David HockneyCritiques

David Hockney, 20th century British painter

I picked this book up at a Hockney exhibition. Its 6 fairy tales illustrated with etchings by David Hockney. Not much else to say about it really. The pictures are pretty nice, but I prefer it when he works with colour.

This is one of those books where you have to look quite closely at the title: It's not a history of visual art, it's a history of pictures. In other words, Hockney and Gayford are discussing the history of human depictions of the real world on flat surfaces. They look at the interaction between imaginative reproduction — artists putting lines and colours on paper — and technical reproduction where we use optical devices to project images of the real world either temporarily onto a wall or a screen or more permanently onto a photographic film or a digital sensor.

Hockney, of course, has a long-standing bee in his bonnet about the way artists have used optical devices to assist them in composing pictures. So there's a lot about how every important artist from the renaissance onwards has been using a camera obscura to trace forms or at least to establish the composition of their work. It's perhaps controversial if you're an art historian, but if you don’t have a vested interest, it does seem to make perfect sense. Why wouldn't you use a tool if it's available and makes your work easier?

Of course, they emphasise that there's still always an important creative element in choosing the composition and lighting of what you want in your picture and then choosing how you want to transfer it from the projection to the permanent record.

Hockney points out that trained artists have often also turned out to be very good at taking photographs, whilst people who have no sense of visual art are unlikely to be good at taking photographs, except in a technical sense.

The book also covers moving images and digital creation of pictures — Hockney is the great advocate of iPad art, of course — but it’s just a bit too old to cover the rapidly developing topic of AI-created images. I’m sure there will be a chapter on that if they ever update the book. It would be interesting to know what Hockney thinks about computers producing images of penguins on surfboards or inadequately-clothed Asian girls in post-apocalyptic cityscapes.

It's interesting how this book is set up very explicitly as a dialogue with alternate passages written by Hockney and Gayford. Hockney writes, of course, from the practical viewpoint of a practising artist and also from his own aesthetic insight, whilst Gayford sticks more to filling us in on the history of art, explaining the background and context of the things that were going on around the artists at the time. It's a very good collaboration and it works surprisingly smoothly. I didn't find it at all distracting really.

The book is very richly illustrated. It includes practically every picture mentioned in the text, even the very over-familiar ones. In the paperback it's not always the most beautiful, glossy reproduction, but they're all perfectly adequate. The book is quite pretty to look at, although a bit chunky to be a coffee table book.

If you're going to read just one book on the history of visual images, this is probably a bit too random and discursive: you would probably want to start with someone like Gombrich. But this is also a very nice one, and a lively, entertaining read.

Дэвид Хокни, популярный современный художник, и Мартин Гейфорд, художественный критик, историк искусства и автор биографий Ван Гога, Констебля и Микеланджело, ведут увлекательный диалог о месте и истории изображений в жизни людей. Именно изображений, потому что беседа, начинаясь с глубин веков, органично вплетает все больше и больше визуальных средств их воспроизведения, самыми узнаваемыми из которых, безусловно, по сей день являются картины. Однако и фотография, и кинематограф оказали заметное влияние на то, как мы воспринимаем изображения сейчас, и на то, как пишутся картины, а потому разговор идет и о них. Отдельная нить обсуждения — технологии: импрессионизма не было бы без изобретения тюбиков для краски, которые позволили писать на пленэре, а камера-обскура совершила подлинный переворот в живописи, хотя многие великие художники стеснялись признаваться в ее использовании. Хокни и Гейфорд, демонстрируя энциклопедические знания, распознают тайные приемы мэтров и даже находят у них ляпы. Впрочем, делается это без злого умысла, их интересует вопрос правдивого изображения мира. Ведь «если одни картины более правдивы, чем другие, они все равно не говорят всей правды, ибо это невозможно».

Published on the occasion of the exhibition at Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 25 July -29 August 1970

This book was a delight! It was just a random pick at a local library but kids enjoyed it and learned quite a lot from it. And I did too! So don't be discouraged by the title. ;)

It is basically a discussion between an artist and an art critic that helps the reader to look at, analyze, and appreciate visual arts. It's broken down by elements of a picture: lines, shadows, space, etc., and presents how they evolved throughout history. Authors describe major innovations (like new kinds of paints) or trends (like establishing trade routes with the Far East and its influence on Europe) that helped artists change and improve how we think about those concepts.

It might sound "academish" but the book is very approachable and written in easy language. Playful illustrations help to keep kids engaged while art examples are intriguing and insightful. It feels much more like an exploration and having a sneak peek into artists' secrets than a dry lecture on art history. It got many Wow!'s from my kids when we were reading it together so I guess it works for its target audience.

One technical thing that didn't work so well was the font choice. One author has a typical "bookish" font, while the other one has a sketchy comic-like font. The latter is difficult to read for younger kids and can frustrate them. Content-wise painting and photography were explained very well, especially how these two arts inspired each other. However, the film description only scratched the surface and digital art was only mentioned (and lacked any context or meaningful examples). I wish these newer forms of visual expression got more attention and depth.

Overall, it is a highly enjoyable book for kids and adults that will help them understand visual arts better. It leaves some blank spaces and many questions unanswered, so I hope it will be just an introduction to a further exploration and education for whole families :)

A facsimile sketchbook from one of Britain's most celebrated artists

In recent years renowned artist David Hockney has returned to England to paint the landscape of his childhood in East Yorkshire. Although his passionate interest in new technologies has led him to develop a virtuosic drawing technique on the iPad, he has also traveled outdoors with a traditional sketchbook, an invaluable tool as he works quickly to capture the changing light and fleeting effects of the weather. Executed in watercolor and ink, these panoramic scenes have the spatial complexity of finished paintings--the broad sweep of sky or road, the patchwork tapestry of land--yet convey the immediacy of Hockney's impressions. For those who know the East Yorkshire Wolds, the location of the sketches is unmistakable; for those who don't, its features will come to life in these pages.

Weird and boring, unfortunately--was hoping for the usual panoply of the rich history of art, this time from an interesting new perspective, but an odd bias cropped up early and it was an uncomfortable read (until I stopped). I don't care that artists once used a camera obscura, it's not the shocking twist the authors seem to think it is.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!

Indeholder "Introduction", "The visual evidence", "The textual evidence", "The correspondence", "Bibliography", "List of illustrations", "Acknowledgments", "Index".

???

Very educational dialog on art...

In A History of Pictures, art critic Martin Gayford teams up with artist David Hockney to deliver an enlightening and entertaining discourse on art. The Introduction explains the book's format. It is an illustrated discussion between the artist and the art critic, each offering commentary on what he knows best. Gayford offers a more scholarly look at the history of an artistic period or work of art—the what and when, while Hockney offers an artists' perspective on the same—the why and the how.

Their conversations are accompanied by photos of actual art pieces, and cartoon illustrations by Rose Blake. Blake's playful illustrations add a lightness to the book and advance the conversation, showing simple explanations of concepts like depth and perspective, as well as explanations of early artistic tools like 16th century pinhole projectors, 18th century silhouette machines, and 19th century zoetropes. The authors and the illustrator appear in cartoon format throughout the book.

Engaging and educational, A History of Pictures for Children should be in every school and public library. The suggested age range is 10-14 however, it will likely appeal to older kids with artistic interests as well. I would go so far as to suggest that adults will find it interesting also. I found it thoroughly engaging and thought-provoking and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Well done!

Read more and access links about A History of Pictures for Children at https://shelf-employed.blogspot.com½

Hockney reverse engineers the story of why the style of European painting diverged so fast and to such an extent starting from about 1420 onward. What he comes up with is a credible explanation: painters made use of optical tools (concave mirrors and lenses) to make projections to help them see and get their job done. He rebuilds this story by finding visual evidence in the “document” of the painting itself.

Hockney’s account is wonderful because it takes you from the inception of his idea through the many stages of work he did to gather evidence for his hypothesis. Very quickly, it becomes clear that optics did influence art earlier than once thought and one starts to get a sense of what an “optical” image really looks like in comparison to the “non-optical”. This visual training in the book allows one to really understand what Cezanne and Picasso were responding to when they did their work. They, too, knew that most imagery was informed by optics and, by counterexample, helped remind us that there are many more ways to represent what we see.

Hockney does not make a judgment about the artists who used optics or even optics in itself. His slogan is, “optics do not make marks”, meaning that artists still had a trained hand. Obviously there are good uses for optics and Hockney himself appears to have been dazzled by the optics he experimented with on his journey. However, Hockney is criticizing those that would rather hold up artists as savants than to interpret them as practical inventors. In fact, the prior view does double damage: it both locks us out of art (and the world, according to Hockney) and allows the art establishment to be “nobility”.

Hockney feels that the optical image keeps us in a fixed position with no movement. If this is all we know, how do we see ourselves in the world -- also fixed in position? What’s worse is that most of us think that the optical style is “real”. So if we think being fixed is real, then how can we see ourselves as part of that world where movement is necessary? I see some of the spirit of James Clerk Maxwell in that argument insofar as Maxwell wanted science to be about the process more than he wanted it to be about the products. Although we all enjoy the products of science and art, it is the process that is most important and should be available to us all instead of only the fixed products.

Of course, as the title suggests, the crux of this explanation is that these artists kept their usage of optics secret. There is no explicit written record of artists using these techniques, however the painting is the historical document and all but proves the techniques were used. It is also not unreasonable to think that images were highly sensitive materials in those days (since they are still powerful today). The use of optics and the independent creation of images would have been punishable and would require secrecy. Aside from external motivation for secrecy, there's the selfish motivation to maintain an artist's competitive advantage (in other words, money and prestige were at stake).

Hockney is highly visually literate, and, by reading this book, we all have a chance to see what he saw and pick up on his nuanced visual sense. Hockney’s most artful accomplishment in this book is that he successfully makes something so prevalent and ingrained as the optical image (TV, computer screens, print) seem so foreign to life. Hockney is a true artist for helping us realize this.

Mouth-watering reproductions perfectly represented in SUMO size. With the Marc Newson stand, the whole package is outstanding.

This is what you'll learn when you study the Old Bastards !

Fascinating read. I happened to see this book in the library, and borrowed it because I had watched a documentary on the same topic.

The premise is that the old masters, such as Vermeer and others, used photographic/optical techniques and tools - such as the camera obscura or camera lucida.

Recommended for anyone interested in art history.
Unfortunately, I don't think it'll turn me magically into an artist ... ah well.

This is what you'll learn when you study the Old Bastards !

Catalogue of 20 etchings by Hockney, drawn between 1967-1977 and published in a limited edition (200) signed by the artist. Set # 31 fetched £32,450 at Christies London in 2012. In the catalogue each etching faces an excerpt from the poem The Man with the Blue Guitar, by Wallace Stevens.

I first wrote about the controversial thesis of this book back in January of 2000, when my "Pick" was an article about David Hockney by Lawrence Wechler in the New Yorker. With the publication of this very attractive, large-format book, you can look for yourself at the evidence that he argues shows that many of the great master painters secretly used optical devices to help produce their work. The thing that I most like about "Secret Knowledge" is that the first half presents visual examples with minimal text. You can follow the thesis and consider the strengths and weaknesses of the argument, examining each of the magnificent plates for yourself. In the second half, Hockney provides historical background for the camera obscura and the camera lucida, and his correspondence with art historians, museum curators, and scientists around the world. This is a relatively expensive book that is worth the price, on both aesthetic and intellectual grounds. A less expensive book that examines the use of optical technology by Vermeer is "Vermeer's Camera : Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces" by Phillip Steadman, published by Oxford University Press.

Wonderful interviews with this master painter, on painting, photography, theater, art history, drawing, looking, seeing. Excellent reproductions of Hockney's artwork.

A book of conversations that have taken place over the last ten years between David Hockney and Martin Gayford that ties in nicely with Hockney’s A Bigger Picture exhibition. Gayford says that the words accumulated over the months and years have been exchanged by a variety of media; telephone, email, text, sitting face to face talking in studios, drawing rooms, kitchens and cars. He says that many of the thoughts are Hockney’s, but the arrangement of them are by Gayford. The book takes the form of a conversation with DH and MG highlighted in the left hand margin, but with paragraphs by Gayford interspersed to link it all together and to provide some context. It works smoothly and well with Gayford using his own thoughts to lead Hockney into talking about his art.

Although much of the book does concentrate on Hockney’s more recent work, some of the chapters backtrack on Hockney’s previous artistic explorations and so there are short chapters on his early success as a “Pop Artist”, his work with Polaroid cameras, his work in painting back sets for operas and his foray into the world of art criticism; with his controversial writing about the camera obscura. Success came early for Hockney and he has more or less been able to do exactly as he wanted since his late twenties and has ploughed his own furrow through the art world. Gayford’s conversations give us a well rounded synopsis of his career to date. The book is about Hockney’s art rather than his life, but in the conversations tantalising glimpses of his life show through, however it is his thoughts on the process of making pictures which form the backbone of this book.

I was particularly interested in Hockney’s ideas on the differences between photography and painting as art forms; he has worked in both media and at one time he battled with the idea that photographs could be made into paintings, but now says:

“Most people feel that the world looks like a photograph. I have always assumed that the photograph is nearly right, but that little bit by which it misses makes it miss by a mile. This is what I grope at”

Hockney goes onto explain that photographs make the world look very very dull and they do not record what we see, because everyone sees the world differently. When we look at a view or an interior our mind will focus our vision on certain aspects making them stand out, perhaps become bigger, and with colours that the camera does not record, therefore when we see the picture that the camera has recorded it is usually a disappointment. Hockney sees his role as sharing his vision of the world and so perspectives will not be linear, colours may well be different and he will struggle to incorporate space in his pictures.

Hockney talks enthusiastically about the great painters of the past, he is particularly fond of Van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso and has interesting things to say about what they achieved in their painting. Hockney has always embraced new technological products adapting them to his artistic vision. He has used computers, Xerox machines and Iphones, but now well into his seventies he has become excited by the possibilities of the Ipad, He says:

“I love it, I must admit. The Ipad can be what you want it to be……. Picasso would have gone mad with this. I don’t know an artist who wouldn’t actually. I thought the Iphone was great, but this takes it to a new level - simply because it’s eight times the size of the Iphone, as big as a reasonably sized sketchbook."

Hockney has some important things to say about seeing, how many of us see very little of what is around us and in many ways the role of the artist is to make us see things that we might not otherwise see. He talks about the pleasures of seeing and how he will spend a long time just looking at an object before he will make an image. There are chapters on The Power of Images, Painting with Memory, The importance of Drawing, Music and Movement and the problems of how to put marks on a blank canvas. The book ends with a chapter on Hockney’s latest preoccupation, but it is one he has struggled with all his artistic life; how to capture time and space. He wants to capture the hawthorn blossom that bursts out in spring and he and his team are working with nine video cameras all pointing in different directions, with different exposures and zooms to provide an all round view of a walk down a country lane. He wants to capture that feeling of seeing everything that you can; as you peer at the hedgerow or look up at the branches of the trees as they pass by. The results can be seen at the Bigger Picture exhibition as the viewer looks at nine split screens with the images married together to provide the feeling of that walk down a country lane. A fascinating experience for those with the patience to see.

A Bigger Message will certainly appeal to anyone who has enjoyed Hockney’s exhibition as it provides valuable insights into what the artist is trying to achieve and the problems that he faces in producing the work. It will also appeal to anyone who is interested in how an artist looks at the world and how this artist in particular sets about making his pictures. Hockney’s enthusiasm for his work comes bubbling over during these conversations and the reader comes away with a lasting impression of an artist at work in a fairly rarefied atmosphere. A great read that once I started I could not put down. Thank you David Hockney and Martin Gayford. 4 stars.

This is a fascinating and very readable account in the words of the man himself, and the first thing that strikes one is that Hockney is almost as good with words as his is with paint, although we probably all know that now! Hockney takes us through is career more or chronologically from his early recollections, expressing himself with frankness and great wit, and his narrative is interspersed with anecdotes and his often outspoken views.

The book is well illustrated with 434 pictures, but alas only 60 of them are in colour, they vary in size but many are half or full page, the captions unfortunately do not include the dimensions of the work or the medium. The flyleaf of the dust jacket claims the book serves as an oeuvre catalogue to date (1976). The book includes and index and list of illustrations the latter supplying the information lacking in the captions.

The quality or production is good and it is well designed, although the images lack vibrancy, and it is a great shame that more are not in colour (although it must be said that many of the monochromes are that in the original), but the lack of colour is perhaps a reflection of the date of publication.

A really informative book!

The old masters´ technique of painting seen in modern light, for instance photographing. The old masters of the Renaissance used the so-called camera obscura to get their motives right, the correct perspective, complexe details and textures, and so on. Hockney has been criticized especially by art historians for this very original views on the old masters´ working methods.

Great book/ideas. Uses visual evidence. Tells you what to look for and then shows you. Supporting documents and correspondence is dry and flat, however.½

This exhibit and its catalog changed my view of David Hockney from skeptical to wonder. It's never changed. A wonderful collection of his work.½