From the exhibition booklet :Hockney's fascination with the The Sermon On The Mount lay out in the biblical scene that it portrays, but in the spatial effect that Claude achieved. Hockney noted how Claude compressed the geography of the Holy Land, with Mount Labanon and the Sea of Galilee on the right, and the Dead Sea and the River of Jordan on the left, and how the dimishing size of figures in the crowd is cleverly employed to create spatial depth.
How refreshing it is to see someone at the top of his game, who has the freedom to be self-indulgent and the bona fides to simply rest on his laurels, choose instead to keep pushing the envelope.
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