Hockney, the Old Masters, … and Photography

We know that art set the standards for photography. But what influence has photography had on art? A highly controversial one. The art world fractured when British modernist David Hockney dared suggest that the old masters used lenses to paint their finely detailed canvases. How could he say that? Artists don’t cheat! We will look at multiple examples — Raphael, Leonardo, Caravaggio, Dürer, Vermeer, Van Eyck, Ingres and others — that support his premise, alongside Hockney’s own work. His colorful, figurative, impressionistic, iconoclastic, and joyful paintings ran against the predominant styles of today, truly sparking our imaginations. And, he was also a groundbreaking photographer — defying our sense of a camera’s “reality.”