Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look – an 'absorbing' exhibition

The National Gallery's new show, "Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look", comprises just three paintings: Piero della Francesca's Renaissance masterpiece "The Baptism of Christ" flanked by two of David Hockney's colourful works.

The idea, said Eddy Frankel in Time Out , is that you slow right down and "take the time to consider, think about, absorb and really, genuinely look at the art". Hockney was "besotted" with Piero's painting and spent countless hours studying and obsessing over it.

He is far from Piero's only modern admirer, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian . Over the years, "poets, novelists and feminist thinkers have been spellbound by him". Now, this "intimate" show shines a light on Hockney's "fascination" with the celebrated painting.

"Spot-lit" against "royal blue walls", "The Baptism" is the centrepiece of a "whimsical triptych", said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph . What is it about the painting that Hockney found so compelling? The catalogue reveals he was enthralled by the "clarity" of Piero's composition – a quality reflected within his own "luminous" works displayed on either side.

Painted in 1977, "My Parents" depicts Hockney's "serene" mother and "twitchy" father. Between them is a green cabinet topped with a vase of brightly coloured tulips and a mirror reflecting a postcard of Piero's painting. The other piece, from the same year, "Looking at Pictures on a Screen", shows Hockney's friend, the curator Henry Geldzahler, examining the posters of four paintings from the National Gallery (including "The Baptism") taped to a folding screen.

"Everyone is seeing, looking, analysing", said Time Out, and images are "twisted, substituted and copied". The painting of his parents is "70s Hockney at his best", while the other work is slightly less successful yet still "clever".

Despite London needing another Hockney exhibition "about as much as it needs another Pret", the trio of paintings are "dizzyingly layered" and "before you know it" you've been gazing at the works for half an hour "trying to untangle it all", and "Hockney's work is done".

"The more you look" at the paintings, "the more you see," added Laura Freeman in The Times . This "absorbing, puzzle-box show" is "less a case of spot the difference, more spot-the-artist's-mind-at-work".

"What is deliberate, what is unconscious – and what is the slightly fanciful imagining of a spectator getting carried away in the game?"

Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look is at the National Gallery, London, from 8 August to 27 October