Why I Love "A Bigger Splash"

No other painting has had quite the same effect on me as David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash. The subject is simple enough: a Californian bungalow forms the backdrop of a study into the azure blues of a swimming pool dominated by an unexplainable splash. Yet it’s not uncommon for people, myself included, to spend hours of their time gazing into it. In fact, people have been mesmerised by this painting for nearly half a century. In terms of size, colour and its use of space, A Bigger Splash is not unlike many of Hockney’s other paintings in his California series; but there is a distinct uniqueness to it that makes it my favourite painting.

I fell in love with A Bigger Splash in a 2013 retrospective of Hockney’s work at The Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (UK). The colours and themes of the exhibition were immediately accessible to a 15-year-old me yet, strangely, I found A Bigger Splash incredibly perplexing. My main concern was with the cause of the splash; why had the artist so beautifully detailed each minute droplet of water yet failed to incriminate a perpetrator? Who (or what) made the splash? It’s a question that I’ll probably never know the answer to.

By juxtaposing the vibrant movement and action of the titular splash with the strictness of the parallel lines that characterise the backdrop, Hockney only emphasises the unknown subject of the painting. Order meets freedom, predictability meets irregularity, the still meets the animated. Unlike the objects in the background of the painting, the splash is unlike anything that could be captured through a camera lens. To truly understand A Bigger Splash, it’s essential that you’re aware of where Hockney was in his career as an artist. At the time it was painted, the Yorkshire-born artist was captivated by the idea of space and how it could be depicted in oil painting. The differences in perception that occur in the transition from the human eye, to camera lens, to painting fascinated Hockney, and that really is clear in depictions of water and other reflective surfaces in his art.

Although painted in 1967, A Bigger Splash continues to arouse interest today. Its title was borrowed for a Luca Guadagnino film released just last year. The film shared a number of themes in the painting it was inspired by: action, suspicion, but also serenity. Nearly the entirety of the film that stars Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes unfolds around the perimeter of an almost blissfully still swimming pool. The painting that will turn 50 next year has, in my opinion, never been surpassed in terms of tranquillity and splendour. The postcard replica that I bought in 2013 still hangs above my bed and, when I’m in London, I often find myself making detours to Tate Britain where the painting permanently hangs.

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