Common touch

It’s difficult to believe that the golden boy of British art — as David Hockney remained for so many years — now has more than half a century of work behind him, or that he will celebrate his 70th birthday next summer. His technical versatility and immense skilfulness have seen him through many different guises along the short path from faux-naïf to sophisticate, including print-maker, photographer and set-designer, inspired draughtsman and impassioned theorist, but it is as a painter that he will surely be judged, when the verdict of posterity eventually arrives. And as a painter, there is a curious emptiness at the heart of his endeavour. In spite of all the tricks and the supreme dexterity, there is a lack of feeling, of human understanding to his art. Painters deal in surfaces, but they can also plumb the depths. Hockney, however, does not.

He is a superb draughtsman, and there are many examples of his exceptional ability in the substantial new exhibition at the NPG. Featuring over 150 exhibits, including paintings, drawings, prints, photo-works and sketchbooks, it offers a colourful introduction to his art and will no doubt prove spectacularly popular. Hockney has the common touch, and it is partly because his work is generally pleasing and relatively undemanding (his theories about optics are far more complex than his art) that it appeals across the board. His technical gifts and native wit have carried him a long way, but it is evident from his intellectual restlessness and addiction to ideas that his artistic practice has long ceased to satisfy him. (How many years has he devoted to a study of Renaissance optical gadgets? The latest expanded edition of his apparently controversial book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters is just published by Thames & Hudson at £24.95