David Hockney: Art For Arse Sake

A new exhibition of Hockney's early work has just opened at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, which happens to own one of my all-time favourite Hockneys.

This 1966 painting is called Peter Getting Out of Nick's Pool. Why do I love it? I admire its courage and clarity. Hockney watches Peter's nude back and bottom as his tanned form emerges from crystalline blue water. The image of a beautiful human body rising out of water is one of the great fantasies of European art: this painting is a male version of Titian's Venus Anadyomene or Raphael's Galatea. It's a hymn to perfection and a dream of love. Hockney's significance in cultural and indeed social history is perfectly expressed in this happy painting...

Jonathan Jones on the Guardian Arts Blog.

Fagburn was reminded of another leading arse arts critic Brian Sewell talking bum last year...