Martin Gayford

A choice of art books – from Carpaccio to David Hockney

Other artists include James Gillray, Quentin Blake, Lucian Freud – and those inspired over the centuries by an overlooked subject in art history: the egg

‘Birth of the Virgin’ by Vittore Carpaccio, c. 1502. [Fondazione Accademia Carrara, Bergamo] 
issue 03 December 2022

David Hockney once remarked that he wasn’t greedy for money, but was covetous of an interesting life. Then he added that he could find excitement ‘in raindrops falling on a puddle’. There are no puddles in My Window (Taschen, £100), previously only available as a limited edition, but Hockney finds ravishing beauty in such sights as the roofs of neighbouring houses, a street lamp or a distant crane.

This huge and sumptuous volume is a visual diary: it consists of what Hockney saw as he lay in bed and looked out at the world each morning between 2009 and 2011. His view was much like anyone else’s, nor is there anything unusual about the window itself. But there is endless variety in the changing weather and light, and also in how he depicts such mundane objects as a vase of flowers on the sill, curtains and blinds.

The results illustrate two of Hockney’s contentions.

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