1001 Nights
Longing for the Orient
When he was young, David Hockney read poems by the Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy and was touched by his poetic expression of homoeroticism.
Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and spent most of his life there. The Greek poet describes the bustling atmosphere of that big city and, above all, the fleeting glances and encounters between homosexuals, who had to conceal their sexual leanings. In Cavafy’s poems the figures are spurred on by longing: in the tavern, in the tobacco shop, on the street or in bed. Their constant companions are a bad conscience about doing something forbidden and the fear of being caught.
Constantine P. Cavafy, Their Beginning, 1920–1930
“Their illicit pleasure has been fulfilled.
They get up and dress quickly, without a word.
They come out of the house separately, furtively;
and as they move off down the street a bit unsettled,
it seems they sense that something about them betrays
what kind of bed they’ve just been lying on.
But what profit for the life of the artist:
tomorrow, the day after, or years later, he’ll give voice
to the strong lines that had their beginning here.”
On Cavafy’s Trail in Alexandria
David Hockney engaged intensely with his homosexuality in the 1960s. He discovered Cavafy’s poetry and how it deals with homosexual love and so he traveled to Alexandria, which the poet describes as being so sensual and cosmopolitan. But Hockney returned from his trip disillusioned. The city did not have the same appeal in reality as it had in Hockney’s imagination.
Later David Hockney travelled to Beirut, where he found the atmosphere of Cavafy’s poems.
Altogether unagitated
Hockney’s etchings Illustrations for Fourteen Poems from C. P. Cavafy are based on his trip to Beirut and his reading of Cavafy’s poems. The artist transferred the motifs to the printing plates with the help of Polaroid photographs. The etchings have been executed using just a few precise lines. The male lovers seem quite matter-of-fact, posing for the artist and looking directly at him.
The publication of Hockney’s series in 1967 coincided with the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Great Britain and thus bears witness to important social changes.