up. I don’t know what it is about the colour yellow, but when I was a girl and sitting in my Aunt Evelyn’s kitchen , I went from slightly down to feeling really happy. It wasn’t a posh kitchen, but it made me feel like it was summer all year round. If I could I would reproduce it right down to the yellow formica counter-top.
Yes, I love bright, vibrant yellow – if someone is wearing yellow it makes me smile. Yellow is undoubtedly the colour of joy and has the psychological effect of uplift and is a wavelength that is designed to attract bees and other insects. Colour affects us in all kinds of ways, I believe. There’s a wonderful book, if I may recommend by Kassia St Clair called ‘The Secret Lives of Colour’ about the history and origin of colour pigments and ‘The Little Book of Colour’ by Karen Haller, which looks at the way colour affects us, psychologically.
My father was a Cancer, real home body, also a very artistic man.
Marjorie
It would be interesting to compare his chart with claude monet” s one, don t you think ?
I remember seeing a TV programme about Hockney a few years ago – he was probably approaching 80 at the time, living in California – and was astonished to learn that not only was he still a keen tobacco smoker but also enjoyed his daily walk to the cannabis shop where he bought his supplies, returning home for a nice puff, a cup of coffee and some painting. His pace of life seemed so gentle and his passion for the vibrant colours and forms of the natural world was infectious and relatable to my own Earthy chart.
Btw, I see he’s yet another Cancerian. There are multitudes of Cancers among famous painters.
Yes, I saw that documentary too. He’s just so fully himself, it’s refreshing and delightful. I like the advice to look at things intensely – it echoes Taurean Leonardo da Vinci’s advice to do the same. It’s a kind of meditation I suppose, escaping from what you assume to be there to seeing it as it really is.
Thanks, Marjorie. That is a breath of fresh air. The celebrities and pols going through public crises so often grab all the attention. Hockney’s whole year in Normandy painting sounds like it will be wonderful, and I love his advice to stop and really look at nature. This 5 earth sign planet person appreciates it.