A bigger splash at Podere Santa Pia, southern Tuscany

Dreams and stuff… The first morning at the swimming pool is something we won't forget... and the first dive, well, it was here, amidst this oasis of mediterrenean stillness, that the mind's eye was invariably drawn into a playful dance with the specter of David Hockney's seminal masterpiece A Bigger Splash. One could not help but find oneself pulled into a reverie of vivid color and spatial distortion, an aesthetic trajectory that marries the interplay of perspective with the capriciousness of water's choreography.

A year after completing his studies at the Royal College of Art in London, Hockney had moved to California for an extended stay. Between 1964 and 1971, Hockney painted several paintings featuring swimming pools, being particularly interested in capturing the constantly changing light reflections on the moving water surface. The first painting with a swimming pool, Picture of a Hollywood Swimming Pool, was made in 1964. A Bigger Splash, the third and last in this series, was painted by Hockney between April and June 1967 while he was teaching at Berkeley. The painting was acquired by Tate in 1981.

Although a seductive depiction of a dream place, A Bigger Splash is not just about that. According to Hockney, the real subject is the split-second moment of the splash itself, frozen on canvas. Hockney painted the picture from a photograph of a splash taken by someone else. He later commented how he had spent much longer painting the splash than the house behind it – even though a splash lasts two seconds and a building is permanently there. This contradiction fascinated him [2].