A detail from The Big Hawthorn, 2008, by David Hockney. Oil on nine canvases. Photograph: Richard SchmidtAs Ian Jack points out, even on a Wednesday afternoon, the least popular of times, the queue to see the Hockney exhibition stretches halfway down the Royal Academy's courtyard. Admission is £14 and the doors are open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Inside, the crowds roam the galleries getting their money's worth of formal exuberance and colour. People adore Hockney, and, to judge by the languages of their approbation, not just English people. "Belle" and "joli" and "bellissimo" could be heard,
Winter Timber, 2009, oil on canvas
Jack goes on to point out that rarely does a living artist evoke so much pleasure – pleasure as opposed to obedient gawping and reverence, real or false. Some of the delight can be credited to Hockney's persona. None of the images he has created is as well known as the image of the artist: the glasses, the strong hair, the matter-of-fact voice.
But what of the milling crowd and the queue spilling out into Picadilly, are all these people afficonados of art, or are many of them the 'told what to go and see' readers of Sunday supplements, just pleased with themselves to be there, at the event. To be in the inner circle, like being a member of an exclusive golf club, where the hordes are denied entry.
One hears the ceaseless chatter from those who you know to be philistine and you just feel that the Circus has come to Town.
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