Mount Fuji and Flowers
After his breakup with Peter Schlesinger in the summer of 1971, Hockney traveled to Japan with his friend Mark Lancaster. Made in London after his return and assuming multiple painterly manners, this work references the delicate, dripping washes of color-field painting in the treatment of Mount Fuji, while the white jonquils in the foreground are rendered in a hard-edged style. The image itself is also a composite: Hockney worked from a postcard of Mount Fuji and a flower-arrangement manual, rather than direct observation— perhaps an ironic response to the commercial culture he found in Japan, which contradicted his expectations of an unspoiled and bucolic landscape.
Artwork Details
- Title: Mount Fuji and Flowers
- Artist: David Hockney (British, born Bradford, 1937)
- Date: 1972
- Medium: Acrylic on canvas
- Dimensions: 60 × 48 in. (152.4 × 121.9 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Mrs. Arthur Hays Sulzberger Gift, 1972
- Object Number: 1972.128
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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