3rd Cover Analysis

  It's no surprise that as a people, New Yorkers are often times held in both high regards and deep resentment compared to the rest of our nation. Some love us because of our close association to the financial security of our nation's future, our many contributions to the sciences, and our cultural accomplishment towards the arts and theater. On the downside, New Yorkers have rapidly gained a reputation for being a bully towards thoses who don't follow our example of rapid progress; it's not that we try to live up to this stereotype, but we're living in a city that never forgets, never takes the easy way out, and never stops moving forward even for a day. Past and present collide, old world meets the modern age, and in this city where traditions and innovations mix, we need a piece of literature that can soothe our fast paced tastes, while reminding us of our history. The New Yorker is the answer to that hunger for a familiar face, but with a cutting edge attitude; in David Hockneys' cover painting of "Shoes,"this can be most accurately described for his new interpretation on an old talent. 

   David Hockney has been a well known and respected artist in painting for the past 50 years; Hockney is so well known and talented that he has won several prestigious awards by the artistic community and has sold many of his greater works for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Always looking to improve upon his work and explore new alternatives, Hockney began to experiment using the new "Brushes" App on his IPad. This was mostly a hobby for him in his spare time inbetween his main projects, but what Hockney soon  discovered was the inspirational and technological breakthrough he was looking for to boost his creative drive; this was a new system to experiment with, a way to create art out of thin air and send to thousands of people instantaneously for an opinion. Hockney was soon able to create numerous paintings, sketchings, and doodles on his new found "artistic playground;" his art was so revolutionary and creative that the late Steve Jobs even commissioned Hockney to continue advertising his paintings using Apple products. But some traditionalists could not fathom that such a highly respectable and prestigious artist would lower himself to relying on technology instead of a brush and paper to express his emotions. Some more traditional artists deemed his art a heresy and even went so far as to refuse to recognize his creative as nothing more than "scribbles on a computer."

   What Hockney has done with his new style of artisit expression is to simply live up to the New York way of life, adapt to the new and blend with the old; a necessary skill in my eye for any healthy culture. Originally, I viewed "Shoes" exactly as it was printed on paper: a rather simple looking picture of a pair of black and brown dress shoes placed next to a rather colorful wall. At first, I was puzzled as to why this simple piece of computer art was so inspirational that it made the front cover of such an artistically prone magizine like the "New Yorker." His other more famous creations using the IPad also included rather simplistic focus pieces: for example, in the case of "Still Life Flowers" a pot of bright purple flowers or in "Landscapes" a simple multicolored sunset over looking a bay. By using these rather traditional subjects, I saw a pattern that Hockney was (either intentionally or accidentally ) trying to express to the viewer. That Hockney wasn't trying to use his art to promote the idea that technology was trying to replace the old values held by the artistic community today, but that by combinding technology and art together we can create beautiful masterpieces that would otherwises be locked in our minds forever. The idea I most clearly see being interpreted is that using new technology is the only way to expand upon our ideas of artistic creativity.  It's the perfect representation on how New Yorkers are able to keep the old, but use new and better innovations to help better ourselves.

   At first, I had serious doubts about what topics and ideas I could express about my cover. It looked so simple and unimportant; but as I dug deeper into this paintings back-story and the politics surrounding this "unimportant computer scribble," I grew to form my own unique opinion about this representation of the New York lifestyle. Maybe that's the point Hockney was originally trying to express? That a person's first negative opinion is nothing more than an instinctive reaction to express our fears in something new and unfamiliar. All this negativity is just on the surface, however; apparently, you just need to do is dig alittle deeper then the surface appearence to discover a new ideas true value and importance towards humanity.