When so much contemporary art is riven with obscurity and angst, it is disorientating, at first, to encounter something as straightforwardly enjoyable as Hockney’s latest exhibition. Aged 88, the artist went out into his garden in Normandy with his iPad to make a visual diary of the year 2020. A hundred or so of the iPad sketches he made have been put together here, blended into a frieze, a walk-through panorama of the seasons rendered with Vivaldi-like virtuosity.

As we move along the curve of this frieze, we see nature through Hockney’s bright yellow spectacles

As we move along the curve of this frieze, we see nature through Hockney’s bright yellow spectacles

As we move along the curve of this 90-metre frieze, we see nature through Hockney’s bright yellow spectacles. He distils the garden to its dramatic essences. The chill mist of winter is numinous, the dormant trees skeletal, the spring blossom riotously delicate, the blue sky bluer than blue. It is as if he is holding all he sees close, impelled to capture it once and for all.

‘Late........

© The Spectator