Continued (2)

Many works of this period pay homage to artist friends, while others refer to art in a less direct manner, such as Talking about Art, 1975, a work in which an array of shapes and techniques are employed to suggest the often-illusory subject of discussing art. The overall feel of the work is dense and animated. Several works contain direct references to his memories of works of historical or modern artists, such as Cafeteria at the Grand Palais, 1975, which commemorates a lunch with Louis Hodgkin while visiting the exhibition ‘Le Centenaire de l’Impressionisme’, and refers to its Impressionist works. In a French Restaurant, 1977-9, is a redress of David Hockney’s depiction of the Louvre’s interior in Contre-jour in the French style.

Despite seeming innocent, the imagery is periodically erotic, at times sexually overt. This is a recurring theme that becomes particularly apparent in works from the 1980s onwards.  Hodgkin plays up the tension between content and subject in Lovers, 1984-92, in a compact composition in which the aura surrounding the entwined figurative elements creates the dynamic impact of the scene and becomes the focus around which the private world of this painting revolves, and to which the viewer’s gaze is directed. Although near abstract, a palpable sense of humanity, and more specifically of bodily pleasures is also apparent in Clean Sheets, 1979-84, which alludes to a human presence that is not actually present. Whether or not this work alludes to intimacy or eroticism, one can discern a sexual energy. These works remain enigmatic, and ultimately Hodgkin leaves it up to the viewer to explore the probable narratives of his work.

Other titles prove more exact, such as In the Bay of Naples, 1980-82. Initially this work appears to be an abstract collection of interconnecting azure curves, creamy stripes, bold dots and dashes. However, on closer examination, it could equally call to mind a coastal path, island, or beach viewed from the vantage point of a cliff terrace. The title enables Hodgkin to create a semi-autobiographical account that hints at his stimulus, while at the same time allowing the audience a ‘way in’ to the work.

For Hodgkin, there are enormous differences when working on different scales. Working on an intimate scale allows him a greater freedom with surface. He maintains that ‘a small picture can be seen whole, like a window or a hole in the wall: but when you paint a picture that’s larger than can be seen at one look, it’s much harder to control what you’re doing. The difficulty is to keep the surface sufficiently alive, without losing the overall coherence’. In Antony’s Blue Palm, 2002, the power of the imagery is greatly heightened by the smallness of the surface area, and this work signifies a distinctive transformation from suggestion to illusionism.

In the 1990s Hodgkin began to experiment with larger formats, and this exploration continues up to the present. He works out large paintings in his head before starting the painting process. The heroic scale allows for greater looseness and simplicity alongside a less restricted partition between elements such as the frame and mark-making. The comparatively monumental scale of Rhode Island, 2000-2, with its draping contours, lends a sense of comfort and warmth and envelops the view in its autumnal landscape. Undertones of War, 2001-3, shares its russet and broody gunmetal grey tones, reminiscent of Goya, Turner or Constable; however, the puncture marks in its worn frame heighten its darker mood. This work possesses vigour and bravura, executed in a compelling surge of passionate mark-making and strength of feeling. The human -scale work, Come into the Garden Maud, 2000-3, is teeming with lyricism and linguistic allusions, evident in the pattern of splodges which are redolent of the ‘garden of roses and lilies fair’ of Tennyson’s poem ‘Maud; a Monodrama’. On the other hand, another sizeable work, Snapshot, 1984-93, possesses a quality more closely associated with pictures of a smaller scale. By selectively inserting shadows to introduce an air of reality while playing down the transitory nature of the moment, Hodgkin heightens the temporal quality of light in this painting. The title suggests the theatrical inclination also present in his use of framing devices and evokes literary-vignettes in his concise depiction of what appears to be fleeting sequential moments. The framing device in Memories of Max, 1991-95, represents pathos, appropriate for a work that is an elegy for the artist’s friend, the architect Max Gordon, who died in 1990. This picture succeeds on an emotive level beyond the scope of words, and in this way, Hodgkin is a painterly lyricist.

Hodgkin has made numerous visits to India6 which have influenced the brilliance of his colours. He finds an alternative world in Indian and Islamic art and claims his main reason for revisiting India is ‘because it is somewhere else’ [7]. His fascination with the country is apparent in Bombay Sunset, 1972-3; In the Studio of Jamini Roy, 1976-9, which he completed following a visit to the prominent Indian painter’s studio; and Foy Nissen’s Bombay, 1975-7, which relates to the view from the apartment of a friend from the British Council in Bombay. He continually visits Venice and France, as well as exotic locations in especially Africa and the Mediterranean, using his recollections as source material for his work. Red Bermudas, 1978-80, refers to an article of clothing that becomes a symbol with personal connotations. The work depicts a sunbather in Central Park, New York, but the title calls to mind recollections of days spent in hazy sunshine in a distant location, surrounded by beaches and lush flora, or perhaps, more specifically, memories of good times spent with someone special.

The paintings are slow in development, with many emerging over a number of years. Hodgkin relies on his original experience of a subject rather than committing his ideas to paper in preparatory sketches or photography. It is his mind and spirit, with all their memories and ideals that inform his eye in the physical act of painting, which for him involves a high level of concentration. He is an artist who sees both passionately and completely. He affirms that in order for his work to be complete ‘the subject and object must become one thing’ and this process can take a matter of years. As he asserts, the ‘pictures are finished when the subject comes back.’[8] Rather than continuously labouring over a single work over an extended timeframe, he progresses several pieces over the same period, covering other unfinished works with plain canvas screens, thereby exposing only the painting on which he is currently working. Caspar David Friedrich’s exploration of time and the past is evident in several works. It is also possible to glimpse parallels with Proust’s[9] preoccupation with time, memory and absence in the works, however Hodgkin professes he has not studied Proust’s work. Like Proust, Hodgkin extracts personal experiences of the momentous from the momentary, and makes tangible in his imagery the things, people, ideas and feelings that may otherwise be lost in a transient world. These leitmotifs include mementos of special events, annotations, references to climatic conditions and commemorations to people and places.

Hodgkin’s work demonstrates a penchant for rendering the effects of light in numerous ways: in the solitude and melancholy implicit in the dusky, crepuscular burnt-orange tones of Bombay Sunset, 1972-3; the exposed surface in Talking about Art, 1975, the sheen of flesh tones in Waking up in Naples, 1980-4; the fresh translucence of Rain, 1984-9; the blood-red luminescence of Venice in the Autumn, 1986-9; the haze of distant clouds in Old Sky, 1996-7; and the ethereal shadows in Dirty Mirror, 2000. Similarly, the complimentary fluorescent orange and cobalt blue of Venetian Glass, 1984-7 reveal how the Italian colour and light has impressed Hodgkin and one is left to ponder whether he is mimicking the effects of stained glass or the jewel-like colour effects of mosaic or Murano glass. In each case, light is what he sees and works with.

NOTES

• 6.       Hodgkin first visited India in 1964, with Robert Skelton, then Assistant Keeper of the Indian Collection in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
  7.       Ibid 2
  8.       Ibid 2
  9.       The French novelist and critic Marcel Proust (1871-1922) devoted his life to unravelling the mystery of time and is best remembered for his autobiographical work ‘A la Recherche du temps perdu’, 1913-27.