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Jun 28, 2010

David Hockney on modern vs. medieval perspective, interviewed by Tom Hodgkinson in The Idler #43

I’ll show you something. This is about the medieval world and the difference. I did this diagram twenty years ago. In pictures, we know: that’s the world, that’s the horizon, that’s the vanishing point. The viewer is here, and the viewer is an immobile point. And that, theoretically, is at infinity. If the infinity is God, this and this will never meet. If this moves, then this moves. That’s perspective as we know it. But in the medieval world, perspective is more often the reverse, meaning you could see both sides of the altar. The altar would be like that, not like that. OK, if you see both sides, this means you’re in movement. You’ve moved. That means infinity is everywhere; God is everywhere, including within you.

I could listen to/read Hockney all frickin’ day.

Filed under: David Hockney, perspective

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