The King, a man whose face has been painted on more biscuit tins than the Mona Lisa, today led the nation in a poorly rehearsed round of hand-wringing over the cultural colossus that is David Hockney. Yes, David Hockney. The man who turned California sunshine into a brand of anaemic swimming pools and whose glasses have more personality than most cabinet ministers.
The Palace released a statement this morning, clearly drafted by a flunky who has never looked at a Hockney without squinting, calling him a “giant of the art world.” Oh, how we love our giants, don't we? Especially when they can still hold a paintbrush without dribbling down their tweed.
The news came as Britain, a nation that once gave the world the spinning jenny and the Cornish pasty, officially entered its annual period of cultural self-flagellation. We must celebrate our icons, you see. Even if those icons have spent the last 50 years painting the same bloody swimming pool from slightly different angles.
Hockney's greatest achievement, and I say this with the full authority of a man who once drew a perfectly acceptable stick figure on a napkin in the Groucho Club, is that he made modern art both accessible and aggressively uninteresting. You can hang a Hockney in your living room and feel sophisticated without once having to explain what it means. It's a swimming pool, Susan.
There's a man in it. He's not drowning, he's contemplating the existential void of suburban leisure. The King, in his infinite wisdom, no doubt sees a kindred spirit.
A man who has spent his entire life in the public eye, dressed in increasingly ludicrous outfits, and yet somehow remains beloved by a nation that would happily tar and feather a minor royal for leaving a wet towel on the floor. Indeed, the art world has gone into full meltdown mode. Critics are tripping over themselves to call Hockney “the most important living painter” or “the Turner of our age.
” Let’s not forget that Turner was painting seascapes that looked like the apocalypse had taken a shit on a canvas. Hockney paints gardens. Beautiful, meticulously arranged gardens that look like the kind of thing you'd see on a postcard from a hotel that charges £500 a night for a room without windows.
Yet, we must celebrate. The BBC has dusted off its most earnest presenter to front a documentary. The Tate is preparing a retrospective that will no doubt include a room dedicated entirely to his swimming trunks collection.
And the tabloids? They've devoted three whole pages to the fact that Hockney once owned a dachshund named Stanley. I am, of course, being facetious.
Hockney is a genius. A man who saw the world through a pair of absurdist spectacles and captured it with the kind of clarity that makes you wonder why you ever bothered squinting in the first place. But let us not pretend that this sudden outpouring of royal affection is anything other than a carefully choreographed piece of cultural stagecraft.
The monarchy, that great vampire squid of national identity, has latched onto Hockney's coattails. They know that when the chips are down, nothing distracts a populace from the rising cost of gin and the collapsing state of public transport like a nice, safe, sunny painting of a bloke in a pool. So raise a glass, Britain.
A half-drunk cup of lukewarm tea will do. Drink to David Hockney, the giant who painted us all into a corner of sunny, inoffensive genius. And then pour another for the King, who must now go back to sorting through his collection of porcelain corgis.
God save the King. And God save us from our cultural icons.
