FILM 4: Hockney / Knowledge

David Hockney is the host of this show, but also a very well known artist. He was most well known for his contributions in the Pop art movement in the 60s. I don’t know if I completely believe his stories but they definitely made me think about how many paintings were created. What he is saying makes a lot of sense and the points he makes are extremely well thought out, so it isn’t like he is not credible. People are probably resistant to his stories because they almost discredit the abilities of many very famous artists.

The Secret Knowledge was the use of the lens. Artists would use mirrors and other lenses like the camera obscura to aid in creating paintings. It does change the way I look at painting because before watching this I had seen a lot of Jan Van Eyck paintings and was baffled at his skills. Now I am skeptical because maybe it was not just raw talent. It makes sense that it was a secret though because otherwise people would not be as amazed or appreciative of these artists’ work. Also, the artists are pretty much cheating their way into making a flawless piece of art that they really did not create independently.

Hockney used computer models, interviews, and up close views of the paintings to tell his story. The most effective methods were the computer models and extremely zoomed in sections of paintings. In my eyes, the computer models helped me understand how the lenses functioned and how Hockney figured out how they used the camera obscura. The zoomed in details of paintings also worked very well because the viewer could really see how seemingly flawless and accurate these paintings were.



Question: Assume that Hockney is correct and artists were using lenses. Do you think this is sort of like an artists way of cheating? Does it make you value their work less?