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What The Art Historians Had Forgotten Is That In Chinese, Japanese, Persian, And Indian Art, They Never Painted Shadows. Why Did They Paint Shadows In European Art? Shadows Are Because Of Optics. Optics Need Shadows And Strong Light. Strong Light Makes The Deepest Shadows. It Took Me A Few Years To Realize Fully That The Art Historians Didn't Grasp That. There Are A Lot Of Interesting New Things, Ideas, Pictures.

-David Hockney

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What The Art Historians

David Hockney

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What The Art Historians Had Forgotten Is That In Chinese, Japanese, Persian, And Indian Art, They Never Painted Shadows. Why Did They Paint Shadows In European Art? Shadows Are Because Of Optics. Optics Need Shadows And Strong Light. Strong Light Makes The Deepest Shadows. It Took Me A Few Years To Realize Fully That The Art Historians Didn't Grasp That. There Are A Lot Of Interesting New Things, Ideas, Pictures.

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Oh, I Like Smoking, I Do. I Smoke For My Health, My Mental Health. Tobacco Gives You Little Pauses, A Rest From Life. I Don't Suppose Anyone Smoking A Pipe Would Have Road Rage, Would They?

The Only People Who Need Degrees Are Dentists And Brain Surgeons.

What I Always Longed To Do Was To Be Able To Paint Like I Can Draw, Most Artists Would Tell You That, They Would All Like To Paint Like They Can Draw.

You Can't Believe Any Picture Nowadays, If It's Digital. You Can't Really Believe. If You See Me Shaking Hands With Mr. [barack] Obama, It Doesn't Mean I Ever Met Him, Does It?

The Pictures On The Walls Aren't Like Movies. They Don't Move, They Don't Talk, And They'll Last Longer. They Will Last Longer.

I Can Often Tell When Drawings Are Done From Photographs, Because You Can Tell What They Miss Out, What The Camera Misses Out: Usually Weight And Volume - There's A Flatness To Them.

I Was 18 When I First Visited London, I'm Very Provincial Like That, But I Must Confess The Moment I Got To America I Thought: This Is The Place. It Was More Open, With 24-hour Cities And Pubs And Restaurants That Didn't Close.

With Watercolour, You Can't Cover Up The Marks. There's The Story Of The Construction Of The Picture, And Then The Picture Might Tell Another Story As Well.

Paint Something Every Day.

Nature, Never, Never Let's You Down, It's Not A Cliché, Nature Isn't A Cliché, Pictures Might Be, But You Can Get Tired Of Pictures.

I've Always Been Interested In Space In Pictures. I Think My Going Deaf Increased My Spatial Sense, Because I Can't Get The Direction Of Sound. I Feel That I See Space Very Clearly, And That's Because I Can't Hear It. So It's A Compensatory Thing.

The Way We See Things Is Constantly Changing. At The Moment The Way We See Things Has Been Left A Lot To The Camera. That Shouldn't Necessarily Be.

But, I Would Always Be Thinking Of How Pictures Are Constructed And Colour, How To Use It, I Mean You're Using It For Constructing, Makes You Think About It, The Place Did As Well.

I'm Coming 'round To The View That There's Only A Personal View Of The World.

Great Claims Are Being Made For The Photograph As Truth. We Are Showing You Things, We Show You The War. I Say You Can't Actually. The Camera Can't.

I Have Got An Ipad, What A Joy! Van Gogh Would Have Loved It, And He Could Have Written His Letters On It As Well.

Anyway I Feel Myself A Bit On The Edge On The Art World, But I Don't Mind, I'm Just Pursuing My Work In A Very Excited Way. And There Isn't Really A Mainstream Anymore, Is There?

The Moment I Got A Very Big Studio, Everything Took Off.

I Want Life Thrilling And Rich. And It Is. I Make Sure It Is.

I Haven't Stopped Painting Or Drawing - I've Just Added Another Medium.

The Lens Is A Tyranny.

I Think We Seem To Remember Things In Still Pictures. I Never Gave Up On Painting. When They Said Painting Was Dead, I Just Thought, Well, That's All About Photography, And Photography's Not That Interesting, And It's Changing Anyway.

We All Know A Mirror Reflects Us, If You Look In It. If You Move, The Reflection Moves. If You Project From A Mirror, Meaning It Will Project An Image, It's Nothing To Do With You. The World Seen By Nobody.

The 'how' Has A Great Effect On What We See. To Say That 'what We See' Is More Important Than 'how We See It' Is To Think That 'how' Has Been Settled And Fixed. When You Realize This Is Not The Case, You Realize That 'how' Often Affects 'what' We See.

Tobacco Is America's Greatest Gift To The World!

There's No Need To Believe What An Artist Says. Believe What He Does; That's What Counts.

I Never Talk When I'm Drawing A Person, Especially If I'm Making Line Drawings. I Prefer There To Be No Noise At All So I Can Concentrate More.

I Have Always Believed That Art Should Be A Deep Pleasure...ther E Is Always, Everywhere, An Enormous Amount Of Suffering. But I Believe My Duty As An Artist Is To Overcome And Alleviate The Sterility Of Despair...new Ways Of Seeing Mean New Ways Of Feeling... I Do Believe That Painting Can Change The World.

Technology Brought In The Mass Media And Technology Is Now Taking It Away.

It Is Very Good Advice To Believe Only What An Artist Does, Rather Than What He Says About His Work.

Before He Did All Those Lovely Line Drawings, Matisse Would Make Really Detailed Charcoal Drawings And Tear Them Up. He Wouldn't Leave Them About... I Understand What He Was Doing: Discovering What's There... To Make The Line Meaningful, To Find A Linear Solution.

Once You Start Painting, You Could Of Course Get Lost. I Mean You Get Out Of Yourself, You Don't Know Whether You're Thinking, You Just Act Actually Sometimes.

Photographs Aren't Accounts Of Scrutiny. The Shutter Is Open For A Fraction Of A Second.

Shadows Sometimes People Don't See Shadows. The Chinese Of Course Never Paint Them In Pictures, Oriental Art Never Deals With Shadow. But I Noticed These Shadows And I Knew It Meant It Was Sunny.

I'm Not Going To Stop Painting Just To Take Orders.

I Think Probably Something Big Can Be Done With Cameras, I'm Not Saying, Er, I'm Saying Chemical Photography's Finished, That Means You Can't Have A Cartier Bresson Again, You Need Never Believe Pictures.

I Had Always Planned To Make A Large Painting Of The Early Spring, When The First Leaves Are At The Bottom Of The Trees, And They Seem To Float In Space In A Wonderful Way. But The Arrival Of Spring Can't Be Done In One Picture.

I've Finally Figured Out What's Wrong With Photography. It's A One-eyed Man Looking Through A Little 'ole. Now, How Much Reality Can There Be In That?

I Feel 30. [publo] Picasso Said He Always Felt 30. Well, I Do.

On The 31st Of October 2011 Year, I Had A Mini-stroke. I Couldn't Finish My Sentences. So I Went To The Doctor. It Was A Tiny One. The Speech Came Back In A Month Or So. I Did Notice I Could Draw Even Better, I Felt. I Was Concentrating More. And I Wasn't Talking Much, But I Was Drawing. I Said, "well, I Don't Have To Talk Much."

We Need All Kinds Of Artists. We Have No Need To Destroy Drawing. We Lose So Much. This Wouldn't Happen In Music.

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The Picture Itself Is A Document. How Do You Mean? We're Looking At A Document. It Gives You Clues.

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All Film Directors, Even The Ones Using 3-d Today, Want You To Look At What They Chose.

In Art, New Ways Of Seeing Mean New Ways Of Feeling; You Can't Divorce The Two, As, We Are Now Aware, You Cannot Have Time Without Space And Space Without Time.

I Think Cubism Has Not Fully Been Developed. It Is Treated Like A Style, Pigeonholed And That's It.

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Changing The World

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I Avoid The Public Because The English Public Is Too Aggressive These Days For Me.

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It's Very British To Go About To See Something Unusual And Paint It.

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Tragedy Is A Literary Concept.

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I Think I Am Seeing More Clearly Now Than Ever.

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I'm Sure That The Camera Is Part Of European Art.

People Criticized Me For My Photography. They Said It's Not Art.

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I've Never Been Interested In, Much In The Politics Of The Art World, It Doesn't Interest Me.

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As For The World Of Fashion And Celebrity, I Have The Usual Interest In The Human Comedy, But The Problems Of Depiction Absorb Me More.

Who Would Have Thought That The Telephone Would Bring Back Drawing?

It's A Myth That If You're Liked By Only Four People It Must Be Good. It Might Also Be Very Bad: They Might Be Your Mother, Your Brother, Your Uncle And Your Aunt.

I Think Photography Has Made Us See The Landscape In A Very Dull Way - That's One Of Its Effects. It's Not Spatial.

Dawn Is About Luminosity And So Is The Iphone... The Little Drawings Of The Dawn Are Done While I'm Still In Bed... If You're In My Kind Of Business You'd Be A Fool To Sleep Through That... Artists Can't Work Office Hours, Can They?

Cubism Was An Attack On The Perspective That Had Been Known And Used For 500 Years. It Was The First Big, Big Change. It Confused People: They Said, 'things Don't Look Like That!'

I Was Never That Interested In Movies. I Was Interested In Them As A Thing, But I Didn't Want To Make Movies. I Always Wanted To Draw And Paint.

There's No-one Up There In Northern Norway, Food's Terrible, But It's Very, Very Beautiful To Look At, If You've Got Eyes, And Enjoy Looking.

I Usually Only Draw Myself In Down Periods... I Suppose That's Why I Often Draw Myself Looking Grim. I Just Think, 'let's Have A Look In The Mirror.' When You Are Alone And You Look In A Mirror You Never Put On A Pleasing Smile. Well, You Don't, Do You?

I've No Doubt That Those Photographs I Took Will Make People Look At Everything In A More Interesting Way - The Little Tear On One Piece Of Paper, The Shadow On Another. But Good Painting Has Always Done That - Made You See Things. And The Most Ordinary Can Be The Most Extraordinary.

I'm Fed Up With Being Bossed Around.

A Lot Of People, Given The Chance, Would Blow Up Everything, And You And Me.

I've Always Been A Looker. Loads Of People Say, "i Never Saw That" - But That's What Artists Do.

Drawing Takes Time. A Line Has Time In It

If You Go Too Far With Naturalism, There Is No Need To Even Organize; Just Look... And Paint What You See Until The Canvas Ends.

I Actually Think The Deafness Makes You See Clearer. If You Can't Hear, You Somehow See.

And Then I Went Round The Corner And There's A Van Gogh Portrait, And You Just Think, Well, This Is Another Level. A Higher Level, Actually. I Love The Sargent, But It's Not The Level Of Van Gogh.

No Matter What The Illusion Created, It Is A Flat Canvas And It Has To Be Organized Into Shapes.

My Only Worry Is The Painting I'm Doing. Nothing Else.

I Can See That Cinema Seems To Be Finished. Everybody Has A Bigger Screen At Home. I'm Assuming Eventually You Won't Need A Screen At All - These Iphones Will Just Project.

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All Art Is Contemporary, If It's Alive, And If It's Not Alive, What's The Point Of It?

I Was Aware That The Teaching Of Drawing Was Being Stopped Almost 30 Years Ago. And I Always Said, 'the Teaching Of Drawing Is The Teaching Of Looking.' A Lot Of People Don't Look Very Hard.

All Painters Are Interested In Photography To A Certain Extent.

Everything Does Come From Nature. That's Where You Get New Ideas. Just Draw The Landscape. I Felt Doing It With A Bit Of Burnt Wood Was Also Good Because I Was Drawing Burnt Wood With A Piece Of Wood. I Wanted To Do Black And White. After Using Color, I Thought Black And White Would Be Good. You Can Have Color In Black And White. There Is Color In Them, Actually.

Black And White

It's All One To Me: Opera, Painting, Drawing, Faxes.

I See The Ipad As A Wonderful New Drawing Medium, But I Am At A Loss As To How To Make It Pay.

Enjoyment Of The Landscape Is A Thrill.

It's No Good Saying I Wished I Could Go Out More, Because I Can't. But I Don't Bother About It Too Much.

Being Able To Draw Means Being Able To Put Things In Believable Space. People Who Don't Draw Very Well Can't Do That.

The Photograph Isn't Good Enough. It's Not Real Enough.

It's Time To Debate Images, Especially When Someone's Going To Prison For Downloading Them.

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Britain Is A Very Small Country With A Very Large Press.

Small Countries

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I'm Really Only Interested In Technology That Is About Pictures. I'm Interested In Anything That Makes A Picture.

I Can Get Excitement Watching Rain On A Puddle. And Then I Paint It. Now, I Admit, There Are Not Too Many People Who Would Find That Exciting. But I Would. And I Want Life Thrilling And Rich. And It Is. I Make Sure It Is.

Yes, I Did, I Mean I Painted Er, In A Kind Of Abstract Expressionist Way, Because Of Course That Was Exciting.

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I Think Picasso Was, Without Doubt, The Greatest Portraitist Of The 20th Century, If Not Any Other Century.

Who's Going To Ask A Painter To See A Diploma? They'd Say, 'can I See Your Paintings?', Wouldn't They?

I Believe That The Problem Of How You Depict Something Is A Formal Problem. It's An Interesting One And It's A Permanent One; There's No Solution To It. There Are A Thousand And One Ways You Can Go About It. There's No Set Rule.

I Thought The Iphone Was Great, But This Takes It To A New Level - Simply Because It's Eight Times The Size Of The Iphone, As Big As A Reasonably-sized Sketchbook... Anyone Who Likes Drawing And Mark-making Will Like To Explore New Media.

When You're Very Young, You Suddenly Find This Marvellous Freedom. It's Quite Exciting, And You're Prepared To Do Anything.

I Was Always Interested In Photography Because It Makes A Picture.

Teaching People To Draw Is Teaching People To Look

We Live In An Age Where The Artist Is Forgotten. He Is A Researcher. I See Myself That Way.

I Never Work With Music. I Hate Background Music, Always Did. I Only Like Music In The Foreground, Meaning, Deliberately Listen To It, Actually.

Background Music

The Video Camera Dominates Art. It's A Bore, It Makes Everything Look A Bit The Same. If You Look At Things With A Pencil And Paper In Your Hand, You Are Going To See Far More.

What The Art Historians Had Forgotten Is That In Chinese, Japanese, Persian, And Indian Art, They Never Painted Shadows. Why Did They Paint Shadows In European Art? Shadows Are Because Of Optics. Optics Need Shadows And Strong Light. Strong Light Makes The Deepest Shadows. It Took Me A Few Years To Realize Fully That The Art Historians Didn't Grasp That. There Are A Lot Of Interesting New Things, Ideas, Pictures.

Time Is The Great Mystery Anyway. And It's Still The Great Mystery In The Moving Picture As Well.

Perspective Is A Law Of Optics... The Chinese Did Not Have A System Like It. Indeed, It Is Said They Rejected The Idea Of The Vanishing Point In The Eleventh Century, Because It Meant The Viewer Was Not There, Indeed, Had No Movement, Therefore Was Not Alive.

I Have Never Really Done Any Teaching And Maybe I Should Have Done. I Am Not Power-mad Enough.

There Would Be No Bohemia Without Smoking.

How Difficult It Is To Learn Not To See Like Cameras, Which Has Had Such An Effect On Us. The Camera Sees Everything At Once. We Don't.

It's All Right If You Don't Mind Looking At The World From The Point Of View Of A Paralyzed Cyclops—for A Split Second.

If You Like Music You Like Silence Actually.

Most Artists Work All The Time, They Do Actually, Especially Good Artists, They Work All The Time, What Else Is There To Do? I Mean You Do.

People From The Village Come Up And Tease Me: 'we Hear You've Started Drawing On Your Telephone.' And I Tell Them, 'well, No, Actually, It's Just That Occasionally I Speak On My Sketch Pad,'

The Moment You Can Learn To Deal With Homosexuality In Art, It's Quite An Exciting Moment, Just As In A Sense When People 'come Out' It's Quite An Exciting Moment. It Means They Become Aware Of Their Desires, And Can Deal With Them In A Remarkably Honest Way.

Anything Simple Always Interests Me.

Smoking Calms Me Down. It's Enjoyable. I Don't Want Politicians Deciding What Is Exciting In My Life.

In Fact, I'm A Bit Of A Slob, But I've Always Said My Excuse, I Have A Higher Sense Of Order, I Can See It Where Others Can't. That's My Excuse For Slobbery, I Must Admit, But I Think It's A Good One.

No Theoretician, No Writer On Art, However Interesting He Or She Might Be, Could Be As Interesting As Picasso. A Good Writer On Art May Give You An Insight To Picasso, But, After All, Picasso Was There First.

I Do Do A Lot Of Talking, Because It Saves Me Listening.

I Thought Using Three Cameras Was A Lot Better Than One, Because You Could See Where You Were Going, Where You'd Been, And All Kinds Of Things - More Like Life. I Think Photography Has Colored Our Vision. We're Now In An Area Where It Might Break Something. I Think This Is A Time. I Feel It. I Don't Know Whether I'll Be Here Long Enough To Experience It. I've No Plans To Leave Yet.

In One Gallery They Actually Had A Notice Which Said No Sketching. How Obnoxious! I Said, How Do You Think These Things Got On The Walls If There Was No Sketching?

Photoshop Came Out Of Painting, And Now It's Going Back To Painting.

Picasso Is Still Influencing Me. Of Course, I Haven't Got That Kind Of Energy, Or Skill.

The Camera Can't See Space. It Sees Surfaces. People See Space, Which Is Much More Interesting.

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