On it May Stay His Eye 1976 - 1977

This is David Hockney’s ‘On it May Stay His Eye’, a print, and you can see how the image is built up from individual lines, like a drawing, letting the flat whiteness of the page breathe through. There's something so simple about the way he renders this scene, a kind of playful shorthand. Look at the guitar, just a few lines, but we know exactly what it is. And the rug, a dense network of red and blue strokes, almost vibrating with energy. The colours are so sparse, just a few dashes here and there, but they do so much work. It’s so pared back, so direct. It reminds me a little of Matisse, that same joyful simplification of form, that willingness to let a line be a line, and a colour be a colour, without getting bogged down in details. Both artists had a real confidence in the power of suggestion, in letting the viewer fill in the gaps.