Artblog.net has this two part article (“dueling media” part 1 and part 2) on the debate between artists about which medium is most effective.
The article/s quote Vasari (quoting Giorgione) and Hockney. It’s important to note that the aesthetic view of the quotees is inextricable from their argument.
Both Giorgione and Hockney hold painting up over other mediums. They both, Giorgione of sculpture and Hockney of photography, present their opposing mediums as factual presentations but their defense of their own mediums are divergent based on what they value in art.
Giorgione values the challenge of vision over audience interaction. “Giorgione used [a painting described in the full quote] to prove that painting requires more skill and effort and can show in one scene more aspects of nature than is the case with sculpture.” (a href="http://www.artblog.net/index.php?name=2004-04-26-06-49-dueling">part 1) For him, it is the exhibition of the artist’s powers of perception that make a painting worthwhile. The argument for sculpture was that the viewer could experience the form from different angles by walking around it. With sculpture the viewer could interact with the form in space thus changing it appearance. This interaction was unimportant to Giorgione. His answer was a painting which showed several angles of a figure in a single image. The viewer can stand in one place and admire the artist’s powers.
Hockney, speaking of a particular Goya painting, says that the value of painting is potential neutrality. He claims that a photographer must take sides in a photograph where as a painter can manipulate the image until you don’t know which side he is on. The author of “dueling media” rightly questions both the general premise and the specific instance that Hockney sites. Whether you agree with Hockney or not you can’t help but notice that it’s ambiguity that Hockney favors. Could it be that Hockney wants a painting to remain neutral so that the audience can have some control over the meaning? I don’t know. I’m not sure Hockney knows either. However great a painter he is his arguments don’t add up. He says at one point that photographs are too ambiguous to be presented captionless but then offers the Goya example for it’s neutrality.
Giorgione didn’t favor neutrality in art because for him artist’s made art, not audiences. Hockney favors neutrality the same as many artist’s who have developed in this age of arts interactivity. Aesthetic decisions affect both what they value and what they make.