Genius, gent, libertarian

I have been told that David Hockney declined the offer of the presidency of his alma mater, the Royal College of Art, saying that he might reconsider if they recommenced the teaching of drawing. It was hearing that which made me take a good look at his work. I cursed myself for coming so tardily to his altar.

Hockney is a very great artist indeed, a timeless eye working with modern sensibilities but firmly in the tradition of the Olympians whom he has studied all his life and takes as his mentors. He is as wonderfully defiant as the best of them were in defence of both his genius (lit.) and his freedom. He has a fine sense of the ridiculous and seems constantly to be laughing at the pomposity and fakery around him.

One does not have to like an artist whose work invades one's soul. I do not know Hockney personally and for all I know he is a shit in private but I strongly doubt it. What I see of the man, I like - a lot. He has the rare gift of genuine charm, and he knows it, and he uses it shamelessly for his own amusement. But charm he has, and one can forgive much in a truly charming man. He loves his dogs and he loved his parents. Few painters can actually paint love as he can.

David Hockney's painting of his parents.

Hockney was the guest editor on Today, today. With his chuckling, easy manner, his determined editorial onslaught obliged even David Blunkett, the most casually brutal dictator of all the New Labour freaks, to admit some merit in the argument that there are too many laws. Of course Blunkett stood firm against those he called 'libertarians of left and right' which merely reminded one of his CV as a a marxoid commissar.

But back to the great man. Thus David Hockney, great artist, defender of liberty - and smoker.

'I think all this green law stuff is mostly about politicians wanting to control you. I will fight it.'

'Force landladies to take gay couples? No, not necessarily.' (Hockney is famously gay.)

'They banned smoking and Wall Street went insane. Gordon Brown should smoke a pipe and ponder, instead of trying to jog.'

'I'll vote for almost anybody to get this mean-spirited authoritarian lot out.'

By no means your stage northerner, your Hockney. But actually English, and actually Yorkshire. A gentle, smiling defender of liberty as well as an artistic genius.