Painting With Photographs

How does one see? A question asked for hundreds of years, especially in art and inevitably answered by every artist through his or her work. However, for David Hockney, this question has dominated his work. His ever changing style and medium is evidence of his continuously changing perception of life and “reality”. However, his struggles with perception and reality become especially apparent in his work with photography and camera, which is characterized by both his attitude and his studies of Picasso and Cubism.

Even as a child, Hockney was always controversial. In school, he did poorly in order to pursue art. He registered for the draft as a continuous objector because he didn’t want to do regular service work. He convinced his parents to send him to art school instead of pursuing a job like the rest of his siblings. It was at art school that he discovered Pablo Picasso’s art which would forever challenge him to change his perspective. In art, his perspective would change through the medium of photography.

Hockney started working with photography like everyone else does, taking pictures mainly for documental value. He began in the 60’s with a Polaroid. He used these photos as a memory aid for his painting, but as his painting started to mirror the photographs, he changed his style. He believed that photos did not accurately portray the way that humans see and perceive the world around them. He began joining photos together. He would take pictures over the course of a day or several days and combine them. These composite Polariods, or “joiners” as he called them, were unlike any other photo collages. He later bought a 35 mm camera and produced larger and more intricate photo collages. He believed that photography lacked a sense of time and that by combining the pictures in this way, he was able to not only add an element of time to the photos, but also more accurately represent the movement and function of the human eye.

With this new perspective gleaned from his photographic study, he went back to paintings and began to look at them more critically. He started to see something different in the classical paintings beginning in the 1500’s and so started to investigate. He believed that the classical artists used optics to alter their perspective so they could draw and paint more accurately. He published this thesis in 2001 and again caused quite a stir. He also translated his photographic lessons to his paintings and these can be easily recognized in later paintings.

Response Questions:
Do #1 and your choice of 2 or 3.

1. Do you believe that photography can be considered an art form, or is it only for documentation? Do you think that photography is “one-eyed” or gives a flawed perspective? Why or why not? Did this presentation change any of your thoughts about the photographic medium?

2. Do you think that using optical devices or memory aids, such as photography or mirrors, is considered cheating? Why or why not? Is the skill of the artist measured by his ability to see or his ability to use his particular medium?

3. Do you feel that Cubism is about abstraction, or about perception? Is there a difference between the two? Can it be both? Can you draw a parallel between the Cubist movement and Hockney’s photographic movement?