This is complete nonsense, and to be honest, it looks harder to cheat than it does to be honest about it. What a bizarre theory. This is why people always seem to think contemporary art is overpriced. They think there's a trick to it, or that there must be a way to get instantaneous results. It takes time and patience. It's not magic. You can certainly trust your own eyes better than a projection. Also, without shading lines are just lines, and it's awfully hard to shade in the dark.
iv been an artist for 50 years and i say" BRAVO" to a fantastic doc. Hockney is brilliant and i want to thank him for all his reading up on such things.
To condemn artists for using innovative techniques with good results is pure hypocrisy. If you'll nullify an artist for using technology, I guess it would be equally fair to say that the great masters are just as fake, if they didn't create their own paper, pencils, paint from scratch. Some did prepare pigments, however they also had the "dreaded ready made tools" in hand. Technology implies skill, intelligence, understanding. It is admirable to apply. PERIOD!
Overall this is pure historical revisionism. Hockney clearly made his mind up about his idea at the outset and has then cherry-picked, fabricated and imagined evidence for it along the way. In his thinking logical fallacies, jumping to conclusions, astounding simplifications, conjecture and guesswork abound.
Quite bizarre that this was taken seriously enough to produce a documentary and book.
Aw shucks, this kinda lowers my whole opinion about Caravaggio. I mean yeah the images are still awesome, but I thought they were made the hard way, not with optical devices.
@firuinthehouse Are you serious? Caravaggio could have just as easily had people sit for him at different times at the same place. The position of his eyes isn't proof of anything. Which sounds more likely, that he set his easel up in one place and kept the same perspective on the table as subjects came and went, or that he drew outlines in the dark with a piece of glass maintaining the same level of magnification without skewing subjects due to their perspective from the glass? It's nonsense.
@1414mwh Could be, I'm just learning as a painter, and in any case Caravaggio was a fantastic painter in his own right, regardless of any tools he may have used :)
Hockney acts as if he exposed the old masters for their use of an unfair advantage which allowed them to create images with such skill, talent and depth so far beyond Hockney's limited abilities.
@vlxznd I wouldn't agree. He never said that something was "unfair". He just makes an effort to explain the period we do not truly understand. We tend to introduce too much pathos when talking about art and forget that artists themselves are a living breathing humans. In the end of the day art is just another craft where if you want to make a living out of it you have to produce high quality goods as fast as possible. This implies using the best techniques available.
@AntiCookieMonster You're misreading my comment. I aid "as if". Anyway Hockney is making an over simplification of history. In this case, effort becomes irrelevant. Also, no one is trying persuade the general public that artists are divine. When he says that the development of painting couldn't have been possible without optics, that is just a foolish generalization since optics do not make it easier to paint. You can't even paint on a projected image. Draw perhaps, not paint.
@vlxznd you cannot paint the painting they have made without drawing or laying down the outlines of the objects on the canvas without a camera obscura...the two eyes are not enough to capture the image with the accuracy of paintings of the period. There were not a lot of ways to do so (with the technology of the time) and the argument he is making is very sensible and plausible and does not undermine their capabilities, its makes them innovative. If you are not ready to make a daring argument..
@jashta1 you should not argue at all. I'm rather sick of all you politically correct people who always call people, that make reasonable and sensible (yet provoking and MAYBE a little arrogant), arrogant charlatans. If people were intellectual cowards back then as the establishment is today, the past 200 years of progress we made would have never happened.
Marvellous
nathanpendlebury 2 weeks ago
brilliant !!!
barmyg 1 month ago
This is complete nonsense, and to be honest, it looks harder to cheat than it does to be honest about it. What a bizarre theory. This is why people always seem to think contemporary art is overpriced. They think there's a trick to it, or that there must be a way to get instantaneous results. It takes time and patience. It's not magic. You can certainly trust your own eyes better than a projection. Also, without shading lines are just lines, and it's awfully hard to shade in the dark.
1414mwh 3 months ago
iv been an artist for 50 years and i say" BRAVO" to a fantastic doc. Hockney is brilliant and i want to thank him for all his reading up on such things.
3333face 4 months ago 2
To condemn artists for using innovative techniques with good results is pure hypocrisy. If you'll nullify an artist for using technology, I guess it would be equally fair to say that the great masters are just as fake, if they didn't create their own paper, pencils, paint from scratch. Some did prepare pigments, however they also had the "dreaded ready made tools" in hand. Technology implies skill, intelligence, understanding. It is admirable to apply. PERIOD!
athelia4444 5 months ago
Brilliant documentary, those projected images are really very interesting.
futurematt5 6 months ago
Overall this is pure historical revisionism. Hockney clearly made his mind up about his idea at the outset and has then cherry-picked, fabricated and imagined evidence for it along the way. In his thinking logical fallacies, jumping to conclusions, astounding simplifications, conjecture and guesswork abound.
Quite bizarre that this was taken seriously enough to produce a documentary and book.
robitusson 7 months ago 4
Fantastic
tabasdezh 8 months ago
Aw shucks, this kinda lowers my whole opinion about Caravaggio. I mean yeah the images are still awesome, but I thought they were made the hard way, not with optical devices.
firuinthehouse 8 months ago
@firuinthehouse Are you serious? Caravaggio could have just as easily had people sit for him at different times at the same place. The position of his eyes isn't proof of anything. Which sounds more likely, that he set his easel up in one place and kept the same perspective on the table as subjects came and went, or that he drew outlines in the dark with a piece of glass maintaining the same level of magnification without skewing subjects due to their perspective from the glass? It's nonsense.
1414mwh 3 months ago
@1414mwh Could be, I'm just learning as a painter, and in any case Caravaggio was a fantastic painter in his own right, regardless of any tools he may have used :)
firuinthehouse 3 months ago
Excellent, thanks for uploading.
subcutaneousboredom 9 months ago
Thank you very much for uploading!
anthtan 1 year ago
Thought provoking.
JeffryNuthing 1 year ago
Hockney acts as if he exposed the old masters for their use of an unfair advantage which allowed them to create images with such skill, talent and depth so far beyond Hockney's limited abilities.
vlxznd 1 year ago
@vlxznd I wouldn't agree. He never said that something was "unfair". He just makes an effort to explain the period we do not truly understand. We tend to introduce too much pathos when talking about art and forget that artists themselves are a living breathing humans. In the end of the day art is just another craft where if you want to make a living out of it you have to produce high quality goods as fast as possible. This implies using the best techniques available.
AntiCookieMonster 1 year ago 4
@AntiCookieMonster You're misreading my comment. I aid "as if". Anyway Hockney is making an over simplification of history. In this case, effort becomes irrelevant. Also, no one is trying persuade the general public that artists are divine. When he says that the development of painting couldn't have been possible without optics, that is just a foolish generalization since optics do not make it easier to paint. You can't even paint on a projected image. Draw perhaps, not paint.
vlxznd 1 year ago
@vlxznd you cannot paint the painting they have made without drawing or laying down the outlines of the objects on the canvas without a camera obscura...the two eyes are not enough to capture the image with the accuracy of paintings of the period. There were not a lot of ways to do so (with the technology of the time) and the argument he is making is very sensible and plausible and does not undermine their capabilities, its makes them innovative. If you are not ready to make a daring argument..
jashta1 3 months ago in playlist David Hockney Secrets of The Masters
@jashta1 you should not argue at all. I'm rather sick of all you politically correct people who always call people, that make reasonable and sensible (yet provoking and MAYBE a little arrogant), arrogant charlatans. If people were intellectual cowards back then as the establishment is today, the past 200 years of progress we made would have never happened.
jashta1 3 months ago in playlist David Hockney Secrets of The Masters
veryveryveryinteresting
MrSilverChe 1 year ago
I remember seeing this on TV some years ago but I think I missed the beginning. Brilliant to see it again. Thanks for uploading ;)
Pz7ral 1 year ago
This is a brilliant documentary, thanks for posting. I would love to see more films like this one.
saintlysinner666 1 year ago 4
@saintlysinner666 Many thanks.
mendreva 1 year ago
Fantastic! Best documentary i have seen in a long time!
aristotele77 1 year ago
@aristotele77 :)
mendreva 1 year ago
thanks, good documentary!
Sacher01 1 year ago