| This naturally translated itself into the canvas art scene | | | | present moment, this conciliation between the |
| but not all artists today who enjoy the right to diversity | | | | photographer and the artist will increase in importance |
| would accept the label of “Post-Modern”. | | | | in years to come. To be sure, even painters of the |
| It is better described as “an altered mood” | | | | nineteenth century made a good deal of use of |
| rather than a new style. Perhaps it is always | | | | photographs, but now the practice is acknowledged |
| misleading to think of styles as following each other like | | | | and widespread in the search of novel affects. |
| soldiers on parade. It is more generally recognised that | | | | What these recent developments have brought home |
| artists have the right to go their own way. | | | | is that there are tides of tastes in contemporary art |
| In recent years artists have taken up the medium of | | | | and abstract art no less than there are tides of fashion |
| photography for the creation of novel effects that has | | | | in clothing or decoration. It is undeniable that many of |
| previously been the preserve of painters. Thus David | | | | the old masters whom we admire and indeed many |
| Hockney has enjoyed using his camera for multiple | | | | styles of the part failed to be appreciated by very |
| images somewhat reminiscent of Cubist paintings and | | | | sensitive and knowledgeable critics of former |
| abstract art such as Picasso’s picture of | | | | generations. This is certainly true. No critic can be |
| “Violin and Grapes” of 1912. His famous | | | | entirely unbiased, but it is wrong to draw the conclusion |
| portrait of his mother was a mosaic of various shots | | | | that artistic values are altogether relative. Granted that |
| taken from slightly different angles and also records | | | | we rarely stop to look for the objective merits of |
| the movement of her head. One might expect such a | | | | works or styles that have failed immediately to appeal |
| combination to result in an incoherent jumble but the | | | | to us, this does not prove that our appreciations are |
| portrait is certainly evocative. After all, when we look | | | | entirely subjective. We can recognise mastery of art, |
| at a person our eyes never stand still for any length of | | | | and this has little to do with our personal likes and |
| time and the image we form in our minds when we | | | | dislikes. You may like Raphael and dislike Rubens, or |
| think of a person is always composite. It is this | | | | the other way around, but should recognise that both |
| experience which Hockney has somehow captured in | | | | were towering masters in their own right. |
| his photographic experiments. It looks as if at the | | | | |