David Hockney: Secret Knowledge (2002 TV Movie) User Reviews

A great documentary, about the historical changes in the art world.

[graphpaper · 9/10 · 29 May 2005]

David Hockney demonstrates how the painting masters of the past, secretly started using devices and instruments to enhance the aesthetics of their paintings. Hockney not only discovers this concept, he also demonstrates it, which allows us to grasp the technical side.

Being a Photography student i found this documentary to be excellent.

Using famous and not so famous paintings from different periods in art history, you get an informative crash course while also learning about Hockney's discovery.

I am not a big fan of Hockney's work, but that doesn't matter because this film has nothing to do with it. It only directs it's attention to the masters of the past. Hockney simply does some quick sketches to demonstrate his theory. A well researched and educational film, 9 out of 10.

Catch it if you can; otherwise look at the book

[mh503 · 9/10 · 3 February 2007]

Hockney's thesis is that from the Renaissance to the 1850's the dominant styles in painting depended on secret use of lenses to project images from three dimensional scenes onto flat surfaces such as walls. The artist would then trace the two-dimensional projection and fill it in later with paint. He points to areas in paintings that are blurry, in just the places where painters would have had to change the focus to get details from closer objects.In other words, they used simple cameras.

Hockney's style is engaging and persuasive. He also wrote a book with the same title which is more accessible. The video is not readily available, except in a few university libraries. It costs $150 to purchase from BBC films! The main reason to see the video, rather than read the book, is that the moving video camera yields a three dimensional effect much easier to take in than in the book.