Quote

In the end nobody knows how it's done — how art is made. It can't be explained. Optical devices are just tools. Understanding a tool doesn't explain the magic of creation. Nothing can.

David Hockney

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David Hockney
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: July 9
Collagist
Draftsperson
Drawer
Graphic Artist
Illustrator
Lithographer
Painter
Photographer
Printmaker
Scenographer
Sculptor
Bradford
Yorkshire
Art
Tool
Ends
Explain
Nothing
Tools
Done
Magic
Made
Creation
Nobody
Optical
Understanding
Explained
Doesn
Devices

More quotes by David Hockney

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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.
David Hockney
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I think I’m greedy, but I’m not greedy for money - I think that can be a burden - I’m greedy for an exciting life.
David Hockney
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I'm interested in all kinds of pictures, however they are made, with cameras, with paint brushes, with computers, with anything.
David Hockney
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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.
David Hockney
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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.
David Hockney
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There's no need to believe what an artist says. Believe what he does that's what counts.
David Hockney
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I'm very attracted to the great open spaces of the West.
David Hockney
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Being able to draw means being able to put things in believable space. People who don't draw very well can't do that.
David Hockney
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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?
David Hockney
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I believe that the very process of looking can make a thing beautiful.
David Hockney
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There's a Chinese proverb that says it all: Painting is an old man's art.
David Hockney
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I'm rather shocked by what I thought was simple mindedness actually. I thought they're not looking, they're not actually looking.
David Hockney
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West Yorkshire is quite dramatic and beautiful, the crags and things.
David Hockney
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It is difficult to say why I decided I wanted to be an artist. Obviously, I had some facility, more than other people, but sometimes facility comes because one is more interested in looking at things, examining them, more interested in the visual world than other people are.
David Hockney
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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.
David Hockney
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All painting, no matter what you are painting, is abstract in that it's got to be organized.
David Hockney
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California is always in my mind.
David Hockney
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It takes a long time to make it simple.
David Hockney
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The cameras are getting smaller, they're getting more versatile, and eventually, I'm sure you'll have a camera with lots and lots of things on it so you can alter the picture. You could alter perspective.
David Hockney
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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,'
David Hockney