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Spring Cannot Be Cancelled
by
56/99
Critics
72/99
Readers
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Scholars
96/99
Rating
15/99
Volume
95/99
Rating
49/99
Volume
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About This Book
David Hockney reflects upon life and art as he experiences lockdown in rural Normandy in this inspiring book which includes conversations with the artist and his latest artworks. On turning eighty, David Hockney sought out rustic tranquility for the first a place to watch the sunset and the change of the seasons; a place to keep the madness of the world at bay. So when Covid-19 and lockdown struck, it made little difference to life at La Grande Cour, the centuries-old Normandy farmhouse where Hockney set up a studio a year earlier, in time to paint the arrival of spring. In fact, he relished the enforced isolation as an opportunity for even greater devotion to his art. Spring Cannot Be Cancelled is an uplifting manifesto that affirms art's capacity to divert and inspire. It is based on a wealth of new conversations and correspondence between Hockney and art critic Martin Gayford, his long-time friend and collaborator. Their exchanges are illustrated by a selection of Hockney's new Normandy drawings and paintings alongside works by Van Gogh, Monet, Bruegel, and others. We see how Hockney is propelled ever forward by his infectious enthusiasms and sense of wonder. A lifelong contrarian, he has been in the public eye for sixty years, yet remains entirely unconcerned by the view of critics or even history. He is utterly absorbed by his four acres of northern France and by the themes that have fascinated him for light, color, space, perception, water, trees. He has much to teach us, not only about how to see . . . but about how to live. 142 color illustrations
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Reviews
"It's also a memoir of love in the time of Covid: of friendship and a shared passion for art ..."
"Gayford is a thoughtfully attentive critic with a capacious frame of reference and his brief excursions into houses in art, Hockney's reading (Flaubert, Proust, Julian Barnes), his musical tastes (Wagner), and that almost definitive Hockney subject, the depiction of water – described by Hockney as always a 'nice problem' for an artist – consistently illuminate both Hockney's work and the other artists his work brings to mind."
"You need a notebook handy to jot down all the books you want to buy, all the paintings to look up later."
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