We’re welcoming the onset of spring this week with a little help from David Hockney. In the midst of the pandemic, the British artist captured the season unfolding at his home in Normandy in a series of works ‘painted’ with app brushes on his iPad. You can literally sense his delight in the burgeoning blossom, vivid greenery and bright skies in the pieces, which were exhibited at the Royal Academy in the exhibition, David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020, staged a year later. They feel loaded with optimism despite the strange times we were living through.

Hockney has been using the iPad to create works since the Noughties. Throughout his life, he has embraced technology – including cameras, photocopiers and fax machines – so it is no surprise that he should regard the tablet as just another tool for drawing and painting. His Normandy works capture the wild intensity of Spring, while giving it with a thrilling new electricity.

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