I'm not sure how I've managed to avoid David Hockney in the Arty-Farty series 'til now - a "Yorkie", like me. He was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, UK on 9 July 1937. Cancerian influence is prominent in his chart, Sun and Mercury conjoined are in Cancer along with Pluto. If he was born before 6am then Moon also would have been in Cancer. (12 noon chart below).
It's interesting that so many of his paintings feature water - Cancer being the Cardinal
Water sign of the zodiac.
Without a time of birth for Hockney we can't know his ascendant. He's described as "gregarious" and an "ebullient" personality, which brings to mind Sagittarius or Leo rising - but that's a wild guess.
David Hockney has been described as
"The most highly publicized British artist since the Second World War, he occupies a position analogous to that which was once accorded to Augustus John - one irony of this being that for John's exuberant heterosexuality Hockney substitutes a publicly acknowledged homosexuality."
(Augustus John was featured in a post here).
"About David Hockney (republished from brain-juice.com)~~~
David Hockney has often been regarded as a playboy of the art world. He has had lascivious relationships, and he has run among strange and crazy artistic circles. Yet he has always retained a sense of stability in his life through his constant and tireless devotion to his work. Hockney is an artist that has always enjoyed success and praise, facing little to no hardship in his career. What is interesting about his life is not the problems he has encountered, but the strides he has taken to bypass much human suffering and malaise."
Hockney's Moon at 12 noon was quite close to Pluto - it could have been much closer if time of birth was early in the day, and would connect to an emphasis on sexual matters.
A Grand Trine in Earth signs (right) in his natal chart links to his "sense of stability", as mentioned in the above extract.
It's possible to see Uranus sextile Sun/Mercury represented here:
"Hockney made a series of discoveries. He visited New York, and was struck by the freedom of American society - it was at this stage that he bleached his hair and began to present a new image, fuelled not only by the United States but also by his discovery of the poetry of Whitman and Cavafy."
More at
http://www.davidhockney.com/bio.html
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hockney.html
http://www.davidhockneythecolorsofmusic.com/
It's interesting that so many of his paintings feature water - Cancer being the Cardinal
Water sign of the zodiac.Without a time of birth for Hockney we can't know his ascendant. He's described as "gregarious" and an "ebullient" personality, which brings to mind Sagittarius or Leo rising - but that's a wild guess.
David Hockney has been described as"The most highly publicized British artist since the Second World War, he occupies a position analogous to that which was once accorded to Augustus John - one irony of this being that for John's exuberant heterosexuality Hockney substitutes a publicly acknowledged homosexuality."
(Augustus John was featured in a post here).
"About David Hockney (republished from brain-juice.com)~~~David Hockney has often been regarded as a playboy of the art world. He has had lascivious relationships, and he has run among strange and crazy artistic circles. Yet he has always retained a sense of stability in his life through his constant and tireless devotion to his work. Hockney is an artist that has always enjoyed success and praise, facing little to no hardship in his career. What is interesting about his life is not the problems he has encountered, but the strides he has taken to bypass much human suffering and malaise."
Hockney's Moon at 12 noon was quite close to Pluto - it could have been much closer if time of birth was early in the day, and would connect to an emphasis on sexual matters.
A Grand Trine in Earth signs (right) in his natal chart links to his "sense of stability", as mentioned in the above extract.
It's possible to see Uranus sextile Sun/Mercury represented here:"Hockney made a series of discoveries. He visited New York, and was struck by the freedom of American society - it was at this stage that he bleached his hair and began to present a new image, fuelled not only by the United States but also by his discovery of the poetry of Whitman and Cavafy."
The painting below is my favorite Hockney - it's of Garrowby Hill in East Yorkshire. This is a very long steep hill with a twist in it. I've travelled up and down the hill countless times, in all weathers - when icy it's treacherous. Several fatal accidents have happened there over the years, including a runaway bus filled with passengers, 13 of whom died. There's a big wooden crucifix at the side of the road, near to the top of the hill, which is actually a memorial to King George VI, but most travellers see it as a memorial to all who have died there, and a protection to drivers.
"Hockney's life and all his loves are always on display to the public. By embracing all sorts of technology and media, Hockney has made his art accessible to people everywhere. He has used art to express the love he has felt for others, and consequently, his works show personal stake and personal meaning. Ironically, his artwork caused much personal suffering and strife in the making and breaking of his romances, while at the same time, garnering him much respect and admiration. Hockney has truly made art a form of real human interaction and communication."
More at
http://www.davidhockney.com/bio.html
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hockney.html
http://www.davidhockneythecolorsofmusic.com/
7 comments:
Hello Twilight, enjoyed this piece very much. Thanks! Hockney's an amazing artist. I watched a video on him working once and he's truly one of the most creative people on earth.
I bet he's got a firey Leo Moon because I heard that he moved back to England just so that he couldn't stand all the smoking bans in California!
Hiya OTCA - thanks for visiting - glad this was of interest.
Yes, Leo Moon might fit, but Leo rising might too. It'll be one or t'other for sure. :-) Maybe even both.
Hey Twilight, I really enjoy your selections of artists to profile in your column. (In fact, you did one on Ella Wheeler Wilcox that led me to buy a vintage copy of one of her books as a gift for a poet friend!)
On Hockney, I wasn't as aware of some of his personal history so this post was very interesting. Will have to check out more examples of his art, as I am mainly familiar with the Polaroid photo collages he has done.
Had an astrology question for you ... how common is the Sun-Mercury conjunction? Given the proximity of those 2 planets and how often they are in the same sign, I'm curious how often this aspect crops up.
Along the same lines, I'm curious what significance it has that the Sun sign and Mercury sign are always either the same or adjacent signs (that is correct, right?)
Actually ... is that also true for Venus (always in the same sign or neighboring sign to the Sun)?
Thanks for your thoughts!
Hello Poet Girl - I'm pleased you like my posts on artists - they are my favourite ones to write and illustrate.
Re your query: Finding a chart with Mercury and Sun conjoined is fairly common, though I can't put any kind of statistic on it. Finding Mercury in the same sign as the Sun happens very frequently indeed. Mercury can only be in either the same sign as the Sun, or the sign immediately before or immediately after the Sun's sign. Conjunction is the only possible aspect between Sun and Mercury because there's only ever 28 degrees @ maximum between them.
Venus can never be more than 2 signs away from the Sun, in either direction.
I've written a couple of posts on this very topic in the past, and now can't find them in my archives!
As for the significance of this - it's interesting that Sun/Mercury/Venus are so limited in their spread. I've often thought that there's scope for more research on this topic. Astrologers concentrate on Sun/Moon/Ascendant as a shorthand way of assessing personality, but maybe the Sun/Mercury/Venus configuration could be equally telling.
Mercury takes around 88 days to complete its trip around the signs, Venus takes around 225 days. The next nearest planet to us, Mars, takes 2 and a half years to complete it's zodiac cycle and return to the place where it lay in a natal chart.
:-)
Poet Girl ~~~ Your question got me searching and searching through my archives, but still no luck, but among my drafts on Word Pad, some of which I never did post because they became too complicated and unintelligible (perhaps the ones I'm thinking of fell into this category), I did discover though that I'd copied onto WordPad part of a really good article about Sun/Mercury/Venus from a site on the net which now seems to have gone out of existence completely. I can't remember the author's name either, sadly. Anyway, over the next week I'll copy some of the article into a new blog post, with an apology to whoever's work it was. :-)
Good! Thanks for trying to track it down; I will watch for a follow-up.
I am finding with my own study of astrology that certain things sink in, in 'waves' as I continue to read books and blogs and look at charts. Some of the rules we were just discussing here, about the radius of Mercury and Venus from the Sun, are not typically discussed in many astrology sources.
For a long time I think I held the belief that a person could have any combination of Sun + Merc, or Sun + Venus, much like you would between Sun & Moon ... but that's not true. Since this is a hard-and-fast rule for all of us, it seems interesting to me to understand why!
Poet Girl ~~~ I was the same, in that initially I didn't realise that all the planets could not be just anywhere/everywhere in every chart, even though I knew about the cycles involved.
The "mechanics" of astronomy/astrology, are hard to envisage for a non-mechanical mind such as my own, and I still struggle with it at times. I try just to think of it as a kind of clockwork - which it really is, after all.
(I'll post the article I found tomorrow.)
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