Getting back to nature

The imposing Manton stairwell at Tate Britain might seem an odd place to hang David Hockney's new canvases: you either have to crane you neck to view them from below or stand level but at an odd-angled distance to view them in their entirety.

You might, in fact, think they were left over from a main exhibition, the stairwell being the only place they could be squeezed in as an afterthought.

But the longer you look, the more you'll find that Tate Britain's stairwell offers the optimum viewing distance for the five vibrant East Yorkshire landscapes: at such a distance their brilliantly mottled surfaces appear to agitate and vibrate with life.

Their colours, striking complementary shades in deepest greens, violent oranges and cooling lilacs, are reminiscent of the great colourists of the post-Impressionist age, particularly of the French painter Andre Derain - even though Hockney observes a very different light to that of the south of France.

These composite images of a patch of shaded woodland, called Woldgate Woods, observe the different seasons.

The winter trees offer beautifully skeletal silhouettes, while the summer vistas are lush with nature's abundance.

Since reconnecting with the landscape of his Bradford childhood, Hockney has produced some of his most vivid, electrifying paintings.

These five new paintings are in oils but Hockney's recent exploration of the medium of watercolour has undoubtedly also had a rejuvenating effect on his work.

This rediscovery of an old medium, so long associated with the twee landscape painting of the amateur Sunday painter, has, in turn, inspired Hockney to look at an earlier painter of watercolour landscapes: JMW Turner.

While at the forefront of the campaign to save Turner's 1842 watercolour The Blue Riga for the nation, Hockney was invited to curate a show of Turner's watercolours, for which he has chosen a series of unfinished sketches (The Blue Riga can be viewed among them).