david hockney - secret knowledge

i watched a brilliant documentary by the british artist david hockney called 'secret knowledge' which was made in 2002. i searched here but it doesn't seem to have been mentioned yet.

its a 2 parter where he basically lays out his case that almost all of the greatest artists from 1420 onwards cheated in their paintings - they were all done using lenses and then later mirrors. all they did was paint over the projected image on the canvas (which was always upside down until the later discovery of bouncing the mirrors which then turned the image the right way up).

his team spent a long time collecting images of paintings throughout history which they placed on the walls of his studio in chronological order and noticed that a change suddenly happened around 1420. previous to that, images were flat, disproportionate, undetailed, unlifelike and with very little or no detail, then suddenly there was a drastic change where the images started to look more realistic with correct lighting and shading, better proportions and amazing detail. (apparently we are supposed to believe that the artists either suddenly opened their eyes and saw and painted things like they were in real life or they suddenly all just became better painters overnight).

he answers the question of why were the older painting so tiny yet so detailed by showing that the wall projections were only capable of being a certain size - hence the small paintings.

he shows how they first were done using lens projections and shows how images blurred in some places (which was reflected in the painting) until the mirror technique became used. he shows how almost all the early mirror-done paintings had left handed people in them (the images were reversed on the projection until the reversal problem got solved later).

he also demonstrates how some of the famous pictures were painted in stages (hence eyes not looking where they were supposed to and some proportions being stretched or enlarged due to the mirror effect).

its a fascinating expose which should interest anyone from the art or photographic/film world and is totally convincing. it's really worth watching if you can track it down.

[edit on 29-8-2008 by justyc]

This is very intresting. I hope I can find this on YouTube or GoogleVideo...

reply to post by MacSen191


you can see clips of it here whilst you are hunting. it is well worth tracking down though