Olivia Laing previews the exhibition David Hockney which will be on view at Tate Britain from February 9 – May 29, 2017.

Laing writes: “As a spectacular new retrospective at Tate Britain makes clear … twists and turns in thematic preoccupations and new techniques [explored by Hockney throughout his career] do not represent a lack of discipline or focus. Instead, they are staging posts in Hockney’s great quest: his passionate, obsessive attempt to remake the solid, moody, fleeting world in two dimensions. What do things look like, really, to stereoscopic human eyes, connected to a human heart and brain? Never mind the camera, with its rigid Cyclopean vision. There is a better way of seeing, though it might take a lifetime to master.”