This is the sort of headline that makes one reach for the smelling salts. King Charles III, the anointed custodian of British heritage, has seen fit to lay a wreath of praise at the feet of David Hockney. A ‘giant of British art’, he calls him. Quite right, of course. Hockney is indeed a giant. But what does it say about our own age that we must coronate him with such frantic ceremony, as if terrified a single day might pass without his genius being footnoted for posterity?
Let us be clear: Hockney is a master. His swimming pools shimmer with Californian hedonism. His Yorkshire landscapes are romantic in the best sense. He has warped perspective, played with photography, and generally refused to be anything but himself. That is admirable. But the King’s tribute, fulsome as it is, smacks of a deeper anxiety. We live in a time of cultural decadence, a late-imperial twilight where we cling to our old geniuses because we fear no new ones will emerge.
Compare this to the era of the original giants. Turner, Constable, Blake. They were not celebrated in their declining years by a nervous monarchy; they were ignored, mocked, or left to rot. Turner died in a rented room. Blake was dismissed as a madman. Only later did we canonise them. Hockney, by contrast, has been lauded, feted, and knighted. He is the reassuring father figure who reminds us that Britain once produced greatness. But the question we must ask is: where are the Hockneys of today? Where are the painters who will challenge our perceptions a century hence? They are not in the Royal Academy summer exhibitions. They are not on the Turner Prize shortlists. They are buried under a mountain of conceptual drivel and identity politics.
The King’s tribute is not a celebration. It is an elegy. A lament for a golden age that has passed. The Victorian era understood this: they built monuments to their heroes while the empire was still strong. We, on the other hand, erect statues to our heroes when the empire is gone, as if hoping the bronze might resurrect the spirit. Hockney is a testament to what we were. What are we now? A nation that worships its past because the present is too terrifying to contemplate.
Hockney himself, to his credit, has never been sentimental about such things. He has always looked forward, experimenting with iPads and immersive installations. But even he must feel the weight of this cultural mausoleum. The King’s praise is a double-edged sword: it elevates Hockney, but it also locks him in a gilded cage of nostalgia.
So let us have the tribute. Let us hail the giant. But let us also feel a shiver of unease. When the King praises a painter of this calibre, he is not merely honouring a single man. He is flagging the end of an era. And those who do not learn from the decline of Rome are doomed to paint watercolours of its ruins.
Long live David Hockney. But God help British art when he is gone.
