Goodness, it’s big. The larger part of David Hockney’s A Year in Normandie and Other Thoughts About Painting is very large indeed. It’s Hockney’s iPad paintings of his Normandy farmhouse over the course of a year, starting in winter and ending in winter, spread in an uninterrupted line across the internal walls of the Serpentine Gallery. He maintains that it’s inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, with the figures and horses and ships replaced by trees, streams and fields. At 90 metres, it is 20 metres longer than the Bayeux work.
Hockney discovered the iPad in 2010 and he’s embraced the ease, the bright, often garish colours, the freedom from the nuisance of wet paint and mosquitos landing on the canvas.
