"It is an absolutely stunning book."
Antonio Muñoz Molina

“The story of the images begins in the caves and ends, for now, on the computer screen. Who knows where he will go in the future? However, the challenge remains the same: how to represent the three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional surface. David Hockney

For David Hockney, an image is the only way we can account for what we see. However, all image creators face a common problem: how to capture the three-dimensional, people, objects and places, on a flat surface. The results are usually classified as pictures, photographs or films. They can also be classified by dates and styles: medieval, Renaissance, Baroque ... Hockney affirms that, first and foremost, they are all images, whether they are made with a brush, a camera or a digital program, whether they are on the wall from a cave or on a computer screen. And for us to understand how we see the world around us - and therefore ourselves - a history of images is necessary. That is what this book proposes.

Drawing on the experience and enthusiasm of a lifetime spent painting, drawing and creating camera images, Hockney - in collaboration with art critic Martin Gayford - explores how and why images have been created over the millennia. What makes marks on a flat surface interesting? How is motion shown in a still image, and conversely, how do cinema and television connect with the great masters? What ways are there to condense space and time in a static image on a canvas or on a screen? What do the images show: truths or lies? Do photographs present the world as we perceive it?

By juxtaposing a rich variety of images — a frame from a Disney movie with a woodcut from Hiroshige, a scene from an Eisenstein movie with a painting by Velázquez — the authors break through the usual barriers between high culture and entertainment popular, and thus establish unexpected relationships through time and different media, while affirming that cinema, photography, painting and drawing are deeply interrelated. A history of images, lucid and insightful work, is therefore an important contribution to our way of perceiving the way we represent reality.