Talking About the Abstraction of Blue with David Hockney This is neither a paean nor an elegy, nor do I intend to gaze upon the youthful blue of the Mediterranean through the vicissitudes of the ancient East. First and foremost, to discuss the planar nature of blue, we must sit down together by this lakeshore of blue. Let the stones beside each of us calm our minds, and steady this bowl of blue lake water before either of us speaks a single word. "From all hills no bird is seen in flight; On every path no human trace is in sight." See how my forebears could leap into the cosmos like the Monkey King, beholding every bird under heaven at once— all flattened into specimens vanishing beneath a thin blue film, meanwhile, you and I tread every deserted road across the world simultaneously. Then, could those fragmented collages of your mother’s photographs achieve the same dynamic perspective? Might we glimpse countless glittering facets of the gemstone reflecting ...