David Hockney's Secret Knowledge

[Margaret Port]

I just watched a documentary about David Hockney's explorations of artists' use of lenses and mirrors through the past 600 ears. It was called "Secret Knowledge" made in 2001 by the BBC.

He pinned hundreds of colour copies of paintings onto boards in his studio starting with ones done in the 1300s through to C20th works and there was a very distinct jump at 1420AD. This was about when oil paints were invented but I think it also coincided with the invention of lenses (telescopes etc)There was another distinct change when cameras were invented but that is another story.

He finished his programme by recreating one of Carravaggio's painting (three men playing cards)using a lens, by putting his model in costume in strong light and then positioning his canvas so a clear image projected onto it (upside down)which he traced with charcoal. He then had the model change pose and moved the canvas to the appropriate position and repeated the process of charcoal, as he did the third man. His image was very close to the original.

He likened the whole process to what modern artists do with computers. That is take one bit of one image and add another bit from somewhere else and the background from anywhere.

I'm off to buy a copy of his book called "Secret Knowledge from a Forgotten Age" and I'm planning to invest in an overhead projector. Who said painting was hard??