David Hockney and the Old Masters Aidan Campbell Pop artist David Hockney has sparked a sensation in the art world with his recent pronouncement that Old Masters like Caravaggio did not paint freehand but used a 'camera obscura' instead. This box device works on the basis that a pin-prick hole will reproduce an inverted image. It has long been known that Canaletto used the camera but Hockney's theme is that all Great Artists from the 17th century onwards used the method, and this 'trade secret' explains how they were able to depict reality so vividly. http://www.culturewars.org.uk/2000-02/art/candid_camera.htm