2021-07-19

The disguise of Portrait of an Artist

David Hockney, Portrait of an Artist

Portrait of an artist is one of the most beloved paintings of Hockney, regardless of the struggle in the process of creation. However, the excellence of the painting does not attribute to the story behind it. But, the symbolic suggestions harbored in this painting highlight the success.  

Hockey gives this a curious name---portrait of an artist. Since it does not refers to any traditional sense of portrait painting. Indeed, Hockey approaches himself not by depicting his facial expression as Vincent van Gogh did for himself. But by setting himself in a queer scenario, he privileges the idea of reflectiveness for the matter of a portrait. 

In this way, reflectiveness comes to light. Being nevertheless implicit, this painting's response to reflectiveness is clouded in a bizarre air. The perceiver, assumed to be the artist, stands stiffly by the pool, in which he is gazing at the swimmer. His expression unravels a curious calmness resulting from a sense of indifference. The swimmer, in contrast, does not seem to notice the perceiver's presence. These two people, having been in the same dimension, actually belong to two different worlds. Thus, it indicates a separation of the reflection from the perceiver's reality. The separation elicits a distance that enables the possibility of seeing ( mentioned previously.) This scenario mimics the one seeing oneself in the mirror. Nonetheless, rather than being an illusion, the reflection of the perceiver, which is, in this case, the swimmer, is the implicated reality. 

The messages that this painting delivers are as follows:

1. Portrait of an artist is a portrait of spectators. And this scenario profiles the contemporary spectatorship that stresses the cognitive reflectiveness of art.

2. The reflection responding to Lacan's mirror is to be transformed into reality, with which the perceiver identifies his/herself.