A History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen

by David Hockney (Author), Martin Gayford (Author), David Hockney (Author), Martin Gayford (Author), David Hockney (Author)

New
Hardcover
2016
$28.95

The making of pictures has a history going back perhaps 100,000 years to an African shell used as a paint palette. Two-thirds of it is irrevocably lost, since the earliest images known to us are from about 40,000 years ago. But what a 40,000 years, explored here by David Hockney and Martin Gayford in a brilliantly original book. They privilege no medium, or period, or style, but instead, in 16 chapters, discuss how and why pictures have been made, and insistently link `art' to human skills and human needs.
Each chapter addresses an important question: What happens when we try to express reality in two dimensions? Why is the `Mona Lisa' beautiful and why are shadows so rarely found in Chinese, Japanese and Persian painting? Why are optical projections always going to be more beautiful than HD television can ever be? How have the makers of images depicted movement? What makes marks on a flat surface interesting?
Energized by two lifetimes of looking at pictures, combined with a great artist's 70-year experience of experimentation as he makes them, this profoundly moving and enlightening volume will be the art book of the decade.

Synopsis

The making of pictures has a history going back perhaps 100,000 years to an African shell used as a paint palette. Two-thirds of it is irrevocably lost, since the earliest images known to us are from about 40,000 years ago. But what a 40,000 years, explored here by David Hockney and Martin Gayford in a brilliantly original book. They privilege no medium, or period, or style, but instead, in 16 chapters, discuss how and why pictures have been made, and insistently link `art' to human skills and human needs.
Each chapter addresses an important question: What happens when we try to express reality in two dimensions? Why is the `Mona Lisa' beautiful and why are shadows so rarely found in Chinese, Japanese and Persian painting? Why are optical projections always going to be more beautiful than HD television can ever be? How have the makers of images depicted movement? What makes marks on a flat surface interesting?
Energized by two lifetimes of looking at pictures, combined with a great artist's 70-year experience of experimentation as he makes them, this profoundly moving and enlightening volume will be the art book of the decade.

$28.95

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 360
Edition: 1
Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
Published: 06 Oct 2016
ISBN 10: 0500239495
ISBN 13: 9780500239490
Book Overview: David Hockney and Martin Gayford discuss the 30,000-year-old history of pictures in one brilliantly original volume

Media Reviews

'I won't read a more interesting book all year ... utterly fascinating' - A. N. Wilson, Sunday Times
'Hockney asks big questions about the nature of picture-making and the relationship between painters and photography in a way that no other contemporary artist seems to do ... Enormously good-humoured and entertaining ... On almost every page, there is an interesting provocation' - Andrew Marr, New Statesman
'An eloquent conversational testimony to the vividness of life lived through intelligent looking. You will see Caravaggio and Citizen Kane with fresh eyes' - Daily Telegraph
'A magic flight of a book ... It's a measure of Hockney's vividness of perception that he can always put a cap on Gayford's knowledge ... Fabulous!' - Clive James, Guardian
'Crisps up perceptions and help readers to look anew' - The Times

Author Bio

David Hockney is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. He has produced work in almost every medium - painting, drawing, stage design, photography and printmaking - and has stretched the boundaries of all of them. Born in Bradford, England, in 1937, Hockney attended art school in London before moving to Los Angeles in the 1960s. There, he painted his famous swimming pool paintings. In a 2011 poll of more than 1,000 British artists, Hockney was voted the most influential British artist of all time. He continues to create and exhibit art. Martin Gayford is art critic for The Spectator and the author of acclaimed books on Van Gogh, Constable and Michelangelo. He is the author of Man with a Blue Scarf, Rendez-vous with Art and A Bigger Message. He has collaborated with David Hockney on A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney and A History of Pictures, and has co-written a volume of travels and conversations with Philippe de Montebello: Rendez-vous with Art.