Product Description

David Hockney’s controversial book, now revised in paperback with thirty-two new pages of evidence

Join one of the most influential artists of our time as he investigates the painting techniques of the Old Masters. Hockney’s extensive research led him to conclude that artists such as Caravaggio, Velázquez, da Vinci, and other hyperrealists actually used optics and lenses to create their masterpieces.

In this passionate yet pithy book, Hockney takes readers on a journey of discovery as he builds a case that mirrors and lenses were used by the great masters to create their highly detailed and realistic paintings and drawings. Hundreds of the best-known and best-loved paintings are reproduced alongside his straightforward analysis. Hockney also includes his own photographs and drawings to illustrate techniques used to capture such accurate likenesses. Extracts from historical and modern documents and correspondence with experts from around the world further illuminate this thought-provoking book that will forever change how the world looks at art.

Secret Knowledge will open your eyes to how we perceive the world and how we choose to represent it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #119413 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.com
British painter David Hockney, well known for his cool and lovely paintings of California pools, has taken on the new role of detective. For two years Hockney seriously investigated the painting techniques of the old masters, and like any admirable sleuth, compiled substantial evidence to support his revolutionary theory. Secret Knowledge is the fruit of this labor, an exhaustive treatise in pictures revealing clues that some of the world's most famous painters, Ingres, Velázquez, Caravaggio (just to mention a few) utilized optics and lenses in creating their masterpieces. Hockney's fascination with the subject is contagious, and the book feels almost like a game with each analysis a "How'd they do that?" instead of a whodunit. While some may find the technical revelation a disappointment in terms of the idea of genius, Hockney is quick to point out that the use of optics does not diminish the immensity of artistic achievement. He reminds the reader that a tool is just a tool, and it is still the artist's hand and creative vision that produce a work of art. (296 pages, 460 illustrations, 402 in color.) --J.P. Cohen

The Times Literary Supplement, London
When looking at pictures, one can have no more stimulating and provocative companion than Hockney.

Review
When looking at pictures, one can have no more stimulating and provocative companion than Hockney. (The Times Literary Supplement, London)

Customer Reviews

Giving copies to friends
Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters

This book researches and explains the methods used by the old masters to achieve beautiful results in their realistic paintings. A must read. I buy it as gifts to educate my friends, artist & non artist alike. Cynthia

too much words
quality of pictures is good,but words are too much,
it is different to read,

Very interesting
Despite some negative reviews here, I thought this was a good book, and I find Hockney's theory quite credible, due to a study I did some time ago.

Twenty years ago, I wrote what was probably the most detailed analysis of perspective and visual distortions in van Gogh's famous painting, Bedroom at Arles. The research showed that the visual system can create several spatial distortions in a painting if the painter fails to map out a precise perspective. These deviations from geometric perspective--such as exaggerating the perceived sizes of objects in the foreground (to about 20 feet away from the observer), minimizing the sizes of objects in the distance, and the famous overall hyperbolic distortion of the human visual field, were clearly demostrable using standard perspective analysis, especially using the advanced techiques that I learned from Dubery and Willits's fine book on the subject.

I wasn't the first to note them, as these distortions have been noted by many observers and discussed by the great John Ward and Patrick Heelan in their journal articles in The Art Bulletin on the same painting, but no one had done the full quantitative analysis yet or linked them to the visual neurobiology. In addition, van Gogh also showed a spiral or torsional twist in some paintings that suggested something further in the way of physiological optics going on or perhaps even something neurological.

Through close obsevation of the real world, the great artists are aware of many of these problems, and how difficult it is to paint perspective precisely, and ever since my earlier study I've always suspected that Hockney's hypothesis was correct, I just didn't have the data myself, since I was working in a somewhat different field of perceived visual distortions in paintings that result from the operation of the human visual system itself.

So Hockney's thesis seems very plausible to me. I note one very negative review, but based on my own investigations, I think Hockney is probably right. Various geometric drawing devices and optical projective devices were available to the artists of old, and it's very likely that at least some, and perhaps many of them, used them as integral aids in their painting. Furthermore, there is the obvious case of anamorphic art in the Baroque period, where artists were known to have used optical devices to paint pictures that couldn't even be understood without the use of cyclindrical mirrors.

I found Hockney's book well written and a very interesting read. I think he did a great job on it and I learned a lot myself.