Messages without words

Our new art and graphics books for October look at contemporary cartoonists, Modigliani, the 17,000-year-old paintings of Lascaux, contemporary NZ textile artists and more. In 'Secret Knowledge' David Hockney argues that artists from the 15th century onward produced their vividly realistic art by use of optics. 'Left to right: the cultural shift from word to image' explores the trend towards visual communication.