‘I draw the weeds’

DAVID HOCKNEY points out: ‘In the Bible and other ancient texts, every important place is a garden.’ Then he asks: ‘Where would you rather live? Where would you want to be? Even in Los Angeles, I am always drawing my garden.’ Yet a painter’s garden is a specialised variety, horticulturally speaking. It’s designed and maintained expressly to provide subjects for pictures. This means that the priorities are a bit different from those of a lover of fine trees or a lawn fancier.

As Mr Hockney explains: ‘The three big pear trees are all dead at the top; that’s why there are no leaves on them. But I want to let them stay there like that, because they look like hands clapping or something. It’s the same with those trees with mistletoe, which kills them eventually. But I think they are wonderful to draw, because they set up a plane.’ You can see how the mistletoe aids the design in picture after picture.

Mr Hockney’s assistant, Jean-pierre, recalls that landscape experts have come and exclaimed: ‘This should come out and that should come out; it’s got no value. They want to replace the trees with better, nobler ones. But I know that, for David, visually, it’s the shapes and forms that count.’

Understandably, Vincent, who cuts the grass and tends the flowers, is a little put out. He says it looks as if there’s nobody looking after these grounds. However, Mr Hockney reflects: ‘I don’t mind that, because I draw the weeds.’