Hockney's Wolds

Finding Hockney's inspiration

Our long weekend in the Yorkshire Wolds gave me the opportunity to try and understand what had inspired David Hockney's art and try to come up with a few photos of my own that pay homage in some way to his vision of the area.

The countryside, in late June, is delightful.  The barley was ripening in the fields and the wide open spaces were quite beautiful.

Ripening barley in the fields

We first tried to find the tunnel of trees that he had filmed in different seasons.  We were informed that these were on Woldgate, and as I previously mentioned, we drove up and down the lane before agreeing we were in the right location.

Tunnel of trees

The fields approaching Thixendale from the Huggate direction were high up, compared to the surrounding countryside, and had narrow dales dipping amongst the fields. The view spread out for miles in all directions.

The lanes we were driving on were small and meandering but occasionally, where the hedges allowed, gave fabulous views across the Wolds.

Fields and dales near Thixendale

As we drove along the lanes we kept stopping to admire the views and take photos.  I can well imagine David Hockney setting up his easel in one of these fields and creating his own version of the scene.

Three trees near Huggate

One of my favourite photos is the one below, again near Huggate.  The sun was shining, the barley was waving in the breeze but there was a threat of rain and the clouds were getting heavy.  We stopped by the entrance to a field and I tried to capture the feeling of the impending rain.

We were lucky, by the way, the rain didn't come and we had lovely weather for the whole trip.

Tracks through the field