By
applying Gestalt principles to works of art, Arnheim illuminates the
intricacies, the infinite variety of delicate balances involved in sensory
experience. Careful consideration of the way we see renders the familiar
mysterious. Over and over again, I’m impressed by the many remarkable qualities
of the mechanisms of visual perception that, in effect, prove so fundamental to
experience that they are difficult to notice. After reading Arnheim’s
discussion of Space I recalled this
passage from his chapter on Movement:
We cannot see a child
grow up or a man grow old; but if we meet an acquaintance after a lapse of
time, we can in a split second see him grow tall or shrivel in a kind of
stroboscopic motion between a memory trace and the percept of the present
moment.
Evidently
the speed of change to which our sense organs respond has been keyed during
evolution to that of the kind of event whose observation is vital to us. It is
biologically essential that we see people and animals move from one place to another;
we do not need to see the grass grow. (384)
Time moves on and the world changes at a rate that often
exceeds our ability to discern its transformation. Perhaps it moves too slowly
or too quickly, but fundamentally it is somehow too familiar. We who live
within it may grow too attached to the world we know. In the realm of history
and society, however, the world we know may seem very different from the world
we need. How do our needs change? How do we see something new? Moreover, how do
we reveal that new vision in such a way that others might see it too?
There
are gigantic questions. I raise them in this blog post because I was amazed by
how much our perception of space especially resonates with our relationship to
culture and society. Perspective proves fundamentally specific. I felt myself
to be truly a citizen of the Western world when I read Arnheim’s far-reaching
discussion of central perspective. As he writes, “Central perspective, however,
is so violent and intricate a deformation of the normal shape of things that it
came about only as the final result of prolonged exploration and in response to
very particular cultural needs” (Arnheim 283). To think of central perspective
as a deformation rather than a
“sophisticated” organization of visual space employed to render a “realistic”
image was at first startling to me, but upon reflection, proved frank and
useful. How useful to consider what we cause when we act upon material, when we
compose a vision, be it artistic or otherwise; we manipulate space to serve a
need that is inextricably bound to our social, cultural, historical moment.
It’s also inextricably bound to our personal sensory and emotional experience.
The
force of personality in perception seems particularly relevant to a discussion
of space. The way we integrate the elements with which an artist has structured
her work depends on who we are. As I write this I wonder if this is simply a
continuation of my Western perspective that acknowledges, “the fact that this
world is being sighted” by individuals (Arnheim 294). Still, the force of
personality is exactly what brings about such far-reaching changes as the
revolution of central perspective that prompted artists to create new
infinities of experience, discussions and contradictions by taking the step of
“include[ing] a statement on the nature of infinity” in their work (Arnheim
297). What’s most interesting to me is the particular, and particularly strong,
personalities of the artists who brought about such vast change, change which
redefined people’s perception of the work not as existing somehow in-tact but
“as a process of happening” (Arnheim 298). Brunelleschi, whose crowning
achievement is the Dome in Florence, was a misfit. Society perceived him as
threatening and even crazy until his imagination, talent, genius, dedication
won out—albeit after long and, at times, painful struggle. What is the nature
of a personality that sees new solutions and possibilities and persists in
seeing them until he manages to show others too? What is this need to see more
than what is known and familiar?
The
experience of reading Arnheim teaches us how seeing more depends on looking
within the known and familiar to observe universal properties then responding
to this knowledge creatively—the artistic space’s freedom from the laws of
physical reality makes it the ideal place in which to undertake this work. This
is the work of the imagination, another space, particular to each personality
that provides us with the freedom to use knowledge creatively. No wonder we
seem to have clung to this capacity in spite of the dangerous mechanical/
“realist” development of central perspective (Arnheim 284). Yet the capacity to
imagine is dependent upon our personality which rests upon our past experience
and sensory perception. Universal principles may apply but not every person may
see what’s there. Perspective may be, in the words of Andre Bazan, ‘the
original sin of Western painting,’ may represent the loss of our innocence
because it forces us to acknowledge that we are not innocent, but responsible
for our knowledge, responsible for what we see. Our knowledge, however, is also
limited, imperfect, and perhaps deformed. That can be a hard thing to
acknowledge for it forces us to accept that we are by turns violent and vulnerable
and therefore need each other.
We need “misfit” personalities who
recognize a need not only for something more, something new, but also
personalities who can see what right in front of us. In Arnheim’s discussion of
the Ames house he explains that we exhibit a preference for a regular
right-angled room with people of “unnatural size” over “normal sized” people in
a deformed room; this preference is not dependent upon past experience, which
recoils at both options, but universal laws of simplicity (Arnheim 275). How we
respond to the Ames room is, in a certain, sense dependent upon past
experience, however. While perceptual rules may apply to us all it takes a
personality of a certain inclination, training, experience, and perspective to
truly see and understand what’s happening in that room. Ames and Arnheim are
such people and they’ve taught others a great deal. Temple Grandin is a more
complicated example since her perspective is influenced by autism. Her unique
personality and perspective renders her vision free of the clouds of social
pressure or particular attachments to past experience. I love the scene in the
biopic of her life in which she solves the puzzle of the Ames house. We see the
value of a variety of personalities. Much as we may try to reconcile infinite
variety with universal principles we need the intense particularity of
experience that forms specific personality in order to see what’s in front of
us all.
Here’s a link to the scene from that film on YouTube:
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