Quote

I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure. I think there is a contradiction in an art of total despair, because the very fact that the art is made seems to contradict despair.

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
Always
Despair
Think
Deep
Thinking
Pleasure
Fact
Facts
Contradict
Art
Contradiction
Seems
Total
Made
Believed

More quotes by David Hockney

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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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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.
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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.
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No one has ever asked to see my degree certificate.
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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.
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I'm very attracted to the great open spaces of the West.
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The high-definition picture is still a perspective picture. That's the real problem, the perspective picture.
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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.
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I was always interested in photography because it makes a picture.
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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.
David Hockney
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Any artist will tell you he's really only interested in the stuff he's doing now. He will, always. It's true, and it should be like that.
David Hockney
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What I didn't know was I was deeply attracted to the big space.
David Hockney
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We don't all see the same way at all. Even if I'm sitting looking at you, there is always the memory of you as well. And a memory is now. So someone who's never met you before is seeing a different person. That's bound to be the case. We all see something different. I assume most people don't look very hard at anything.
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On the iPhone I tended to draw with my thumb. Whereas the moment I got to the iPad, I found myself using every finger.
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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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If you are not playful you are not alive.
David Hockney
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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.
David Hockney
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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.
David Hockney
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With chemical film, it was possible to alter photographs, but you had to be an expert. That's not true any more. The LA Times fired a photographer at the beginning of the Iraq War for editing two shots together. Photography is crumbling. Certainly it is for the newspapers a bit now, isn't it? There will be painting again, absolutely!
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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.
David Hockney