16 Quotes by David Hockney about Art

  • Author David Hockney
  • Quote

    Artists, real artists, have to work. They can’t be hedonists. Really good painters are always working. The world is such a marvelous place. You have to look and to work. That’s exactly why Van Gogh was such a great artist: total commitment. That’s what you need.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author David Hockney
  • Quote

    What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing. You wouldn't be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author David Hockney
  • Quote

    Future art that is based on appearances won't look like the art that's gone before. Even revivals of a period are not the same.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author David Hockney
  • Quote

    In art, new ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling; you can't divorce the two, as, we are now aware, you cannot have time without space and space without time.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author David Hockney
  • Quote

    In the end nobody knows how it's done — how art is made. It can't be explained. Optical devices are just tools. Understanding a tool doesn't explain the magic of creation. Nothing can.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author David Hockney
  • Quote

    Shadows sometimes people don't see shadows. The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures, oriental art never deals with shadow. But I noticed these shadows and I knew it meant it was sunny.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author David Hockney
  • Quote

    the great strength is that the art worked outside of galleries and museums. It did not need them. (They need it.)

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author David Hockney
  • Quote

    I've never been interested in, much in the politics of the art world, it doesn't interest me.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author David Hockney
  • Quote

    Anyway I feel myself a bit on the edge on the art world, but I don't mind, I'm just pursuing my work in a very excited way. And there isn't really a mainstream anymore, is there?

  • Tags
  • Share