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Should schools encourage their students to create art?

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Should schools encourage their students to create art?

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I think that schools should promote any artistic expression from students. Blocking that would result in the upbringing of very similar human beings, which shouldn't be what we want. An example of this, is that when I was younger, I would draw a lot, and anything. But then I started going to school, and my mom noticed me changing my drawing style. I would now use yellow for the sun, green for the grass, light pink for the skin (I wasn't doing that before). She also noticed that I stared drawing the sun in the corner (like all the other kids). Looking back, I see that my drawings got so much less interesting, and that is because the teacher would tell us what to do and what not to do, instead of letting us draw freely what we wanted. My personal experience can be linked to many studies and speeches done about how schools "kill" creativity. A TED talked made by Sir Ken Robinson speaks about this particular subject. He says that "young kids aren't afraid of being wrong. but adults are. And that fear of being wrong is given by all those teachers saying what you shoudn't be doing. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities". Picasso also once talked about it, he said: "All children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up". Therefore, I think this is why it is extremely important that school do, in fact encourage their students to create art.

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Do schools kill creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson | TED

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I agree with you Elea, on the fact that art is not only a product, an object exhibited in a museum, but it is the combination of all the stages that have participated in its creation and its fame. And I think the most important stage is when the artist creates his work. Indeed, I think that art reflects the soul of its creator. In fact, I read the book "Year of Yes" by Shonda Rhimes, an American director, producer and screenwriter, known in particular for her series Grey's Anatomy. In this book, the author teaches us more about her, her daily life, and reveals her passion for writing, as well as her overflowing imagination, which allows her to create characters, each one more amazing than the other. She writes: “This is who Cristina was, a piece of my soul [...] placed on television.” In this quote, Shonda Rhimes explains that Cristina, one of the main characters of Grey’s Anatomy, is a piece of her soul, a part of herself, without she cannot live. Her characters, each constituting a part of herself, therefore reflect who she is, her personality, her qualities, her defects, her soul.               Each work of art is, therefore, a piece of the artist's soul. When you are in front of one of them, you are in front of the reflection of its creator, and you can guess his or her personality, imagine what he or she looks like. 

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I agree with you Elea, on the fact that art is not only a product, an object exhibited in a museum, but it is the combination of all the stages that have participated in its creation and its fame. And I think the most important stage is when the artist creates his work. Indeed, I think that art reflects the soul of its creator. In fact, I read the book "Year of Yes" by Shonda Rhimes, an American director, producer and screenwriter, known in particular for her series Grey's Anatomy. In this book, the author teaches us more about her, her daily life, and reveals her passion for writing, as well as her overflowing imagination, which allows her to create characters, each one more amazing than the other. She writes: “This is who Cristina was, a piece of my soul [...] placed on television.” In this quote, Shonda Rhimes explains that Cristina, one of the main characters of Grey’s Anatomy, is a piece of her soul, a part of herself, without she cannot live. Her characters, each constituting a part of herself, therefore reflect who she is, her personality, her qualities, her defects, her soul.               Each work of art is, therefore, a piece of the artist's soul. When you are in front of one of them, you are in front of the reflection of its creator, and you can guess his or her personality, imagine what he or she looks like. 

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How does one become an artiste ?                                          I think that we become an artist when we manage to give life and meaning to something that doesn’t have any. In Shonda Rhimes’ book, “Year of Yes”, she describes her characters, tells us more about them, and how she creates them. She writes: “Characters may begin with the words I put on papers.” In her TV shows, through her characters, she gives life and true meaning to the words she writes. I'm also going to rely on the "Comedian" artwork, consisting of a banana duct-taped to the wall. When we arrive in front of this work, our first reaction is to say to ourselves that it is not art and that we don't need to be an artist to make the same work. But the creator of "Comedian", Maurizio Cattelan, is a real artist. Indeed, he has succeeded in transforming a common object, a banana, into a unique work of art with a meaning. This banana offers us a complex reflection of ourselves and our society. It can be interpreted as a symbol of world trade, but also as a symbol of the superficiality of our society. When the banana rots, the artwork has an even stronger message, to make us realize that our society is damaged, moldy, corrupt.So I think you become an artist when you can give life and meaning to something that doesn't have any. Shonda Rhimes did it, giving life and meaning to her words through the mouths of her serial characters, and Maurizio Cattelan did it, giving a meaning and a story to that duct-taped banana.           

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How does one become an artiste ?                                          I think that we become an artist when we manage to give life and meaning to something that doesn’t have any. In Shonda Rhimes’ book, “Year of Yes”, she describes her characters, tells us more about them, and how she creates them. She writes: “Characters may begin with the words I put on papers.” In her TV shows, through her characters, she gives life and true meaning to the words she writes. I'm also going to rely on the "Comedian" artwork, consisting of a banana duct-taped to the wall. When we arrive in front of this work, our first reaction is to say to ourselves that it is not art and that we don't need to be an artist to make the same work. But the creator of "Comedian", Maurizio Cattelan, is a real artist. Indeed, he has succeeded in transforming a common object, a banana, into a unique work of art with a meaning. This banana offers us a complex reflection of ourselves and our society. It can be interpreted as a symbol of world trade, but also as a symbol of the superficiality of our society. When the banana rots, the artwork has an even stronger message, to make us realize that our society is damaged, moldy, corrupt.So I think you become an artist when you can give life and meaning to something that doesn't have any. Shonda Rhimes did it, giving life and meaning to her words through the mouths of her serial characters, and Maurizio Cattelan did it, giving a meaning and a story to that duct-taped banana.           

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I agree with you, Elea, that it is essential that schools encourage children to develop their own creativity. But I think that their art, although personal, will always be influenced by what surrounds them, especially society. Indeed, I think that art is always a reflection of the society in which it was created, because, in his art, an artist will depict who he is, and what he has inside himself. And what he exhibits in his art - his personal experiences, his feelings or his opinions - have all been shaped by the society in which he lives. Thus, the art of Banksy, the anonymous street artist, reflects today's society. The personal experiences he has had in the past are the result of the actions of society. Indeed, Banksy has traveled to countries at war, where men were fighting among themselves, testifying to the violence of our society and its inability to resolve disagreements without fighting. War and violence, Banksy depicted it through his graffiti, as for example in "Bomb Hugger". The mural shows a young girl stenciled in black and white on a bubblegum pink background, hugging a bomb ready to explode to her chest, as if it were a cuddly toy. The piece symbolizes the horror of war next to the fragility and innocence of the young girl. Through this work, he also exposes his feelings and opinions. Banksy is against war and is revolted that we dare to subject children to such horrors and cruelty. Art is, therefore, in my opinion, always a reflection of the society in which it was created. The artist is indeed subject to the actions and effects of society, which therefore reappear in his art.  

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I agree with you, Elea, that it is essential that schools encourage children to develop their own creativity. But I think that their art, although personal, will always be influenced by what surrounds them, especially society. Indeed, I think that art is always a reflection of the society in which it was created, because, in his art, an artist will depict who he is, and what he has inside himself. And what he exhibits in his art - his personal experiences, his feelings or his opinions - have all been shaped by the society in which he lives. Thus, the art of Banksy, the anonymous street artist, reflects today's society. The personal experiences he has had in the past are the result of the actions of society. Indeed, Banksy has traveled to countries at war, where men were fighting among themselves, testifying to the violence of our society and its inability to resolve disagreements without fighting. War and violence, Banksy depicted it through his graffiti, as for example in "Bomb Hugger". The mural shows a young girl stenciled in black and white on a bubblegum pink background, hugging a bomb ready to explode to her chest, as if it were a cuddly toy. The piece symbolizes the horror of war next to the fragility and innocence of the young girl. Through this work, he also exposes his feelings and opinions. Banksy is against war and is revolted that we dare to subject children to such horrors and cruelty. Art is, therefore, in my opinion, always a reflection of the society in which it was created. The artist is indeed subject to the actions and effects of society, which therefore reappear in his art.  

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"Bomb Hugger", Banksy, 2003

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Art has the role (among others) to keep us united through Shared Experience. The creation of art is a collective activity.
Banksy's art rose to fame because it touched and stirred society. Reciprocally Banksy created his artwork to change and improve society. Art and Society mutually support each other.
The existence of art requires an artist or a group of artists and an audience. Every form of art (dance, theatre, choir, painting...) need these elements. As such, we are all involved in the creation of art. Even the lone poet relies upon the craft of the book-binder to write his verses. Art offers us a reason to come together and share in an experience. Banksy did it and ultimately proves that we need art to keep us connected.

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I think art is meant to be a personal, intimate outlet for artists. Everyone goes through traumatic events in life, artists deal with those events by creating art. This doesn’t mean that they must have experienced trauma. It means that most of them that do, express their pain through art. For example, I found Femme In Public (2017), a poetry collection by genderfluid writer Alok Vaid-Menon. In this book, they explore how the world would be without anti-trans violence. They have several poems on how they deal with the repercussions of being trans in today’s society. In a way, they deal with their feelings and make sense of them by writing them down. This doesn’t mean that the trauma is what causes the art, but it’s the art that helps the trauma. This method of self-expression is almost therapeutic.

But there is science behind it too. The theory that the purpose of art is to help the artist is also explained by science. Art therapy is a common treatment for anxiety and pain in hospitals. In an article for Psychology Today entitled Art Therapy, they explain how “art therapy helps children, adolescents, and adults explore their emotions, improve self-esteem, manage addictions, relieve stress, improve symptoms of anxiety and depression, and cope with a physical illness or disability.” This means that it has been proven that art helps deal with trauma, furthering my belief that art is meant, most times, for self-expression and is destined to help the artist deal with their feelings. It is only normal that people who enjoy art already, express that anxiety and trauma through art.

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Can one become an artist without having experienced great suffering or struggles in life? Why or why not?

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Can one become an artist without having experienced great suffering or struggles in life? Why or why not?

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I believe that we do not need to experience great suffering, struggles or traumatic experiences in life to become an artist. Art can come out of sadness, but also out of any other emotion, like happiness. For example the artworks of David Hockney. He is a British painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. He is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. Up till now he has experienced a pretty confortable life which doesn't make him less of an artist in any way. He became an artist because he enjoyed creating things and "took pride in his work". Therefore, this counter-example shows us that one can definitely become an artist without having experienced great suffering or struggles in life.

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David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.

Hockney has owned residences and studios in Bridlington, and London, as well as two residences in California, where he has lived intermittently since 1964: one in the Hollywood Hills, one in Malibu, and an office and archives on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, California.

On 15 November 2018, Hockney's 1972 work Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold at Christie's auction house in New York City for $90 million (£70 million), becoming the most expensive artwork by a living artist sold at auction. This broke the previous record, set by the 2013 sale of Jeff Koons's Balloon Dog (Orange) for $58.4 million. Hockney held this record until 15 May 2019 when Koons reclaimed the honour selling his for more than $91 million at Christie's in New York.

David Hockney was born in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, the fourth of five children of Kenneth Hockney (1904-1978), an accountant's clerk who later ran his own accountancy business, and who had been a conscientious objector in the Second World War, and Laura (1900-1999), née Thompson, a devout Methodist and strict vegetarian. He was educated at Wellington Primary School, Bradford Grammar School, Bradford College of Art (where his teachers included Frank Lisle and his fellow students included Derek Boshier, Pauline Boty, Norman Stevens, David Oxtoby and John Loker) and the Royal College of Art in London, where he met R. B. Kitaj and Frank Bowling. While there, Hockney said he felt at home and took pride in his work.[citation needed ]

At the Royal College of Art, Hockney featured - alongside Peter Blake - in the exhibition New Contemporaries, which announced the arrival of British Pop art. He was associated with the movement, but his early works display expressionist elements, similar to some works by Francis Bacon. When the RCA said it would not let him graduate if he did not complete an assignment of a life drawing of a live model in 1962, Hockney painted Life Painting for a Diploma in protest. He had refused to write an essay required for the final examination, saying he should be assessed solely on his artworks. Recognising his talent and growing reputation, the RCA changed its regulations and awarded the diploma. After leaving the RCA, he taught at Maidstone College of Art for a short time. He taught at the University of Iowa in 1964. Hockney also taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1965. He then taught at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1966 to 1967, followed by the University of California, Berkeley in 1967.

In 1964, Hockney moved to Los Angeles, where he was inspired to make a series of paintings of swimming pools in the comparatively new acrylic medium using vibrant colours. He lived back and forth among Los Angeles, London, and Paris in the late 1960s to 1970s. In 1974 he began a decade-long personal relationship with Gregory Evans who moved with him to the US in 1976 and as of 2019 remains a business partner. In 1978 he rented a house in the Hollywood Hills, and later bought and expanded it to include his studio. He also owned a 1,643-square-foot beach house at 21039 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, which he sold in 1999 for around $1.5 million.

In the 1990s, Hockney returned more frequently to Yorkshire, usually every three months, to visit his mother who died in 1999. Until 1997, he rarely stayed for more than two weeks, when his friend Jonathan Silver, who was terminally ill, encouraged him to capture the local surroundings. He did this at first with paintings based on memory, some from his boyhood. In 1998, he completed the painting of the Yorkshire landmark, Garrowby Hill. Hockney returned to Yorkshire for increasingly longer stays, and by 2003 was painting the countryside en plein air in both oils and watercolour. He set up residence and studio in a converted bed and breakfast, in the seaside town of Bridlington, about 75 mi (121 km) from where he was born. The oil paintings he produced after 2005 were influenced by his intensive studies in watercolour, a series titled Midsummer: East Yorkshire (2003-2004). He created paintings made of multiple smaller canvases-two to fifty-placed together. To help him visualise work at that scale, he used digital photographic reproductions to study the day's work.

In spring 2020 Hockney stayed at La Grande Cour, a farmhouse and studio in Normandy, during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Hockney has experimented with painting, drawing, printmaking, watercolours, photography, and many other media including a fax machine, paper pulp, computer applications and iPad drawing programs. The subject matter of interest ranges from still lifes to landscapes, portraits of friends, his dogs, and stage designs for the Royal Court Theatre, Glyndebourne, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961)

Hockney has returned to painting portraits throughout his career. From 1968, and for the next few years, he painted portraits and double portraits of friends, lovers, and relatives just under life-size in a realistic style that adroitly captured the likenesses of his subjects. Hockney has repeatedly been drawn to the same subjects - his family, employees, artists Mo McDermott and Maurice Payne, various writers he has known, fashion designers Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark (Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy, 1970-71), curator Henry Geldzahler, art dealer Nicholas Wilder, George Lawson and his ballet dancer lover, Wayne Sleep, and also his romantic interests throughout the years, including Peter Schlesinger and Gregory Evans. Perhaps more than all of these, Hockney has turned to his own figure year after year, creating over 300 self-portraits.

From 1999 to 2001 Hockney used a camera lucida for his research into art history as well as his own work in the studio. He created over 200 drawings of friends, family, and himself using this antique lens-based device.

In 2016, the Royal Academy exhibited Hockney's series entitled 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life which traveled to Ca' Pesaro in Venice, Italy, and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, in 2017 and to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2018. Hockney calls the paintings started in 2013 "twenty-hour exposures" because each sitting took six to seven hours on three consecutive days.

Hockney experimented with printmaking as early as a lithograph Self-Portrait in 1954 and worked in etchings during his time at RCA. In 1965, the print workshop Gemini G.E.L. approached him to create a series of lithographs with a Los Angeles theme. Hockney responded by creating The Hollywood Collection, a series of lithographs recreating the art collection of a Hollywood star, each piece depicting an imagined work of art within a frame. Hockney went on to produce many other portfolios with Gemini G.E.L. including Friends, The Weather Series, and Some New Prints. During the 1960s he produced several series of prints he thought of as 'graphic tales', including A Rake's Progress (1961-63) after Hogarth, Illustrations for Fourteen Poems from C.P. Cavafy (1966) and Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (1969).

In 1973 Hockney began a fruitful collaboration with Aldo Crommelynck, Picasso's preferred printer. In his atelier, he adopted Crommelynck's trademark sugar lift, as well as a system of the master's own devising of imposing a wooden frame onto the plate to ensure colour separation. Their early work together included Artist and Model (1973-74) and Contrejour in the French Style (1974). In 1976-77 Hockney created The Blue Guitar, a suite of 20 etchings, each utilising Crommelynck's techniques and filled with references to Picasso. The frontispiece to the suite mentions Hockney's dual inspiration; "The Blue Guitar: Etchings By David Hockney Who Was Inspired By Wallace Stevens Who Was Inspired By Pablo Picasso". The etchings refer to themes in a poem by Wallace Stevens, The Man with the Blue Guitar. It was published by Petersburg Press in October 1977. That year, Petersburg also published a book in which the images were accompanied by the poem's text.

In the summer of 1978, David Hockney stayed for six weeks with his friend the printer Ken Tyler at Tyler's studio in New York, Tyler Graphics Ltd. Tyler invited Hockney to try a new technique with liquid paper. The process is painting with the paper itself, so the artist had to do it himself by hand. Each image becomes a unique work between printmaking and painting. In six weeks, Hockney created a total of 29 artworks with a series of 17 sunflowers and swimming pools. Many of the works are very similar, differentiated by changes in colour choice and application of the colour. Some are solely coloured using paper pulp, while some use spray paint to achieve certain details.

Some of Hockney's other print portfolios include Home Made Prints (1986), Recent Etchings (1998) and Moving Focus (1984-1986), which contains lithographs related to A Walk Around the Hotel Courtyard, Acatlan. A retrospective of his prints, including 'computer drawings' printed on fax machines and inkjet printers, was exhibited at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London 5 February - 11 May 2014 and Bowes Museum, County Durham 7 June - 28 September 2014, with an accompanying publication, Hockney, Printmaker, by Richard Lloyd.

In the early 1980s, Hockney began to produce photo collages-which, in his early explorations within his personal photo albums, he referred to as "joiners"-first using Polaroid prints and subsequently 35mm, commercially processed colour prints. Using Polaroid snaps or photolab-prints of a single subject, Hockney arranged a patchwork to make a composite image. Because the photographs are taken from different perspectives and at slightly different times, the result is work that has an affinity with Cubism, one of Hockney's major aims-discussing the way human vision works. Some pieces are landscapes, such as Pearblossom Highway #2, others portraits, such as Kasmin 1982, and My Mother, Bolton Abbey, 1982.

Creation of the "joiners" occurred accidentally. He noticed in the late 1960s that photographers were using cameras with wide-angle lenses. He did not like these photographs because they looked somewhat distorted. While working on a painting of a living room and terrace in Los Angeles, he took Polaroid shots of the living room and glued them together, not intending for them to be a composition on their own. On looking at the final composition, he realised it created a narrative, as if the viewer moved through the room. He began to work more with photography after this discovery, stopping painting for a while to pursue this new technique exclusively.

Over time, however, he discovered what he could not capture with a lens, saying: "Photography seems to be rather good at portraiture, or can be. But, it can't tell you about space, which is the essence of landscape. For me anyway. Even Ansel Adams can't quite prepare you for what Yosemite looks like when you go through that tunnel and you come out the other side." Frustrated with the limitations of photography and its 'one-eyed' approach, he returned to painting.

In December 1985 Hockney used the Quantel Paintbox, a computer program that allowed the artist to sketch directly onto the screen. The resulting work was featured in a BBC series that profiled several artists. In 1999-2001, David's sister, Margaret, began experimenting with digital photography, scanning and computer printing, particularly making images of flowers scanning a small Japanese vase and fresh flowers. In 2003, she was experimenting with Photoshop, scanning summer flowers and building up images in layers which Margaret printed out on an A3 printer. In 2004, David went to stay with Margaret and she helped him scan his sketchbook of Yorkshire landscape and David soon began using a Wacom pad and pen directly into Photoshop.

Since 2009, Hockney has painted hundreds of portraits, still lifes and landscapes using the Brushes iPhone and iPad application, often sending them to his friends. In 2010 and 2011, Hockney visited Yosemite National Park to draw its landscape on his iPad. He used an iPad in designing a stained glass window at Westminster Abbey which celebrated the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Unveiled in September 2018, the Queen's Window is located in the north transept of the Abbey and features a hawthorn blossom scene which is set in Yorkshire.

From 2010 to 2014, Hockney created multi-camera movies using three to eighteen cameras to record a single scene. He filmed the landscape of Yorkshire in various seasons, jugglers and dancers, and his own exhibitions within the de Young Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts.

Hockney's earlier photocollages influenced his shift to another medium, digital photography. He combined hundreds of photographs to create multi-viewpoint "photographic drawings" of groups of his friends in 2014. Hockney picked the process back up in 2017, this time using the more advanced Agisoft PhotoScan photogrammetric software which allowed him to stitch together and rearrange thousands of photos. The resulting images were printed out as massive photomurals and were exhibited at Pace Gallery and LACMA in 2018.

In June 2007, Hockney's largest painting, Bigger Trees Near Warter or/ou Peinture sur le Motif pour le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique, which measures 15 by 40 feet (4.6 by 12.2 m), was hung in the Royal Academy's largest gallery in its annual Summer Exhibition. This work "is a monumental-scale view of a coppice in Hockney's native Yorkshire, between Bridlington and York. It was painted on 50 individual canvases, mostly working in situ, over five weeks last winter." In 2008, he donated it to Tate in London, saying: "I thought if I'm going to give something to the Tate I want to give them something really good. It's going to be here for a while. I don't want to give things I'm not too proud of... I thought this was a good painting because it's of England... it seems like a good thing to do." The painting was the subject of a BBC1 Imagine film documentary by Bruno Wollheim called David Hockney: A Bigger Picture (2009) which followed Hockney as he worked outdoors over the preceding two years.

Hockney's first stage designs were for at London's Royal Court Theatre in 1966, Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in England in 1975, and The Magic Flute for Glyndebourne in 1978. In 1980, he agreed to design sets and costumes for a 20th-century French triple bill at the Metropolitan Opera House with the title Parade. The works were , a ballet with music by Erik Satie; Les mamelles de Tirésias, an opera with libretto by Guillaume Apollinaire and music by Francis Poulenc, and L'enfant et les sortilèges, an opera with libretto by Colette and music by Maurice Ravel. The reimagined set of L'enfant et les sortilèges from the 1983 exhibition Hockney Paints the Stage is a permanent installation at the Spalding House branch of the Honolulu Museum of Art. He designed sets for another triple bill of Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps, Le rossignol, and Oedipus Rex for the Metropolitan Opera in 1981 as well as Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for the Los Angeles Music Center Opera in 1987, Puccini's in 1991 at the Chicago Lyric Opera, and Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten in 1992 at the Royal Opera House in London. In 1994, he designed costumes and scenery for twelve opera arias for the TV broadcast of Plácido Domingo's in Mexico City. Technical advances allowed him to become increasingly complex in model-making. At his studio he had a proscenium opening 6 feet (1.8 m) by 4 feet (1.2 m) in which he built sets in 1:8 scale. He also used a computerised setup that let him punch in and program lighting cues at will and synchronise them to a soundtrack of the music.

In 2017, Hockney was awarded the San Francisco Opera Medal on the occasion of the revival and restoration of his production for Turandot.

The majority of Hockney's theatre works and stage design studies are found in the collection of The David Hockney Foundation.

David Hockney has been featured in over 400 solo exhibitions and over 500 group exhibitions. He had his first one-man show at Kasmin Limited when he was 26 in 1963, and by 1970 the Whitechapel Gallery in London had organised the first of several major retrospectives, which subsequently travelled to three European institutions. LACMA also hosted a retrospective exhibition in 1988 which travelled to The Met, New York, and Tate, London. In 2004, he was included in the cross-generational Whitney Biennial, where his portraits appeared in a gallery with those of a younger artist he had inspired, Elizabeth Peyton.

In October 2006, the National Portrait Gallery in London organised one of the largest ever displays of Hockney's portraiture work, including 150 paintings, drawings, prints, sketchbooks, and photocollages from over five decades. The collection ranged from his earliest self-portraits to work he completed in 2005. Hockney assisted in displaying the works and the exhibition, which ran until January 2007, was one of the gallery's most successful. In 2009, "David Hockney: Just Nature" attracted some 100,000 visitors at the Kunsthalle Würth in Schwäbisch Hall, Germany.

A Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy in London, January 2012

From 21 January 2012 to 9 April 2012, the Royal Academy presented A Bigger Picture, which included more than 150 works, many of which take entire walls in the gallery's brightly lit rooms. The exhibition is dedicated to landscapes, especially trees and tree tunnels of his native Yorkshire. Works included oil paintings, watercolours, and drawings created on an iPad and printed on paper. Hockney said, in a 2012 interview, "It's about big things. You can make paintings bigger. We're also making photographs bigger, videos bigger, all to do with drawing." The exhibition drew more than 600,000 visitors in under 3 months. The exhibition moved to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain from 15 May to 30 September, and from there to the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany, between 27 October 2012 and 3 February 2013.

From 26 October 2013 to 30 January 2014 David Hockney: A Bigger Exhibition was presented at the de Young Museum, one of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The largest solo exhibition Hockney has had, with 397 works of art in more than 18,000 square feet, was curated by Gregory Evans and included the only public showing of The Great Wall, developed during research for Secret Knowledge, and works from 1999 to 2013 in a variety of media from camera lucida drawings to watercolours, oil paintings, and digital works.

From 9 February to 29 May 2017 David Hockney was presented at the Tate Britain, becoming the most-visited exhibition in the gallery's history. The exhibition marked Hockney's 80th year and gathered together "an extensive selection of David Hockney's most famous works celebrating his achievements in painting, drawing, print, photography and video across six decades". The show then travelled to Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The wildly popular retrospective landed among the top ten ticketed exhibitions in London and Paris for 2017 with over 4,000 visitors per day at the Tate and over 5,000 visitors per day in Paris.

After the blockbuster exhibitions in 2017 of the works of decades past, Hockney went on to display his newest paintings on hexagonal canvases and mural-size 3D photographic drawings at Pace Gallery in 2018. He revisited paintings of Garrowby Hill, the Grand Canyon, and Nichols Canyon Road, this time painting them on hexagonal canvases to enhance aspects of reverse perspective. In 2019, his early work featured in his native Yorkshire at The Hepworth Wakefield. In April-June 2022 an exhibition "Hockney's Eye: The Art and Technology of Depiction" was held at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and at the city's Heong Gallery. In 2023 the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) presented "David Hockney: Perspective Should Be Reversed, Prints from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation." The exhibition is the largest retrospective print exhibition of Hockney's career, with more than 100 colourful prints, collages and photographic and iPad drawings, in a variety of media, spanning six decades of the artist's career.

Hockney came out as gay at the age of 23, while studying at the Royal College of Art in London. Britain decriminalised homosexual acts seven years later in the Sexual Offences Act 1967. Hockney has explored the nature of gay love in his work, such in as the painting We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961), named after a poem by Walt Whitman. In 1963 he painted two men together in the painting Domestic Scene, Los Angeles, one showering while the other washes his back. In the summer of 1966, while teaching at UCLA, he met Peter Schlesinger, an art student who posed for paintings and drawings, and with whom he became romantically involved. Another of Hockney's romantic partners who was the subject of his work was Gregory Evans; the two met in 1971 and began a relationship in 1974. While no longer romantically involved, they still work together, with Evans managing the David Hockney Studio. Hockney's current partner is longtime companion Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima. Also known as JP, he also works with Hockney in his studio as his chief assistant.

On the morning of 18 March 2013, Hockney's 23-year-old assistant, Dominic Elliott, died as a result of drinking drain cleaner at Hockney's Bridlington studio; he had also earlier drunk alcohol and taken cocaine, ecstasy and temazepam. Elliott was a first- and second-team player for Bridlington Rugby Club. It was reported that Hockney's partner drove Elliott to Scarborough General Hospital where he later died. The inquest returned a verdict of death by misadventure and Hockney was never implicated. In November 2015 Hockney sold his house in Bridlington, a five-bedroomed former guest house, for £625,000, cutting all his remaining ties with the town.

He subsequently moved to Normandy, and lives near the village of Beuvron-en-Auge.

He holds a California Medical Marijuana Verification Card, which enables him to buy cannabis for medical purposes. He has used hearing aids since 1979, but realised he was going deaf long before that. As of 2018, he kept fit by spending half an hour in the swimming pool each morning, and could stand for six hours at the easel.

Hockney has synaesthetic associations between sound, colour and shape.

Many of Hockney's works are housed in the 1853 Gallery at Salts Mill in Saltaire, near his hometown of Bradford. Another large group of works are held by The David Hockney Foundation. His work is in numerous public and private collections worldwide, including:

Honolulu Museum of Art

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Art Institute of Chicago

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark

National Portrait Gallery, London

J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo

Mumok, Ludwig Foundation, Vienna

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Muscarelle Museum of Art, Williamsburg, VA

In 1967, Hockney's painting, Peter Getting Out of Nick's Pool, won the John Moores Painting Prize at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. Hockney was offered a knighthood in 1990 but declined, before accepting an Order of Merit in January 2012. He was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Progress medal in 1988 and the Special 150th Anniversary Medal and Honorary Fellowship in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 2003. He was made a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1997 and awarded The Cultural Award from the German Society for Photography (DGPh). He is a Royal Academician. In 2012, he was appointed to the Order of Merit, an honour restricted to 24 members at any one time for their contributions to the arts and sciences.

He was a Distinguished Honoree of the National Arts Association, Los Angeles, in 1991 and received the First Annual Award of Achievement from the Archives of American Art, Los Angeles, in 1993. He was appointed to the board of trustees of the American Associates of the Royal Academy Trust, New York in 1992 and was given a Foreign Honorary Membership to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1997. In 2003, Hockney was awarded the Lorenzo de' Medici Lifetime Career Award of the Florence Biennale, Italy.

Commissioned by The Other Art Fair, a November 2011 poll of 1,000 British painters and sculptors declared him Britain's most influential artist of all time. In 2012, Hockney was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork - the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover - to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admires.

He is an honorary member of the Printmakers Council.

On 21 June 2006, Hockney's painting The Splash sold for £2.6 million. It was offered for auction again on 11 February 2020, with an estimate of £20-30 million and sold, to an unknown buyer, for £23.1 million.

His A Bigger Grand Canyon, a series of 60 canvases that combined to produce one enormous picture, was bought by the National Gallery of Australia for $4.6 million.

A Bigger Grand Canyon, 1998, National Gallery of Australia.

Beverly Hills Housewife (1966-67), a 12-foot-long acrylic that depicts the collector Betty Freeman standing by her pool in a long hot-pink dress, sold for $7.9 million at Christie's in New York in 2008, the top lot of the sale and a record price for a Hockney. This was topped in 2016 when his Woldgate Woods landscape made £9.4 million at auction.

The record was broken again in 2018 with the sale of Piscine de Medianoche ( Paper Pool 30) for $11.74 million and then doubled in the same Sotheby's auction when Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica sold for $28.5 million.

David Hockney's 1972 painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)

On 15 November 2018, David Hockney's 1972 painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold at Christie's for $90.3 million with fees, surpassing the previous auction record for a living artist of $58.4 million, held by Jeff Koons for one of his Balloon Dog sculptures. He had originally sold this painting for $20,000 in 1972.

The Hockney-Falco thesis

In the 2001 television programme and book Secret Knowledge, Hockney posited that the Old Masters used camera obscura as well as camera lucida and lens techniques that projected the image of the subject onto the surface of the painting. Hockney argues that this technique migrated gradually from Northern Europe to Italy, and is the reason for the photographic style of painting we see in the Renaissance and later periods of art. He published his conclusions in the 2001 book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, which was revised in 2006.

Like his father, Hockney was a conscientious objector, and worked as a medical orderly in hospitals during his National Service, 1957-1959.

Hockney was a founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in 1979. He was on the advisory board of the political magazine Standpoint, and contributed original sketches for its launch edition, in June 2008, as well as agreeing to allow Standpoint to publish his previous views and pictures over the years.

He is a staunch pro-tobacco campaigner. In 2005 he fought to stop the ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants. At the Labour Party conference he held up a card saying "DEATH awaits you all even if you do smoke". He was invited to guest-edit BBC Radio's programme on 29 December 2009 in which he aired his views on the subject. In 2013 he wrote a foreword and provided illustrations for a book by John Staddon, Unlucky Strike.

In October 2010, he and a hundred other artists signed an open letter to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, protesting against cutbacks in the arts.

In 1966, while working on a series of etchings based on love poems by the Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy, Hockney starred in a documentary by filmmaker James Scott, entitled Love's Presentation. He was the subject of Jack Hazan's 1974 biopic, A Bigger Splash, named after Hockney's 1967 pool painting of the same name. Hockney was also the inspiration of artist Billy Pappas in the documentary film Waiting for Hockney (2008), which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008.

Hockney was inducted into Vanity Fair's International Best-Dressed Hall of Fame in 1986. In 2005, Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey centred his entire spring/summer menswear collection around the artist and in 2012, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, a close friend, named a checked jacket after Hockney. In 2011, British named him one of the 50 Most Stylish Men in Britain and in March 2013, he was listed as one of the Fifty Best-dressed Over-50s by The Guardian.

Hockney was commissioned to design the cover and pages for the December 1985 issue of the French edition of . Consistent with his interest in cubism and admiration for Pablo Picasso, Hockney chose to paint Celia Birtwell (who appears in several of his works) from different views for the cover, as if the eye had scanned her face diagonally.

David Hockney: A Rake's Progress (2012) is a biography of Hockney covering the years 1937-1975, by writer/photographer Christopher Simon Sykes.

In 2012, Hockney featured in BBC Radio 4's list of The New Elizabethans to mark the diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. A panel of seven academics, journalists and historians named Hockney among the group of people in the UK "whose actions during the reign of Elizabeth II have had a significant impact on lives in these islands and given the age its character".

The 2015 Luca Guadagnino's film A Bigger Splash was named after Hockney's painting.

In 2022, he was portrayed by Laurence Fuller in the 7th episode of the 1st season of .

In BoJack Horseman, a caricature of Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) hangs on the wall of the title character's home office. In this version, horses replace the two human figures of the original.

The David Hockney Foundation-both the UK registered charity 1127262 and the US 501(c)(3) private operating foundation-was created by the artist in 2008. In 2012, Hockney, worth an estimated $55.2 million (approx. £36.1 m), transferred paintings valued at $124.2 million (approx. £81.5 m) to the David Hockney Foundation, and gave an additional $1.2 million (approx. £0.79 m) in cash to help fund the foundation's operations.

The foundation's mission is to advance appreciation and understanding of visual art and culture through the exhibition, preservation, and publication of David Hockney's work. Richard Benefield, who organised David Hockney: A Bigger Exhibition in 2013-2014 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, became the first executive director in January 2017.

The foundation owns over 8,000 works - paintings, drawings, watercolours, complete editioned prints, stage design, multi-camera movies, and other media. They also hold 203 sketchbooks and Hockney's personal photo albums from 1961 to 1990. The foundation manages various loans to museums and exhibitions around the world, including Happy Birthday, Mr. Hockney! at the Getty celebrating his 80th birthday, and the retrospective exhibitions of 2017-2018 at the Metropolitan Museum, Centre Georges Pompidou, and Tate Britain.

- (1981). Looking at Pictures in a Book at the National Gallery (The artist's eye). London: National Gallery.

- (2006). Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the lost techniques of the Old Masters (Expanded ed.). Thames & Hudson; Viking Studio.

In October 2016 Taschen published David Hockney: A Bigger Book, costing £1,750 (£3,500 with an added loose print). The artist curated the selection of more than 60 years of his work reproduced within 498 pages. The book, weighing 78 lbs, had gone through 19 proof stages. The book came with an (optional) substantial wooden lectern. He unveiled the book at the Frankfurt Book Fair where he was the keynote speaker at the opening press conference. ISBN 978-3-8365-0787-5

Weschler, L. Cameraworks (with David Hockney - photographer) (1984) Alfred A. Knopf, (portions of the essay by Weschler appeared in the in a slightly different form), ISBN 0-394-53733-5

Shanes, E. Hockney Posters (with David Hockney), (1988), Crown Publishing Group, ISBN 0-517-56584-6

Livingstone, M. David Hockney: Egyptian Journeys (2002), American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, ISBN 977-424-737-X

Howgate, S. David Hockney Portraits (2006), National Portrait Gallery, ISBN 1-85514-362-3

Melia, P. and Luckhardt, U. David Hockney: Paintings (2007), Prestel, Munich, ISBN 3-7913-3718-1

Sykes, C. S. Hockney: The Biography (2011), Century, ISBN 1-84605-708-6

Didier Ottinger, Pictures of Daily Life, Galerie Lelong & Co. (2018)

Frémon, J. David Hockney en pays d'Auge, L'Echoppe (2020)

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David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.

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I also believe that art has healing qualities, Lucia.  I think that another purpose of art (among others of course) is to tell our story. Pablo Picasso is a famous and controversial artist that you cannot keep out of discussions about art.  "Guernica" is one of the many engaged and story-telling paintings that he accomplished.  In 1937, the city of Guernica was bombarded by German and Italian warplanes killing many innocent people. The Government requested Picasso to create a painting about the bombings and distress of people.  In this artwork, Picasso depicts the sufferings of living creatures caused by the heavy attacks. Art records history, it teaches us history lessons, it narrates autobiographies and contributes to the preservation of culture all in one.  Art registers experiences and events to allows us to gain a richer and deeper understanding of the past. Art reflects opinions, values, identity, and beliefs. Art chronicles our own stories and experiences over time. Art such as the "Guernica" is essential to comprehend and to share our individual and collective history.

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Yes, I believe that anyone can become an artist, regardless of their creativity or talent. Henri Duchamp (1887-1968) was a French-American artist. Duchamp is generally regarded, along with Picasso and Matisse, as one of the three great artists who contributed to define arts in the opening decades of the 20th century. During “An interview with Marcel Duchamp”, he said: "Who is an artist? Anyone who says he is? Duchamp laughed good-naturedly: ‘Nowadays I suppose the answer would have to be, Yes. It is hard to define, but we know what we mean. In a way, the artist is no longer an artist. ' " Duchamp believes that the requirements to become an artist have changed through time and that today, everyone can become an artist. Indeed, our current society's conventional understanding of artists implies that an artist is simply someone who makes art. It doesn't matter whether they graduated from an art school or if they are self-taught, whether they are an amateur or a professional, or for which purpose they create art. If they make art, then they are an artist. There are no notions of true or fake, right or wrong when it comes to art. There is only personal judgment and preferences. Therefore, as Duchamp affirmed, I believe that anyone can become an artist.

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I think that there isn’t any bad art. The vision of a piece of art is relative to the person. Take the example of Pablo Picasso, I don’t think his art is good but critiques from all around the world say its one of the best in the world. Why that? People tend to evaluate art under three characteristics:

Technical skill

Composition

Content

The first time critiques see an art piece they look if the technique is mastered? Is it realistic? Is the art composed awkwardly? What’s the artist’s message? Does the message get through this work of art? But I want to propose you guys another way of defining art. How I define good art is simple. I ask myself one question. Does it make me move and make me feel something?

But after all, there isn’t any “good” or “bad” art. Art is relative to the person.

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Why is art often not valued during the time in which it is created?

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Why is art often not valued during the time in which it is created?

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Most artists that were not valued during their time, were artists that did not follow the style of writing, singing, painting of the moment. For example, Robert Allen also known as Bob Dylan sang using the folk style which is one of the popular music styles at that time. To compare, Vincent Van Gogh had to change from dutch, dark colors too bright colors because they were more appreciated by people. This is how he started becoming known but he really became popular a few decades after his death. It is very hard to break the style of the time you are in, only very few artists managed to be revolutionary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8yU8wk67gY

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What are the most formative life events for an artist?

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What are the most formative life events for an artist?

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For me, there are no specific events but more a period in life: childhood (from baby to late teenage). It impacts your decisions and your way of thinking, childhood can define what kind of person you will be. To illustrate my opinion, Trevor Noah is the perfect example, he had a hard childhood and was steeped in racism. This inspired him to write many things like the book Born A Crime (his autobiography) or the sketch “Charming Racism”. He lived during the apartheid which is why he was affected by racism. Childhood impacts a lot of people, this the moment where people change, start becoming adults and having their own opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnmD0QQxycM

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Is art always reflection of the society in which it was created?

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Is art always reflection of the society in which it was created?

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There is a lot of different types of arts. The answer to this question can divers depending on which art you take. But here I am going to use painting to support my answer. No, art does not always reflective of the society in which it was created even though some artists are inspired by society. Some artists like Banksy and his painting “Devolved Parliament” clearly express the way our society works, in this case, how does the parliament works. On the other hand, painting like “The starry night”, by Vincent Van Gogh or “Manneporte seen from below”, by C. Monnet have nothing to do with society. They are both landscapes, one that reflects Vincent Van Gogh’s emotions and the second one, the beauty of nature. Art is not always but can be a reflection of the society in which it is created.
+ other 2 paintings (can't add)
"Devolved Parliament", Banksy,2009

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Should school encourage their students to create art?

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Should school encourage their students to create art?

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I think school should encourage their students to create art. Creating art can allow the student to flourish in something he likes because there are so many ways to make art it can be drawing, sculpture, dance, painting… I think it should be as important as other subjects. Art opens up people’s minds on the world they’re living in. People can see the world they’re living in with a new eye. It may also help people get along. It would give the school’s curriculum this little spark of amusement and wouldn’t be as dark and dull as it is now. It’s always more fun to learn in joy.

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What are the most formative life events for an artist?

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What are the most formative life events for an artist?

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There are no events but the most important time for an artist to “progress” is his childhood/teenage years (10-18 years old). This is where his imagination is going to be developed. In his young years, he’s going to specialize in some type of art that can be painting, music, sculpture, dancing… In his late years, he’s going to have a good image of what the world is and how he can improve it by passing messages through his art. Then when he’s going to enter the “artist life” he’ll have the basics and know what kind of art he’ll want to do.

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I think what makes an artist is their expression of emotions. Art is not about technique, it’s about emotions. This means that if the artist needs to make art, then they will, and those emotions are what makes it art.
In his book Letters to a young poet, Rainer Maria Rilke explains why he writes. He says that you will know if you need to be an artist. “In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?” Therefore, I think to become an artist, you only need the drive to make something beautiful and meaningful to you.
In the same book, Rainer Maria Rilke also says: "If, as I have said, one feels one could live without writing, then one shouldn't write at all." For me, this means that if what you are creating doesn't come from a need to create, then it is not worth it. That is because it wouldn't be expressing your emotions. I think what makes an artist is the need to create that he describes.

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Among others, art has the role of helping people. Sometimes art can be a way to feel represented and know that others are going through the same things as you.
In today’s world, that role is shown largely through television. There are so many shows and movies that portray taboo subjects. Those shows help people know that they are not alone. For example, Tan France is the first gay South-East Asian man on television. His role in the show is much more than just a fashion expert. It helps show that anyone can do anything. I think that’s what makes art so important. He helps young gay South-East Asian people feel represented. He talked about representation in the media in his book, Naturally Tan. He says that he “would have killed” to have something like that as a kid. This helps show that representation does matter and that art (movies, TV shows, books) is formative to a child’s mind. So, art has the role of helping people feel like they are not alone, which helps them to believe in themselves. (The full quote that I referenced earlier is “I would have killed to have that when I was a kid.” p.239)

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Automatically I would say no. After reading all our comments and responses I think that there are artworks that I wouldn’t consider as art at first like eating a banana or a banana taped to a wall, but it IS art. What does make a human creation a piece of art? To me, it is the intention behind that creation. It is art if it is made with at the end a purpose other than its purpose. If we stick to the example of the 15,000 $ “Comedian” taped banana, we agree that a banana on itself isn’t art, it’s a fruit and taping a banana on a wall just to tape a banana on a wall isn’t art either. Nevertheless, taping a banana on a wall to represent “how we assign worth and what kind of objects we value”. “Comedian” is an artwork because it was created to be one and not just to be a banana on a wall without any purpose. All human creations aren’t artworks, only those who are destinate to be one or at least who aren’t meant to be used as they should, are artworks.

https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/art-and-antiques/focus-taped-banana-questioned-meaning-art-209074

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To me, you become an artist when you are at a point where you decide to put all means into the process of producing and making art, financially but also humanly, … DJ Snake started his career in an apartment, giving himself only a year to succeed on a DJ career making a new releasing a new music every 4 days for months. Being an artist isn’t only about talent and being innovative, it’s also about how much of yourself are you ready to put into working hard.

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All people deserve access to art. From the president to those in jail everyone should be having access to art because art isn’t supposed to belong to someone. We need to have artist from all the social classes, all origins, all gender, … because everyone should be able to identify himself to an artist. It is vital that art is accessible to everyone because it nourishes the diversity of the creations. Otherwise, art would always have been the same style, with the same technic, with the same subject, … Why do we art such diverse types of music? It isn’t only because of the advance in time, it is due to diversity of the artist. For example, the jazz music was born with the Afro-American culture. If only white European people had been allowed to do music, jazz would have never been invented. It is the same for hip-hop that lead to rap. People should have access to art because when you look at the history, letting art belonging to everyone lead to some of the best movement.

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Art is a unique creation from one’s mind & imagination for what transmitting emotions, a message, … is the purpose. Bob Dylan didn’t want to do music to do music, he wanted to transmit feelings or a message to his public through his art: music. To me art as to be meaningful, not especially about something deep, but more about a statement. You can do art about how blue is the best colour ever, or about why using metal straws isn’t going to help the turtles, … It is art when people have made a reflexion or have felt emotions because of what you have made or created.

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Dear Manon, your response to Elea’s questions leads to my reflection. By your example you are explaining (from what I understood) that an artist can be defined by her/his artworks because they are a piece of their soul (S. Rhimes). Do you have to be your artwork to be an artist and for your artwork to be art? I think that you don’t. To me you don’t have to recognize yourself in your artwork because art can also be the theatre of innovation and discovery. Maybe unconsciously what an artist create is a piece of himself but like Richard Prince said in a The New York Times article : “ It’s art when it looks as if I know what I’m doing and when doing it makes me feel good. It’s like a good revolution.” To me, your art doesn’t need to be “a piece of your soul” also because it can also be a piece of other people’s soul. As an example, I think that the photographer FAISAL ALMALKI and his photo “Saudi woman” really reflects my point because through the art, it is also this woman “soul” that is shared. To finish, art doesn’t need to be a representation of the artist and so, that an artist can’t be defined by his/her art.

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Elea's question, "Would this mean that the artist wouldn't exist without his works? is a profound reflection on my argument. It allowed me to think about it in turn, and to think more precisely about the role that an artist's works have on his person. Here is my opinion:

The human being in himself would exist, but his artistic soul would disappear if he didn't exploit it by creating works of art. Indeed, I think that a person who is destined to be an artist born with an artist's soul. During his life, he will have to cultivate and enrich this soul, by developing an artistic technique for example, through which he will be able to express who he is. In the end, his art will be his passion, and his reason for living. Thus, during her childhood, Shonda Rhimes cultivated and enriched her artistic soul, by developing her imagination, and creating stories with her toys. Thanks to this, she could later define the way she could transmit to others who she is: by creating characters in her own image in her series. Shonda Rhimes has therefore exploited her artistic soul by creating her art, i.e. by inventing numerous series, and by creating characters all different from each other. If she had neglected this artist's soul, it would have disappeared.

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The second question Elea asked me ("What about the people who are not artists, and who haven't created anything in their life, are they not existing?"), related to the first, made me think about how artists live, and how they include their art in their lives. Here is the answer I propose:

People who are not artists, who have not created anything in their lives, exist of course, but not in the same way as an artist. Indeed, I think that an artist will exist through his works, not that he will disappear behind them, but that they will allow him to get to know himself better, and thus make his place in society. To take the example of Shonda Rhimes, this artist reveals herself through her serial characters, allowing her to get to know herself better by watching her characters play. By getting to know herself better, she is able to define the role she should play in the world she lives in, such as that of being a mother, and learns to know her needs. For example, Shonda Rhimes created Cristina Yang, a girl from the series Grey's Anatomy, who does not want to get married like Shonda. Through this character, Shonda discovered that part of herself that doesn't want to get married. She thus knew that a life as a couple would not make her happy.

People who are not artists will, for their part, get to know themselves and find their place in society in other ways. Through, for example, their friends or family, who will point out their qualities and faults, and help them choose a profession or make decisions based on what best suits their personality. They will also carry out internships in different fields of work, in order to find the one that suits them, and define what they like and dislike.

People who are not artists therefore exist, but not in the same way as artists, who will get to know themselves and make a place for themselves in society thanks to their art, which will give them an image of their personality; whereas non-artists will need their environment and their personal experiences to get to know themselves better, and to exist in the world in which they live.

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In answering your questions Diane, which are "You believe that art is always a reflection of the society in which it was created. How would you then consider art that is ahead of time? Is it still a reflection of the actual society? If yes, to what extent? ", I will use my definition of "art that is ahead of time", which is as follows: An art that is ahead of its time is an art that does not adopt the artistic characteristics and techniques of its time to adopt another technique, specific to the artist. This is my answer:

An art that is ahead of its time, although it does not adopt the artistic techniques and characteristics of its time, is in any case created in the time in which the artist lives. As I stated in my commentary, I think that in his art, an artist will depict who he is, and what he has inside himself, as his personal experiences, his feelings or his opinions, which have all been shaped by the society in which he lives. So the Dutch artist Van Gogh was an artist ahead of his time. He created his artworks using his own techniques, denying the artistic standards of the time. Instead of using the fine pencils and brushes used at the time, he used rather frustrating tools such as the knife, chalk or reed, which left the features as they were, with (as he explained in a letter to Emile Bernard in April 1888) "their impasto, their uncovered areas, their repetitions, their brutalities". His strokes are broad, rough, discontinuous, nervous. But it is this irregularity in his features that brings out the emotion in his work. His painting "Red Vineyards at Arles" bears witness to this. Thus, the vines have been painted with quick and not precise, sometimes thick touches of paint. These effective touches of paint move the viewer by their simplicity and beauty, mixed with a certain brutality that underlines the passing of time, and the need to realize this work quickly because the painted spectacle is ephemeral.

This painting, in addition to being proof that Van Gogh was an artist ahead of his time, also testifies to the fact that the art of an artist, even ahead of his time, is a reflection of the society in which he lives. The painting "Red Vineyards at Arles" depicts people harvesting grapes. Behind a cart pulled by a donkey can be seen. Thus, Van Gogh represented here an activity, a profession of the society of his time, which he observed and experienced. An artist today would not represent the same landscape, because society has evolved. Machines take care of harvesting and transport, replacing the carts of the past.

The art of an artist, even ahead of his time, is therefore a reflection of the society in which he lives.
"Red Vineyards at Arles", Van Gogh

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I disagree with you, Gaspard and Antoine, that childhood is the most important, the most fundamental period for an artist. In my opinion, the whole life of an artist is fundamental. Indeed, each moment of an artist's life will make him grow in wisdom and maturity, and thus participate in the deepening of his art. Thus, for Rembrandt, his entire life was fundamental. During his childhood in the Netherlands in a large family, he learned to build friendships, to define his tastes, such as his passion for painting and art, and to have a first opinion about the world of his time. This childhood period was a crucial step in laying the first foundations of his art. But his adult life also played a big role. Indeed, Rembrandt entered the world of work, and had to earn a living somehow. This taught him how to overcome financial difficulties. Then he met his wife Saskia van Uylenburgh and started a family. These events in his adult life are reflected in his paintings. For example, Rembrandt painted many portraits of his wife Saskia, as well as his son, Titus. He learned the love for a woman, and the joy of family. But he also learned not to be discouraged, especially after the death of some of his children. This pain is evident in his paintings, as in some of the portraits of Saskia painted after this tragic event, in which she has a pale face and a sad smile. The whole life is therefore fundamental to an artist and his art. Every period and every moment of her life will teach her something, which will later resurface in her art.

Saskia's portrait, Rembrandt

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Your question Elea, which was: "What about something that already has life? What about creating art from things that are going on in the world, things that already have "life and meaning"? is very sophisticated and smart, because it offers me to think about my argument (we become an artist when we manage to give life and meaning to something that doesn't have any) from another angle. Here is my answer:

Indeed, an artist can be inspired by things that already have a life, a story and a meaning to make his works, but even by being inspired, by representing something that already has one, he will always give life and meaning to something that doesn't have any. To take Banksy's example, this artist first of all gives life and meaning to his stencils, to the paint and colours he uses to create his work, which at first have none. Thus, by creating his fresco "Beach Boys" on the Israeli-Palestinian wall that served as his support, he gave meaning to the paint and the colours he used, giving them a purpose, for example to convey an idea, a feeling. In this work, the yellow colour of the bucket conveys a feeling of joy and cheerfulness, in the middle of the two little boys drawn in grey. Secondly, he gives life to his opinions and ideas by representing them through his works. For example, by creating his artwork "The Armoured Dove" on the Israeli-Palestinian wall, which features a white dove with its wings out wide in an open arm stance, with an olive branch in its beak. With this mural, Banksy brings to life his opinion that peace between Israel and Palestine is under great threat, and that if it is killed, it will never return.

An artist will therefore always give life and meaning to something that does not have any, even when inspired by events that already have a life. He will thus give life and meaning to the elements composing his works of art, such as the colours used, as well as to the opinions and ideas conveyed in his works.

"Beach boys", Banksy

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I also would like to answer Elea's question, which was: "Don't you think that it is not society in general, but what the artists know or has known that shape the art? What if Banksy had never known about any of the wars and violence happening? It would still be in our society, but the artist wouldn't know about it. His art would then be a reflection of what he does know. So can we really say that art is always a reflection of society?"

I agree with you, Elea, that Banksy's art is a reflection of what he knows. But his art is still a reflection of the society in which he lives. Indeed, everything he knows, has seen, and has experienced, has been influenced and shaped by society. I've taken the example of war, but that's true for many others. For example, Banksy created his artwork "God bless Birmingham" in the city of Birmingham, England, on Christmas Eve. This fresco depicts two reindeer flying in the sky, pushing what one would imagine to be a sleigh. But instead of the sleigh, it is a bench, on which a homeless man is lying. Banksy did this work after witnessing the huge number of homeless people in Birmingham on Christmas Eve. Poverty and homelessness in a city exist because of society. Here Banksy wanted to highlight homelessness, and to denounce the fact that the political regime is unable to provide shelter for a homeless person, even on Christmas Eve. But he also wants to highlight the generosity of passers-by who offer him hot chocolate and chocolate bars when they pass him. So Banksy has created a work that is the fruit of what he knows and has seen while walking through the city of Birmingham. But the great poverty and the large number of homeless people he observed is the result of our society. So we can say that an artist's art is a reflection of the society in which he lives.

"God bless Birmingham", Banksy

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Dear Diane, I disagree with your statement that “we need art to keep us connected”. To me, art can also divide a nation. We are nowadays facing a new problem about whether we should or shouldn’t let racist art of the colonisation era on some old buildings, schools, … because it makes some people uncomfortable to face ancient racism and some angry about letting those artworks in public because it is considered as acceptance. At the Oriel College in Oxford, UK, there has been a controversy about a Cecil Rhodes statue. The statue of the prime minister of the Cape colony from 1890 to 1896 had already led to student protest in South Africa that ended with the removal of another of his statue. Nevertheless, the Oxford college decided not to remove the statue after a vote with 245 to 212, considered as “incompatible with the “inclusive culture” at the university”. Through this example, we can see that art can also divide by its meaning or what it represents (here white supremacy during colonisation). -https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jan/28/cecil-rhodes-statue-will-not-be-removed--oxford-universityhttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-35435805

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I also would like to answer to Diane's two questions, which are "Then what importance do you grant to the final product, which ultimately shares the creator's beliefs and soul to the world? How would you situate the sharing and communicating aspect of art in comparison to the creation stage?". Those questions proved to be very useful because they allowed me to reflect on a stage of art that I hadn't thought about in depth. So I offer this answer:

As I said in my argument, I think it is the creation stage that is the most fundamental, because it is at this stage that the artist is going to give a part of his soul to his art. Moreover, without this stage, there is no work of art.

But I also attach great importance to the final work of an artist. I believe that it is extremely important, because it is through it that the artist will be able to convey his messages, his feelings, his beliefs, his soul, to the rest of the world. Thus, Shonda Rhimes reveals who she is through her serial characters, to whom she attributes a part of her soul and personality. Moreover, an artist's art can sometimes be, as Lucia rightly said, a way for the artist to overcome a trauma. And for this, he needs courage and perseverance. So I think that the final product is very important, because it is the one that will be the proof of the artist's personality, of his qualities, such as courage, of his faults and feelings.

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I believe that art is not just the final product that will hang, or sit in an exhibition. Art is all the steps leading to that. The idea, the thinking, the performance. For example with Comedian (the banana in the museum), what made it art, is all the attention it got, the social media focus, the reposting, the artists' responses. All  that made it art and not the banana itself. The video made "The art assignment" on Youtube explains this very well, saying, in fact, that "the artwork isn't just the banana, and neither is it the certificate of authenticity really, it's all of us! It's those who flock to see it, our response to it, our memes, the press, this video!". Many other artworks from other artists where also created, not by the actual physical object, but everything going on around it. For example, the scandal created by one of Paul McCarthy's artworks in 2014. At the beginning, people thought it was just an ordinary Christmas tree that had been inflated in the Place Vendome in Paris. and people didn't pay much attention to it. But after discussion with the artist, it was discovered that the giant inflated triangle wasn't a conifer, but a butt plug (sex toy). After that, the artwork began getting serious attention from the media and the public. And we can see, here too, the public's attention played a big rôle in making it art.

https://time.com/3525271/parisian-sex-toy-christmas-tree-butt-plug/

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Is it mandatory to have emotions to pass on to do art?

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Is it mandatory to have emotions to pass on to do art?

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Thank you, Gaspard, for your comment, it made me think about my approach to art. My response to this is very subjective because it is about my taste and sensibility to a piece of art, but I would answer that no, you don’t need to have to pass emotions on to do art. What I would say is that you must want to pass something to do art. Art requires creativity and no matter the result is if you have something to say it will be heard but the result will have an impact on others and on yourself because you accomplished something. However, I think some arts are always bringing an emotion like floristry is an art and a commodity. It is the art of arranging flowers and I think that those artworks are always bringing something more in the life of someone by offering a bouquet or just enjoying walking in a park. Monet said: “Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand when it is simply necessary to love.” He didn’t paint to transmit anything else but his own pleasure of doing what he loved that was transmitted through his paintings which shows that you don’t need to have to pass emotions to do art and create but through your art, you are transmitting something even without it being voluntary.

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How can school improve to not “kill” the students’ creativity? Because even though they will do art, they will copy each other and will end up having the same art.

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How can school improve to not “kill” the students’ creativity? Because even though they will do art, they will copy each other and will end up having the same art.

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Schools can improve to not “kill” the students’ creativity by introducing some class to discover different arts according to their affinities with the different sectors. It would be a normal class that everybody would follow but they would have the choice of which class they want to take. I think that to improve the relation of the students with art schools would mainly need to present a positive aspect of being an artist or any other career that are involved into the process of creating art but in a more natural way than just doing conferences. According to a BBC articlebetween 2003 and 2013, there was a 50% drop in GCSE entries for design and technology. A French magazine named Futura Sciences also informs us about a study that measures the amount of cortisol, the stress hormone, in adults’ bodies before and after an artistic activity. In the end, 75% of the persons had a lower rate. Art in schools can also be introduced as a form of well-being. I think that doing theoretical and practical education of art can improve the image that it has in our society nowadays. Art is a necessity for the students to learn how to evolve in different sectors, with different approaches and add to their cultural knowledge but never to constrain the works but to accompany the projects to an art piece.

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Dear Manon, I will respond to your second question: "Do you think that artists must help their country to gain a "richer and deeper understanding of the past" through their work?". I believe that the artist decides if he wants to help the country and it is no duty. In any case, every artwork is an indicator of the past, therefore artists help their country without being obliged. For example, The Portrait of a Woman, possibly Ginevra d'Antonio Lupari Gozzadini created by Maestro delle Storie del Pane in 1494 displays aspects of the Renaissance. This portrait is full of symbolism referring to the virtues of an ideal marriage during the fifteenth century. The young woman's portrait contains symbols of chastity (the unicorn) and fertility (the rabbits), virtues that were important for a Renaissance woman to possess. After decoding the symbolism in these portraits, we can learn what was important to these people and how they wanted to be remembered. We also can compare artwork, which provides different perspectives, and gives us a well-rounded way of looking at events, situations, and people. By analyzing artworks from the past and looking at their details, we can rewind time and experience what a period different from our own was like. Looking at art from the past contributes to who we are as people. By looking at what has been done before, we gather knowledge and inspiration that contribute to how we speak, feel, and view the world around us. Therefore, I don't think that artists must help their country. In any case, we can gain understanding by analyzing past artworks such as The Portrait of a Woman, possibly Ginevra d'Antonio Lupari Gozzadini.

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Hello Manon, I would like to respond to your first question about "who defines if what an artist creates is really an art." and the last one "For example, how could one affirm that Duchamp's work Fontaine is indeed art" at the same time.  I believe that we, as unique individuals, all have different tastes and different definitions of art. Therefore, we are the one who defines if what an artist's creation is art. The artist will believe that his masterpiece is an art, and people may share his opinion, or disagree with it.  Duchamp's work "Fontaine" is controversial. No one can affirm that it is art precisely because there is no universal definition of art. Having diverse opinions is what feeds our thoughts and enrich us. Duchamp considered "Fontaine" to be “retinal” or purely visual, but it sparked a dialogue that continues to this day about what constitutes a work of art. To conclude,  we are the ones who define if an artist's creation such as Duchamp's "Fontaine" is art.

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"Do you think an artist can self proclaim himself an artist even though everybody thinks his art is bad?" Dear Antoine, I believe that an artist can "self proclaim himself an artist even though everybody thinks his art is bad". Indeed, what everyone "thinks is bad" can turn out to be great art. Claude Monet (1840-1926) might have been a key figure in the Impressionist movement, but his unique style wasn't well-liked or understood. His works were rejected by society and art exhibitions because it went against the traditional style and method of painting at the time. Today, a Monet painting is valued between $7 and 81 million dollars. The definition of art has changed through time and there were always artists ahead of their society's current understanding or appreciation of their art. Claude Monet, Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Vermeer and other today well-recognized artists weren't appreciated for their true value in their time. Therefore, I believe that an artist like Claude Monet can "self proclaim himself an artist even though everybody thinks his art is bad" because they can turn out to be brilliant but misunderstood.

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Your question is interesting Elea. Firstly, I strongly agree that artists could create a very biased image of what actually happened. Secondly, in response to your second question about how we know which artwork to believe in, I simply consider that you don't know and shouldn't believe in them. One should always aim to be critical and rational when considering art. You should strive to stay objective. Every artwork will be biased to a certain extent. You will be more close to the historical truth when you confront different artworks and perspective. The example that you chose illustrates it. You stated that the three very famous muralists Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros all lived at the same time but had different perspectives. When you confront the three perspectives, the obtained result will be closer to the truth. Additionally, the biased images conveyed by the artist are interesting. We can learn new aspects and perspectives on a historical event. We should always consider facts through different angles to learn more knowledge and earn awareness. Sometimes there is no definite truth. Maybe the three perspectives all show "what actually happened". Artist A may believe that Y event was traumatic for his community so he decided to represent them, speak up for the minority a commemorate it. Maybe person B gained profit from it and became wealthy. And perhaps person C wasn't personally affected by it so they chose to write a poem about the general consensus. The three viewpoints are all important pieces of history. To sum it up, I strongly agree that artists could create a very biased image of what actually happened. However, this biased image is also a part of history and we can learn from it. Also, there is no specific artwork you should believe in.  You should always strive to stay objective and should try to confront the perspectives of artists such as Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros to have a more reliable perspective.

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Dear Manon, I believe that you have misunderstood my meaning when I wrote: "The existence of art requires artists or a group of artists and an audience". I simply meant that art needs a creator and a reception or external factors in general to exist because we live in a society. In response to your question: "Do you think that an artist or a group of artists who would not be successful, and whose work would not be known by anyone, would still create art? To what extent? ", yes I believe that someone who is not successful, and whose work would not be known by anyone, would still create art. There are a lot of examples of artists who aren't famous but still produce art. Even famous artists generally started their careers as unknown and obscure artists. Yet, who would argue that Van Gogh's "Starry Night" isn't art? After all, he lived his life unsuccessfully and all his artworks were worthless at his time. But time proved that what his "worthless" art was, in reality, great art pieces. Nowadays, Vincent van Gogh is known as one of the best painters. Van Gogh was an unsuccessful artist, and his work wasn't known by anyone, but time has proven that what he created during his lifetime was art and that moreover, his art is highly valued. Another personal example of such an artist is an acquaintance of mine. She strives to become famous but is sadly still unknown. By definition, because she's an artist she obviously creates art. She paints a lot and draws astonishingly realistic portraits. Regardless of her success, she is an artist and lives by selling her artworks. Of course, she creates art even if she's sadly obscure. Therefore, I strongly affirm that unsuccessful or unappreciated artists such as my acquaintance or Van Gogh during his lifetime still create art, regardless of their success.

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Dear Elea,I would first like to clarify that I disagree with a portion of your question. Even if someone hasn't experienced or lived through the time when the artwork was created, they are still participating in that "collective activity". Art is meant to keep us connected and that connection won't fade with time. Moreover, people of our generation can still go to the museum and appreciate Rembrandt's artworks. Therefore, we are still supporting the artist, conveying his message and learning from him, ultimately participating in that collective activity. As a response to your (revised) question, yes I believe that even if one hasn't experienced or lived through the time when the artwork was created, he will still consider it as art. The video titled "For the first time ever, 'All the Rembrandts' are on display in Amsterdam" praises the brilliance of Rembrandt's artworks.  Another one entitled "Why REMBRANDT Lighting Matters" explains what we can learn about his lightning techniques to ameliorate one's photography expertise. These two videos prove that even 400 years after his death, people will still consider that his creations are great artworks from which lessons can be taken. Therefore, using Rembrandt as an example, we can conclude that even if someone hasn't experienced or lived through the time when the artwork was created, he will still consider these creations as art.

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What "ingredients" do you think an artist needs to revolutionize the art of the time he is in?

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What "ingredients" do you think an artist needs to revolutionize the art of the time he is in?

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As Gaspard said, Bob Dylan was popular during his career but wasn’t revolutionary while conversely, Vincent van Gogh during his painter career had to adapt his style to the popular one because his innovative style wasn’t appreciated. I think that a revolutionary artist needs to be passionate, critical to the society, and be senseless to the reflection of himself that he is giving through his artworks. An art is revolutionary when it is bringing a new point of view to the public. The painting “Guernica” from Pablo Picasso is a revolution. By the style that started the cubism. The strong meaning of the artwork made its renown but the unrealistic shapes that are representing the pain and suffering so well made it a worldwide known piece of art. Picasso wasn’t a follower, he wanted painting to be an escape at a time when photography an d cinema were presenting the realistic he chose to be the opposite (Jorge Sette). I think that art is revolutionary when it is, as “Guernica”, an innovation and an invitation to look from another angle without denying the purpose of art.

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Concerning Gaspard's questions: "What if an artist does the most beautiful, detailed but not expressing piece of art in the world, you would say it is not art? Is it mandatory to have emotions to pass on to do art?"

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Concerning Gaspard's questions: "What if an artist does the most beautiful, detailed but not expressing piece of art in the world, you would say it is not art? Is it mandatory to have emotions to pass on to do art?"

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Gaspard, I struggled with your questions, because I believe that it is simply impossible to have something beautiful and detailed, but not be expressive. Retaking your previous example, of Monet’s work “The Manneport”, I think it is beautiful and detailed (in its own impressionist way), but it also an expression of love for the beauty of nature. I think it’s impossible for art not to be expressive because that is what defines art.

The expression isn’t always emotional either, it can be intellectual.

Even if it’s not meant to be expressive, we make everything through our biased eyes. Everything we make or see has already gone through our mind that sees something and associates it with a concept we were taught. So immediately, it is already expressive of our thoughts even though it is not meant to be. Jackson Pollock, a famous American abstract/expressionist artist, honestly did what could be considered as something without expression at all. But he took the time to choose the colours he used and used them, and while making the artwork, he was consciously trying to make something out of nothing. That makes his art expressive.

And, lastly, it is impossible for someone not to have emotions.  So, it is impossible to make something without emotions. As hard as we try as human beings to be unbiased, just the fact that we exist and we think, makes emotions control everything we make and do. Even if the artist does not mean to make the public feel something when seeing their art, the public will see the art and feel something. Even if it is minute and insignificant, we can’t help but feel some way about something.