Secret Knowledge

David Hockney’s enthralling story of how some of the great works of Western art were created with the help of mirrors and lenses and how the optical look came to dominate painting attracted major media attention around the world and generated intense debate in the fields of science and art history. Now in this expanded edition, Hockney takes his thesis even further, revealing for the first time new and exciting discoveries.

Hockney became gripped by a desire to find out how the artists of the past had managed to depict the world around them so accurately and vividly. As a painter faced with similar technical problems, he asked himself: ‘How did they do this?’ For the next two years, he sacrificed his own time as an artist to follow trail, obsessively tracking down the hidden secrets of the Old Masters. As news of his controversial investigations spread, he enlisted the support of scientists and art historians worldwide.

Hockney recounts the story as it unfolded. He examines the major works of art history and reveals the truth of how such artists as Caravaggio, Velázquez, Van Eyck, Holbein, and Ingres used mirrors and lenses to help them create their famous masterpieces.

For this new edition, Hockney demonstrates, with the aid of drawings, paintings and photographs of his own experiments, how Renaissance artists developed perspective and chiaroscuro – radically challenging our view of how these foundations of Western art were established.

Hundreds of paintings and drawings – among them the best-known and best-loved works in the history of Western art – are reproduced and accompanied by Hockney’s infectious and enthusiastic descriptions. His own photographs and drawings illustrate the various methods used by past artists to capture accurate likenesses, and present the results they would have achieved.

Extracts from the many documents that he uncovered offer further intriguing evidence, while his correspondence with an array of international experts provides an exciting account of the remarkable story as it unfolded.