First, I think it’s abundantly clear from paintings and drawings early in Hockney’s career that he acquits himself as a VERY capable draftsman. What he has chosen to do with his skills in the decades since is open to interpretation, but I don’t think there is anything in his work to suggest he deserves to be lumped with “hacks and charlatans.”

2nd, Mr. Morris ought to take a closer look at the Hockney treatise, “Secret Knowledge”. Hockney does not maintain that the old masters “couldn’t draw too well.” If I suggested you use a ruler to help you draw a straight line, would that be equivalent to suggesting YOU can’t draw too well? Hockney simply says that in addition to what they knew and could do, they ALSO took advantage of an emerging technology. Does the fact that Vermeer used a camera obscura somehow diminish his accomplishments? I think not, and yet it’s almost certain he did use such a device.

Lastly, I don’t agree with the sweeping assertion that Modernists and Post-modernists are bankrupt of creativity and talent. I consider myself a pretty traditional representational painter but my work is influenced by all sorts of modernists like Diebenkorn, De Kooning, Milton Avery and other 20th and 21st century artists.

Mr. Morris might consider that the mind is like a parachute: it operates best when it’s open. Besides, even when you dislike it or disapprove of it, art can’t hurt you.

Unlike Beno, I CAN see emotion in this painting. It takes a lot of talent to do this kind of painting.

It does not take much talent to make scribbles and scrawls on a flat plane–like David Hockney. The same David Hockney who thinks that the old masters couldn’t draw too well.
I am so incredibly tired of hacks, charlatans, those full of themselves and their supporters running down artists whose jockstrap they could not hold.
I would also say that I am tired of contemporary Modernists and Post-Modernists passing off a bankruptcy of creativity and talent as true art.

Sorry but it has been a long night at work and I have been thinking about this subject now for quite awhile.

Obviously, I disagree, but that’s one of the most interesting things about art, the way different art speaks to different people.

Though I disagree with Ross on a number of things (like the presumptive status of Bouguereau), I also like a lot of (undeservedly) forgotten Salon painters. “Emotionally empty” is a judgement open to interpretation, based on the emotional response of the viewer doing the assessment, but I appreciate you taking the time to voice your point of view.