David Hockney Thinking Quotations

I actually think the deafness makes you see clearer. If you can't hear, you somehow see.

I think cubism has not fully been developed. It is treated like a style, pigeonholed and that's it.

And then I went round the corner and there's a Van Gogh portrait, and you just think, well, this is another level. A higher level, actually. I love the Sargent, but it's not the level of Van Gogh.

I think the Enlightenment is leading us into a dark hole, really.

But, I would always be thinking of how pictures are constructed and colour, how to use it, I mean you're using it for constructing, makes you think about it, the place did as well.

I think Picasso was, without doubt, the greatest portraitist of the 20th century, if not any other century.

I think I am seeing more clearly now than ever,

But slowly I began to use cameras and then think about what it was that was going on. It took me a long time, I mean I actually played with cameras and photography for about 20 years.

If you see the world as beautiful, thrilling and mysterious, as I think I do, then you feel quite alive.

I think I’m greedy, but I’m not greedy for money - I think that can be a burden - I’m greedy for an exciting life.

I think photography has made us see the landscape in a very dull way - that's one of its effects. It's not spatial.

Modernism in a way, early modernism, for instance, in pictures, was turning against perspective and Europe . And all early modernism is actually from out of Europe, when you think of cubism is African, is looking at Africa, Matisse is looking at the arabesque, Oceania. Europe was the optical projection that had become photography, that had become film, that became television and it conquered the world.

I think we seem to remember things in still pictures. I never gave up on painting. When they said painting was dead, I just thought, Well, that's all about photography, and photography's not that interesting, and it's changing anyway.

Once you start painting, you could of course get lost. I mean you get out of yourself, you don't know whether you're thinking, you just act actually sometimes.

I think we're in a very exciting time - visually, I think we are. I've not got a crystal ball. I'm not saying I know what the future is at all. In some ways I'm getting quite pessimistic about the future, but in other ways I think it might get better. We are moving into very big changes.

I've always been interested in space in pictures. I think my going deaf increased my spatial sense, because I can't get the direction of sound. I feel that I see space very clearly, and that's because I can't hear it. So it's a compensatory thing.

Every good artist I know, I always think works hard, we're working all the time.

In one gallery they actually had a notice which said No Sketching. How obnoxious! I said, How do you think these things got on the walls if there was no sketching?

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.

In fact, I'm a bit of a slob, but I've always said my excuse, I have a higher sense of order, I can see it where others can't. That's my excuse for slobbery, I must admit, but I think it's a good one.

The 'how' has a great effect on what we see. To say that 'what we see' is more important than 'how we see it' is to think that 'how' has been settled and fixed. When you realize this is not the case, you realize that 'how' often affects 'what' we see.

I thought using three cameras was a lot better than one, because you could see where you were going, where you'd been, and all kinds of things - more like life. I think photography has colored our vision. We're now in an area where it might break something. I think this is a time. I feel it. I don't know whether I'll be here long enough to experience it. I've no plans to leave yet.

I think I’m greedy, but I’m not greedy for money – I think that can be a burden – I’m greedy for an exciting life. I want it to be exciting all the time, and I get it, actually. On the other hand, I can find excitement, I admit, in raindrops falling on a puddle and a lot of people wouldn’t. I intend to have it exciting until the day I fall over.

You would think death was an optional extra nowadays. Nobody wants to tick that box.

I usually only draw myself in down periods... I suppose that's why I often draw myself looking grim. I just think, 'Let's have a look in the mirror.' When you are alone and you look in a mirror you never put on a pleasing smile. Well, you don't, do you?

Until I saw my drawings replayed on the iPad, I'd never seen myself draw. Someone watching me would be concentrating on the exact moment, but I'd always be thinking a little bit ahead. That's especially so in a drawing where you are limiting yourself, a line drawing for example. When you are doing them you are very tense, because you have to reduce everything to such simple terms.