A Bigger Splash

David Hockney is known for his landscapes, and how he believed and proved that landscapes are not just stillness, but characters in motion as well. He delivered narratives with a series – Tunnel, and he explained human emotions, interpreted by sitting long enough with landscapes to bring out the emotions through it. Like The Big Hawthorn. 

Contrary to his admiration and comfort to living and painting in remote parts of the United Kingdom, A Bigger Splash is not inspired from such places, it was painted in California in the late 60s. And the concept of the painting is unlike the rural landscapes that he was passionate about. 

It is an image of someone jumping into the pool from a yellow dive board. And the dive do not seem to be a dive of someone who swims considering the “bigger splash” that David allegedly worked two weeks on the intricacies. The splash is created by someone falling flat in the pool, making it seem like a distressed conscious fall rather than a jolly dive. The major blue palette suggests the same. But the yellow diver board and the flash glass doored building create a contrast to this theory. It suggests a refreshing jump into the pool on a late summer morning, in a luxurious villa. 

I believe it was David’s specialty to knit oxymoronal ideas in one image.