David Hockney's We Two Boys Together Clinging

Authors Avatar

Artist: David Hockney                Piece: We two boys together clinging

We two boys together clinging is based on a poem by the nineteenth century American poet Walt Whitman, “We two boys together clinging”, which is about the inseparable partnership of two men. This piece was produced in 1961, but it wasn’t until 1967 homosexuality was made legal in the UK. The work is predominantly about the love between two men who couldn’t legally be together, but couldn’t not be together their love was so strong. Nevertheless, even if this painting has political undertones, ultimately its theme is that of love being triumphant. The subject matter is based on the poem, so the issue is a remembered issue; however the piece itself doesn’t have much detail or form which is most likely imagined. There is definitely deliberate abstraction in the piece, as there is no detail or form in the people in the painting; the painting itself has a very childish quality to it in the style it has been painted. Hockney has also used text in the painting quoting the title of the poem and other parts of the poem, but some of these words have been painted carefully and un-childlike. This makes me think Hockney feels that the image painted isn’t important, but the meaning and words behind the matter of the work are what makes the piece what it is. I feel the way the paint has been added to the board is furious and celebratory, a celebration of emotion and an ideal, so Hockney doesn’t feel detail and realism is important. The subject matter to me isn’t immediately apparent until the viewer has read the poem the work is based on, however the audience could get an idea as to what it is about based on the title of the piece. When I viewed the piece, I thought the piece could be based on homosexuality, but it wasn’t until I read the poem on which it was based that I learned of the political influence on the work.

Join now!

Hockney’s painting has two rectangular shapes in the centre of the board representing the “two boys”, with their faces separate above the two figures. Text also runs around the two figures stating the title of the piece, with small sections of the poem added to different parts of the board. There isn’t much of a colour scheme used in the piece, but the most dominant colours are pastel shades of blue, grey and pink. There are also dark bold shades of black, purple and red which builds large contrasts between the dark shades “boys” and the lightly coloured background, however ...

This is a preview of the whole essay