Book Review
A great new book by Lawrence Weschler, True to Life: Twenty-Five Years of Conversations with David Hockney, terrific. A great overview on Hockney’s theory about the likely employment of the camera lucida by artists since the Renaissance. There are so many wonderful insights on painting and perception from this warm and adventurous painter. I love his embrace of cubism- not just about cubes. I might add “roundism” the point is volume- if I may quote Virginia Woolf here-“ Life is round “. Cubism was trying to unlock the concept of space to reinstall it back into painting. Enough of Flatland- people don’t live and breathe in two dimensions. I don’t love everything that Hockney has painted -but a lot of it I do. I love his courage and his relentless pursuit of an understanding of perception and painting- seeing.
I love his devotion to the history of painting not just Western-but from many different cultures throughout the world. There is a great deal on his painted stage sets for the Opera -a venue for which he enjoyed creating over the years even as his hearing declined; Hockney is now totally deaf. It is interesting to note that Hockney’s frustration over Weschler’s previous book on Robert Irwin-the Minimalist- was actually the catalyst for these conversations. Check it out.
Any recommendations for inspiring books on artists?
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