Time & Perspective Quote by David Hockney

Hockney’s line is a small provocation aimed straight at the pieties of “truth” that haunt visual culture. “Cheat” is the bait word: it drags in the moral language of fraud and rule-breaking, then swivels it toward a different ethic entirely. In art, the “cheat” isn’t laziness or deception for profit; it’s the deliberate bending of accuracy to make something feel more alive than accuracy can manage. The punch is that beauty becomes the alibi and the tell. If you’re willing to violate the supposed rules in service of a heightened experience, you’ve crossed from technician to artist.

The subtext takes a quiet shot at documentary realism and the sanctimony of fidelity: the camera’s claim to objectivity, academic drawing’s worship of proportion, even modern culture’s demand for receipts. Hockney, who’s spent decades interrogating how we see (photocollages, theatrical perspectives, iPad paintings), knows that perception itself “cheats” constantly: we assemble, edit, prioritize. Art just does it on purpose.

There’s also a sly defense here against purists who treat tools and techniques as moral categories. Tracing, using lenses, manipulating color, compressing time in a painting - these aren’t scandals; they’re strategies. The real line in the sand isn’t whether you broke a rule. It’s whether the break was in the name of beauty rather than convenience or ego. Hockney’s test is bracing because it’s practical: artistry is revealed not by your sincerity about truth, but by your nerve to improve it.