Look Closer: David Hockney’s Window Onto Paris
This article explores David Hockney's 1974 etching 'Contrejour in the French Style,' which captures a window view at the Louvre. It analyzes how Hockney used specific artistic techniques to blend Renaissance-style order with his own evolving perspective.
Why it matters
It provides insight into the evolution of a major 20th-century artist's technique and his philosophical approach to capturing reality.
In the Louvre, he found a view that was itself a work of art.
Save © Estate of David Hockney. Edition of 75. Photograph by Richard Schmidt. David Hockney, Contrejour in the French Style , 1974. Etching, soft-ground etching, aquatint. David Hockney, who died at 88 in June, became famous as a young artist for imbuing 20th-century life with the formality and stasis of early Renaissance painting. His sharp-edged figures stand by the pool or sit by a coffee table in spaces as orderly as those in a Fra Angelico annunciation. The real world does not look so tidy, symmetrical, and enchanting. Except, very occasionally, when it does.
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