How happy will Hockney's exhibition make you?

Winter Timber, 2009. Oil on 15 canvases, 274 x 609.6 cm. Private Collection. © David Hockney. Photo: Jonathan Wilkinson.

As seen at www.visitbritainshop.com

Around six years ago, I sat in the art studio at Woodhouse College staring at this white medley of lines hover above a swimming pool. It was in a David Hockney book, alongside the tremendously applauded Splash series, this one being The Bigger Splash. The art tutor glorified the way Hockney captured California sun, the dry heat, the cool freshness you get from a splash in the pool. This is a blissful moment thousands flock to five star beach hotels for.

Hockney's latest exhibition is being prized the same way, except this time the western coast of America is traded for the green landscapes of Yorkshire Dales - quite fitting actually in a time when less can afford grand getaways but the north of England is an option to be drawn.

I visited on the Royal Academy's late night Friday so expectedly it was a full show; what was not expected however was the noise. So much of it. Everyone talking and laughing, giving their opinions, reminiscing about their times in a country field - smiling.

Let me tell you it is colour through and through - acid brights, autumnal hues, pastel washes. It's Yorkshire put through a dream machine, so the vivid image of how you remember a happy place – bright and perfect – but when you return to the scene you realise your mind has just hyperbolised a much loved place. Hockney is churning out a love of nature in all its glories – autumn, winter, spring, summer. So why not let art be a channel for hedonism? It works to me.