BS: David Hockney

Subject: David Hockney
From: Ritchie
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 06:14 AM

Did you see the programme on saturday on BBC2 with artist david Hockney about 'optics don't make marks'. It was fascinating and so well produced.

regards Ritchie.

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 06:37 AM

Yeah, it was good. I taped it, so I still have to watch the last half hour. Apparently there's a book of it coming out next week.

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 08:38 AM

Brilliant programme - now going to buy the book too

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: GUEST,Steve Parkes
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 10:26 AM

Yes, great detective work: all those left-handers suddenly appearing ... I'd often wondered about Caravaggio's figures.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Greyeyes
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 12:21 PM

Details of the book here

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: The Shambles
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 04:19 PM

It was the way of all such things, perfectly obvious and you wondered why no one had noticed it brfore.

It in no way detacts from the skills of the artists. For you could see the thrill that David Hockney got from just running his hands over the projected one dimensional image. Caravaggio and company would have been equally thrilled and eager to capture the image in paint.

It was just a way of getting the three dimensional scene onto the canvas. Once there, the painter could work their magic.

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Willa
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 07:20 PM

Fascinating.

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: JulieF
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 06:56 AM

I enjoyed the program as well. My mother and I went to the Vemeer exhibition at the National Gallery at the begining of September where there it was shown how some of the Delft painters of that time tried to show panoramic views. Another good example of how lenses must have been used is The Ambasadors which has the strange skull in the front.

Mum is convinced, as, being a bit of an artist herself , it is the lack of perliminary drawings that has always foxed her. I think that lenses/ mirrors were used a lot but I would be wary of mass use. What I am really looking forward to is the mass debate that will be generated. I have already seen a very damming review of the book in the Independent

All the best Julie

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 10:31 AM

The Ambassadors--that's the one I was trying to remember the name of! How'd he do it then, Julie? If he tilted the canvas to stretch the image it would mostly be out of focus ... althugh I wondered why the artists with out-of-focus bits didn't just correct them when they came to put the paint on.

There was a technique much in vogue in the 17th century where you put a polished cylinder on a flat (horizontal) piece of paper; you look at the refelection and draw on the paper so that the reflection is "normal"--the drawing is very sdistorted, adn unrecognisable until you replace the cylinder and look at the reflection. Also, there was a device used in the 19th and maybe the 18th c: a polished obsidian (or other shiny black stuff) hemisphere, which gives you a reduced image to copy from (not a projection), a reflection of, well, half of all outdoors, like a fish-eye lens.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 10:37 AM

... and just found this on camera lucida.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 10:40 AM

Sorry--Netscape playing silly b*ggers. If that link doesn't work, try this one.

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: The Shambles
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 01:29 PM

David Hockney made the point that these people would have had all the latest technology.

My admiration for these artsts work has not been dented, for they were just doing the job later done by photographic chemical processes.

The composition was done with the artist's eye and that is mostly the same skill of the photographer too. Although a lot can be done later in the printing process of course.

Having said all that: I wonder if an artist projected a photographic slide onto a canvas and painted that, if we would not now feel them to be a bit of a fraud?

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 17 Oct 01 - 03:57 AM

Do you think Hockney is a fraud as an artist? He sticks photos on the canvas! My Cousin, John Broadbent of Lichfield, is a professional artist thesed days, and he uses a similar technique; but he uses the photomontage as the source for his painting, sketching in the details in the normal way before painting. Looks impressive!

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: JulieF
Date: 17 Oct 01 - 09:43 AM

Is the artist really an artist if he/she doesn't physically do the work ?

Along with going to the Vemeer exibition on my trip to London, mum and I went to see the Chihuly glas exibition at the V&A. Now he does not make all his glass anymore after an accident,and given the scale of his work he couldn't do it anyway. But there is no doubt that he is in complete control from the first idea to how his pieces are exhibited.

Interstingly this just makes me think back to the lenses. Most of these artists are schools around them where their pupils drew in a similar manner. Most experts are certain which pictures are by the master and which by the pupils. Is it because they are not using the same techniques or is it because they only got the older lenses to use or is it a true reflection on the greatness of the masters

Makes you think - well a wee bit anyway

Julie

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 Oct 01 - 11:05 AM

or is it a true reflection on the greatness of the masters

Intentional?

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: JulieF
Date: 17 Oct 01 - 11:33 AM

I wish it was - I can't manage wit and work at the same time.

Julie

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Arbuthnot
Date: 17 Oct 01 - 04:28 PM

When it comes down to it, what makes a good artist? I was taught to draw by the same teachers as David Hockney - stand any of my work in a gallery window and a brick will be thrown through it (come to think about it, a brick is a fair price for one of my paintings);-) - just because an artist speeds up the process by tracing/ using optical techniques etc. does not mean they don't input some soul and technique - the glazes and fine line work of those renaissance artists is definitely outstanding - on the other hand, does it mean that those who worked without optical aid (eg. Michaelangelo's frescoes)should be set on a higher plane?

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 05:43 AM

And what about Duchamp's objets trouveés? The artist's input can be as little as selecting an object and declaring it to be "Art". Defining what a work of art is is much the same as definig what a folksong is, and I ain't getting involved in that!

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 05:44 AM

Sorry: fewer "e"s in "trouvé" and more "n"s in "defining"! Bad typing day ...

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 19 Oct 01 - 03:46 AM

It was the bit about the left handed monkey that convinced me but I'm still a bit confused. Why are Roman paintings very 2 dimentional and flat and primitive when their sculptures are so life like and detailed?

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Ritchie
Date: 19 Oct 01 - 05:10 AM

One of the things that I liked was how the advent of photography changed art. It's always amazed me standing in front of a canvas and seeing just how much of a likeness something was to its subject. How many times has 'it could be a photgraph' been said. Then suddenly along came the perfect copy, the camera never lies. That's when we had the artist's interpretation of things ie cubism etc. the camera couldn't do that !

I was in the National Portrait Gallery and saw a remarkable painting,which was displayed in a case which when you looked at it from the front all of the features were elongated, however when you looked at it from the side through a pin hole then the face was perfectly formed. It was later explained to me that the distorted image would have been copied from a mirror the like of which you get in a 'hall of mirrors'

If you're ever in London pop in and see it, it's well woth the visit.

regards

Ritchie de angelo

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: The Shambles
Date: 19 Oct 01 - 04:06 PM

I always remember the claim that stage magicians tricks and illusions were 'all done by mirrors'!

Subject: RE: BS: David Hockney
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 05:38 AM

Ah, but they were! You know the old classic, "Pepper's ghost"? A large sheet of glass at 45 degrees to the front of the stage, placed near one of the wings; when the "ghost" in the wing is lit, the audience see the reflection clearly against the dark backdrop, and the hero/victim can walk behind the glass, but apparently through the ghost.

A variation is the disembodied head. This is hard to describe without pictures, so bear with me ... A square table is arranged with one corner towards the auditorium, and one towards each wing. Picture this in your mind: three of the (plain, straight) legs are in view of the audience; between the front leg and each side leg is a mirror, large enought to fill the gap between legs, table and floor completely; hidden in each of the wings are boards or cloths that look exactly like the backdrop (dark and unpatterned would be easiest), so that the audience can't tell that they are looking at the reflections, not straight through at the backdrop. The illusionist's assistant sits under the table, with just his/her head poking through a hole in the table, and usually with a fake dish and cover over. They see what they think is a plain table, nothing underneath--you can see straight through to the backcloth!--and a big covered dish on top. When the illusionist removes the cover, there is a human head, which can move, speak, answer questions from the audience, so it's not just a clever machine. So long as the illusionist doesn't step behind the table (his legs would disappear) or in front of it (they'd be reflected and give the game away), the illusion is very convincing, and the stage lighting helps to disguise the set-up.

Ever see that movie FX? With modern lightweight roll-up plastic-film mirrors, you can do all sorts of clever tricks.

Steve