David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring in Normandy, 2020

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic—the ever-versatile and inventive artist David Hockney traveled to France with the express intention of capturing the emergence of spring. The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020 marks his third series documenting the blossoming of spring, having done his first in 2011 and the second in 2013. For this latest project, he observed the richness of the season from the bucolic surroundings of rural Normandy. Working en plein air, he spent his days scrutinizing and recording the subtle, daily changes in the plants and light as spring emerged and took hold with all its drama and glory. The plein air approach was particularly fitting for his endeavor due to Normandy’s associations with the origin of French Impressionism.

In contrast to the withdrawal, isolation, and sobering events the pandemic imposed, Hockney’s paintings are a celebration of the joy of the natural world, which reminds us, as he does himself in one of his often-repeated phrases, to “love life.”