Hockney knocks it out of the park

Just got back from seeing David Hockney's massive show at the Royal Academy.  The blockbuster art show is not often front of mind when it comes to parting with hard earned cash, but there were many reasons for pre-booking for this one.  Yorkshire?  Tick.  From Bradford?  Tick.  Trees?  Tick.  Living legend?  Tick.  The experience, like many others report from trying to see postage-stamp size Da Vinci's at The National or grotesque nude indulgence with Freud at The NPG, your tolerance levels for queues, coach parties and school kids have to be high to see the works.  But what works!  Massive canvasses of color, sorry colour.  Hockney has literally thrown huge buckets of vibrant colour at canvass or through the presses of high quality printers realising his iPad creations.  He has brought all the 'Technicolor' of thirty years in Tinseltown On Sea, to find Bridlington is "a lot like St Tropez" and discover beauty in a gloomy Wolds wood, or majesty in a "totem" dead tree stump that recurs in about thirty of the paintings.  He has filled just about every inch of gallery, planned in three-dimensions from his East Yorkshire studio.  Then a major surprise amongst the acres of wood and trees he has created seven versions of an old-Masters Sermon on the Mount.  Above one haphazard unfinished version he writes 'L O V E' in an arc above Christ preaching from the rocky cliff.  Sharpen your elbows, practice saying "sorry" as you thump into old-ladies who do art and lunch, then linger amidst it all for as long as your can bear.  It's worth it.