Flutterby™! : Old masters used optics?

Via PeterMe, there's a furor over David Hockney's claim that the old masters used optics to get perspective and such right; in comparing them to photographers he's raised all sorts of stink in the "photography isn't art" crowd.Via Utopia with Cheese, the New York Times version of the article.

What I love about this is that they put the "art is not photography" crowd down on the side of saying that "great art" is synonymous with great craft, not necessarily with vision or statement.