Spring Cannot Be Cancelled-轻识

‘We have lost touch with nature, rather foolishly as we are a part of it, not outside it. This will in time be over and then what? What have we learned?... The only real things in life are food and love, in that order, just like [for] our little dog Ruby... and the source of art is love. I love life.'

David Hockney

On turning eighty, David Hockney sought out rustic tranquility ...

David Hockney

On turning eighty, David Hockney sought out rustic tranquility for the first time: a place to watch the sunset and the change of the seasons; a place to live a life of simple pleasures, undisturbed and undistracted; 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 before, 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 the art critic Martin Gayford, his long-time friend and collaborator. Their exchanges are illustrated by a selection of Hockney’s new, unpublished Normandy drawings and paintings alongside works by van Gogh, Monet, Bruegel and others.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 decades: light, colour, space, perception, water, trees. He has much to teach us, not only about how to see … but about how to live.

大卫.霍克尼，或许是我们这个时代最被关注、最受欢迎的艺术家之一。他的作品几乎涵盖一切媒介，从油画、素描、舞台设计直到摄影和版画印刷。而且他在这些媒介上都有所拓展。他是畅销著作《隐秘的知识——重新发现西方绘画大师的失传技艺》的作者，该书同样由浙江人民美术出版社引进、出版。

马丁·盖福德，艺术评论家，《旁观者》的撰稿人，他曾以凡·高、康斯太布尔和米开朗琪罗为主题出版专著，受到好评。他曾与霍克尼合著谈艺录，此外他还与费利佩·德·蒙泰贝洛合著游记以及谈话录，以上著作均由Thames&Hudson Ltd出版。