The East Yorkshire rain fell like cheap gin from a leaky optic, each drop a small, cruel parody of the artist's beloved swimming pools. David Hockney, the man who taught the world to look properly at a splash of light on water, was put into the ground yesterday in a ceremony that was, by all accounts, as meticulously composed as one of his paintings. The vicar, a man of surprising beard for a cleric, spoke of 'a life lived in full colour' while the congregation, a bizarre assemblage of knights, pop stars, and the baffled-looking man who runs the local art supply shop, nodded in solemn agreement.
Bridlington, the town that Hockney adopted with the same doting attention he gave to a vase of tulips, closed its fish-and-chip shops for two minutes. A local told me, 'He painted the fields so they looked how they feel.' The man then realised he was talking to a journalist and promptly walked into the sea. This is the effect the man has, even in death.
The funeral itself was a masterpiece of understated absurdity. The coffin was a shade of blue that no one could quite name but everyone knew was his. Cobalt? Ultramarine? Hockney blue. The flowers were from his own garden, hacked from the soil by a grieving gardener who reportedly whispered 'Sorry, Dave' with each snip. Brass bands from California played a sad, tinny version of a Beach Boys song, and someone had the glorious impertinence to hand out tiny notepads and pencils for 'anyone who feels a sketch coming on.'
I stood at the back, trying to suppress a dry heave that was half emotion, half the breakfast sausage I'd eaten from a van outside. This was the funeral of a man who had stared down the 20th century with a quiff and a pair of glasses so thick they could have deflected a bullet. He made the world look new again, and now the world is older, greyer, and distinctly less fun.
In his later years, Hockney had taken to drawing on an iPad, a fact that sent the old guard into a rage that was only slightly lessened by his absolute mastery of the medium. 'Digital?' they scoffed, clutching their oil paints. Hockney just shrugged, his shoulders a narrow bridge between Cubism and a text message. He knew that the medium is just the messenger. The message, always, was joy.
His death leaves a silence in the art world that will be filled, inevitably, by the droning of conceptual artists who think a pile of bricks is a comment on the human condition. Hockney, by contrast, painted a pile of bricks and made you want to weep at their beauty. He painted a man on a table and made you understand the loneliness of every person in every room in every city.
The service ended with a recording of him laughing. It was a strange, high-pitched giggle, the sound of a man who had just noticed something wonderful. The laughter filled the church, bounced off the stained glass, and then, absurdly, set off a car alarm outside. It felt like his final punchline.
As the mourners filed out, clutching their complimentary sketchpads, a thought struck me like a splash of cheap ale. We are all now living in Hockney's world. A world where a single brushstroke can contain a whole summer. A world where the light is always, somehow, just a little bit better. He has not left us. He has just gone to paint somewhere else.
I went back to my car, a borrowed Datsun that smelled of wet dog and regret, and uncapped a flask. The gin was warm, but it tasted of something. It tasted of the end of an era. Or maybe it was just gin. Goodbye, Mr Hockney. The pool is empty now, but the reflection remains.