Perspective and Personality

 

            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: 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chxCNEsu3YU

Space, Reality, and Three-dimensional Art

Just as I have done with many of the concepts Arnheim discusses, I found myself asking is space real? Does it exist independently or only in the context of other elements? What does the word space mean? We can only begin to understand what space is because we are still not entirely sure why we perceive it the way we do. It really is fascinating that all optical input/projections on our retina are two-dimensional, yet our perception is three-dimensional. It is extremely difficult to imagine anything in a truly two-dimensional state. Take for example the woodcut by Hans Arp on page 235. I initially viewed this as a flat, target-like image on a wall. Yet even before I read the description, I started to see a black background and white ring, and then switched it to a black ring on a white background. As I read the description I could see the various planes of depth. I found it helpful to visualize the black and white areas as “mountains”, “canyons”, and “islands”. I don’t think it is a coincidence that I naturally gravitated towards these images, which are concrete examples of depth and spatial arrangement in my visual memory.

Furthermore, when we look at a photograph, technically the paper is two-dimensional, but it is impossible to not see any various planes of depth—impossible to not understand the three-dimensional world it represents. I never thought I would say this, but geometry is like art, at least in this way: geometry sets out to understand reality through representation. In order to solve a problem we draw lines and points—or at least representations of lines and points. In order to be truly one-dimensional, a line cannot have width or height, and a point cannot have length, width, or height (zero-dimensional). The pencil mark alone has measurable length, width, and height—arguably because we see it that way. We have evolved to see in three-dimensions, and personally it hurts my head when I try to fathom space in a two-dimensional or 4+ dimensional world. Still, geometry strives to represent reality and analyzes many of the same concepts art does. Crazy stuff.

This chapter really tied up any loose ends I had. In the middle of realizing all of this (freaking out over the possibility that nothing is “real”), I suddenly connected this chapter to something we read at the beginning of the semester (Sachs perhaps?). It was about how blind people perceive space differently—constructed through time rather than visually. I believe space is real—in that it exists because we construct it. So this is to say that if we could perceive four or five dimensions, we would see things in a completely different way. Seeing, perhaps meaning finally understanding the many unanswered how’s and why’s of our world equally as it means physically seeing. As a seeing person, space is nearly inseparable from visual experience. I say that space exists for blind people (but that they experience it differently) because I see space—because the blind live in my visual world. Why do I see space and depth? Is it because I can see color, because I can see light, because I can see brightness and contrast which gives shape to objects, because I can see various forms of these shapes…

Two-dimensional drawings that depict three-dimensional reality usually shows scenes that are real/ spatially achievable relationships. Such art simulates a “photographic” representation of nature (only one viewpoint), and it does not allow us to see the scene from different vantage points or to view objects from various sides. However, pattern can be used to alter our judgment of a geometric shape in illusionary art. It can depict a three-dimensional scene, which could not occur in reality. This creative art is created and appreciated by the best mathematicians and artists.

M. C. Escher:

Over break I visited the Annenberg Space forPhotography. Part of the Digital Darkroom exhibition showcased 3-D art. It made me think a lot about how we perceive space and about 3-D photography being a purely perceptual form of art. "3-D photograph exists only in the mind of the viewer. When I see a piece of sculpture or a painting , there's a physical thing sitting out there. But that 3-D photograph only exists while the person is viewing it"-- David Kuntz.

Here is the (2-D format) video from the website:

http://www.annenbergspaceforphotography.org/video-gallery/digital-darkroom/3

Claudia Kunin Christopher Schneberger

Also, a link to the online gallery:

http://www.annenbergspaceforphotography.org/slideshow/digital-darkroom-3D-print-gallery

Check it out. A lot of what they talk about is related to what we are learning in class. And understanding the history and process of 3-D art is really interesting.

Of Paintings and Poems

In Response to the Readings for April 4th

Because the perspective of a painting reveals the painter’s priorities, by nature revealing and occluding certain objects to the viewer, the perspective dictates the relationship between the viewer and the painting. Reading Arnheim’s description of this was exciting. The discussion of oblique lines, convergence, etc. is visually informative, but emotionally meaningless. To learn that their gestalt implies a concept to the viewer, a relationship with intellectual and existential qualities, was uplifting. It meant that shapes can mean something on a level higher than visual, and it meant that all the paintings I’ve seen have unknowingly “positioned” me. And the positions have implications of their own. Arnheim cites The Last Supper, which accepts us graciously into the event, with wide divergent arms, while also the arms lead back to Christ, explaining to the viewer who it is we are lucky to see. The understanding of perspective’s power is like gaining insight into a visual God, who from behind-the-scenes assures that seemingly self-contained lines and gradients actually mean something else, very potent, vital to where we stand. It is a spatial variation on “everything happens for a reason.”

A painting in two-dimensional perspective, Arnheim says, works by “generously exposing all its content to [the viewer’s] exploration but at the same time excluding him” (294). This got me to thinking about the similarities between a painting and a poem. The two mediums are related, of course, because the artist controls the work of art up to its finish; she makes artistic decisions regarding what to display, and what to occlude or leave up to the viewer’s imagination. She decides how separate the work of art is from its hypothetical viewer. Perhaps in sculptural or architectural work, there is more opportunity for a participant’s physical interaction or immersion in the piece. However when it comes to paintings and poems, the work of art is usually “done,” in its final stage and unchangeable by the viewer’s touch. (They are unchangeable because the viewer’s destructive touch, e.g. scribbling on a poem or ripping a painting, destroys the work’s essence and thus no longer is it a matter of the true work. There is no work, nothing for the viewer to be “in relation to.” Sculpture and architecture do allow for physical immersion while still preserving the work.) Thus the poet and painter must position the work, consciously or not, in relation to a viewer, taking into consideration that the only interaction available to the viewer is his cognitive process.

Perhaps the writing within a poem, or the imagery of the painting, is very explanatory, containing a self-sufficient set of information that requires no “gap-filling” or interpretation by the viewer, who is excluded. Or perhaps the viewer very included—powerful, even necessary to the work, when it comes to interpreting a word or shape; when it comes to reading at a decided rhythm, or moving the eye along the canvas in what direction; when it comes to relating the facts of the work to one another in order to process the story, that chronology within the spatial. These are powers given or withheld from the viewer, and it means that even when the viewer is powerless (as in the dimensionally rigid and self-sufficient Egyptian drawings), the viewer has a position, and that this is true at all, is as significant and instrumental as whatever the position implies.

After reading Toveé’s explanation of personal, peripersonal, and extrapersonal space, I was affirmed by how our spatial relationship to an object is a deeply rooted force in our visual systems. Its pull at such a neural level makes understandable why we infer so much from our positioning. We infer things about ourselves from viewing Last Supper, whose central perspective includes and acknowledges us: we are in the room, deserving of the scene but not a part of it; we are standing up, we are welcomed, and we are aligned directly with Christ. These implications imply things to us about us, who we are and what we are doing in a scene. This is true, of course, if we are viewing a painting and are wholly immersed in its scene, forgetting that it is a painting—perhaps this occurs when we’ve completed the cognitive process, and there is nothing left to position.

It’s helpful for me to translate the artistic choice and the artistic experience from painting to poetry, because my mind operates more naturally and enjoyably in the mode of language. I think the fact that this is possible, this translation of artistic discussion between the two modes, says something about the pervasiveness of the artistic process. The following is a poem by Heather Christle, entitled I Am Coming Over. Here the poem’s acknowledgement of the reader, the deep awareness of his existence and qualities and position, is akin to “central perspective,” as in the gracious inclusion of the viewer of The Last Supper.

I Am Coming Over

What you do is you have a what if

and then you go what is the consequence

so it is basically really easy

or also you can complain

like you can go this penis

doesn’t make sense here

and then they have to move it

somewhere else

like go stand in the hallway

and move your penis around

in a slow uneven circle

that you are imagining

in your fresh mind

like you are inside it

and I am like I like that part

because I am also inside it

and you are showing me around

and in one hand I am holding

a glass of Dr. Pepper

and the other one is pointing

at what makes you different

and special and it is a physical thing

which I am going to touch it

Alison Adams

Art & Visual Perception

Elizabeth Johnston

Long Blog Post: Readings for 3/14

         I found this article “Motion, emotion, and empathy...” on the interaction between our emotions and works of art really interesting. It certainly got me thinking about the way that I react to art and the feelings that art can provoke and why that happens.

         Freedberg and Gallese say that: “Even when the image contains no overt emotional component, a sense of bodily resonance can arise. These are all instances in which beholders might find themselves automatically simulating the emotional expression, the movement or even the implied movement within the representation" (pg. 197). I thought about this statement for a while and tried to think back to some reactions I've had to paintings in the past. I don't think that I've ever been aware of a bodily resonance or physical reaction to a painting but I don't doubt that its possible.

          Freedberg and Gallese also say that: “When we see the body part of someone else being touched or caressed or when we see two objects touching each other, our somatosensory cortices are activated as if our body were subject to tactile stimulation. Empathetic feels can no longer be regarded as a matter of simple intuition and can be precisely located in the relevant areas of the brain that are activated both in the observed and in the observer.” I often do feel this when looking at movies or advertisements- that I want to be what doing what I see. And even Livingstone talked in Chapter 10 about how advertisements are able to use certain techniques to catch our attention. And this thought alone with this quote showed me that its really possible to evoke feelings of empathy and need in others in art if the right techniques are used.

          One of my favorite quotes from the article was: “We propose that even the artist’s gestures in producing the art work induce the empathetic engagement of the observer, by activating simulation of the motor program that corresponds to the gesture implied by the trace. The marks on the painting or sculpture are the visible traces of goal-directed movements; hence, they are capable of activating the relevant motor areas in the observer’s brain.” The way that they described the sense of movement we can feel when looking at the strokes of a Jackson Pollock painting was not something I really took into account much before I read this. This made me think about my last long blog post about how art is not about the finished product and rather about the journey the artist takes to get there. This even took it one step further in claiming that we gain a sense of movement by paying close attention to the detail of the skill the artist put into each stroke. Creating a painting is a “goal-oriented action” and because of this we think back to how the artist went about creating that goal. There are so many feelings that art can evoke and this article showed me that there is so much more to it than just that.

Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience

I am convinced by Freedberg and Gallese’s argument that the artist’s gesture or mark creates empathetic engagement for the viewer but I cannot say the same for the authors’ description of bodily engagement. There was very little evidence for this concept. What studies or experiences are they citing in connection to physically feeling the movements or intentions of figures of an image or painting? I think that we can identify with emotions expressed in a painting and at times feel empathy for the bodily sensations represented. But I am not convinced by the suggestion that my body parts will physically respond in regards to seeing something occurring to a representation of another body. I understand the studies of mirror neurons show that a response may be occurring on a neurological level, but never have I felt that physically while looking at a work of art.

The Feelings You've Felt Before

As far as evolutionary science is concerned, it is a stated fact that we, as humans, use prior memories to inform our current situations. In nature as modern day hunter gatherers in both giant metropolis cities and urban farm settings, categorically stored experiences and memories are essential to daily survival. What is perceived by the mind becomes stored, and possibly either relived or remembered at a later date. 

In class upon discussing the paper "Visual Art and the Brain" by Anli Liu and Bruce L. Miller, we discussed both Utermohlen's self portraits throughout his dementia, and  also Willem de Kooning's later works. We also discussed, some dimentia patients (frontotemporal dementia?) and people with left hemisphere damagewho often become upsessed with art without any previous specific interest in the form itself. 

This led me to do a little more research into De Kooning himself, and left me to think a bit more on the idea of a "return to simplicity" in art as the artist grows older and gains experience. De Kooning himself said that "It seems like a lot of artists, when they get older, they get simpler." This really resonated personally with my many of my experiences in music and spending time around aging artists.  I've had many conversations and even in my own experience have felt a shift towards simplicity in composition. As one finds a specific style, that style is crafted and then re-tailored into the dimensions of that specific artists "style."

When looking at dementia patients, Liu and Miller, describe the "the ingenuity of the brain" as a having an strong capacity to compensate for whatever perception is missing. Although all those memories must be intact somewhere, it seems more like the key is lost and that trigger has been shown using music (to be similar to muscle memory,) but it seems almost innate that visual art should cue up similar sets of memories being that the visual experience is also clearly also an emotional one. 

                 I think that any given experience we may have calls upon many more experiences than we realize are being called upon. We immediately sift through these experiences, and automatically re-categorize everything else. It's also funny that, in our thought process, often times it's the funny or stand-out moments which tend to gravitate to the top of the list, granted many of these experiences first called upon are at the top of the list for a reason, they've either happened before or, have previous insight into what's happening at that moment.

Interesting....

I just thought that this was an interesting photo to look at, considering what we talked about last week and what we saw in this week's Arnheim reading....
Arnheim says: "If a face is turned sideways, the nose will be perceived as upright in relation to the face but as tilted relative to the entire picture. The artist must see to it not only that the desired effect prevails, but also that the strength of various local frames of reference is clearly proportioned; they must either compensate one another or be subordinated to one another hierarchically. Otherwise the viewer will be confronted with a confusing crossfire" (Arnheim, pg. 101).
-Alison