Last week a lot of people wrote about “realism” and what we accept or expect as “realistic” in a paintings. Usually when we look at the work of painters like Ingres or David we see them as “realistic” because the entire scene is painted in sharp focus and individual elements of the scene are rendered in varying techniques and colors that mimic their physical properties. The rendering of the dress in Ingres’ Princess Albert de Broglie, for example, clearly shows every pucker and ripple and highlight of the actual garment. And, in a different section of the scene the subject’s gold necklace, in equal focus, pops out “realistically” against a softly rendered chest, as a separate object with different properties. But, while the physical reality of all these elements is clearly represented, one could argue that when they’re all put together on one flat canvas the effect is rather unrealistic --- or representative of only part of the reality of perception.
In Chapter five, Livingstone refers to the David painting, The Rape of Sabine Women, and writes that, though, it’s painted with remarkable precision, it “would be impossible to register this many details in such a transient scene.” Every man and woman and sword might be rendered incredibly “realistically” but the painting as a whole is, in a sense, very unrealistic. Renoir’s Madame Henriot, on the other hand, which Livingstone refers to in the same chapter, is an impressionist piece but it more accurately represents an aspect of our vision that David ignores. The varying levels of resolution in this piece direct our eyes to a clear, high-contrast rendering of a woman’s face surrounded by a blurrier, more muted background. Renoir more realistically represents the way we would perceive an entire scene with our foveal and peripheral vision.
This “realism” in Impression has interested me ever since we read Livingstone’s chapter five and I was excited when it came up again in the Chapter on Stereopsis. For instance, the blurriness, and visible brush strokes in paintings like Monet’s and Renoir’s, could be considered their most “unrealistic” feature. But this ambiguity undermines stereoscopic depth perception, which relies on clear images. Ironically, when we look at a David we are able to tell that it is a flat painting through stereopsis because it is so clearly rendered, but when we look at a blurrier Monet we become dependent on the other depth cues, which are employed in the painting. Livingstone also writes about the depth cues in the actual application of paint in Impresionist and Post-Impressionist work. Thick coats of paint along the contour of an object, for example, create an “abrupt depth discontinuity” and allows us to perceive, through stereopsis, exaggerated depth. Lastly, Livingstone describes the wallpaper illusion and how repetitive patterns, or the repetitions of brushstrokes in impressionist paintings create the sense of “atmosphere” or “air” in between objects. Different strokes pop forward and backward in semi-regular patterns and create the illusion of depth and space and particles catching light in the air. She writes, “This effect goes beyond what can be achieved by the most accurate realism in generating a sense of depth” and I imagine it is a good representation of Sue Barry’s experience of feeling “in” the falling snow when she regained her Stereopsis.
As I learn about how we actually perceive art the world around us I feel like Impression is more “realistic” than realism. Or maybe it’s more fair to say that it picks up where realism falls short; they both deal with different elements of the reality of our vision.
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Just like Gordon, I too was struck by the new form of realism brought to the forefront by this week's reading. Depth perception is such an integral part of our experience that even someone who had not experienced stereopsis for 50 years (and did have a flatter world view than those with stereopsis) could use depth cues to move about the world. Since most paintings are flat representations of the 3-D world, they lack much of the depth from our everyday lives. The pictorial cues alone cannot make the image “pop” as Sue Barry said of her new found abilities. By blurring a picture, the image conveys a sense of motion, of unsteadiness, and furthermore, prevents stereopsis from working and indicating that the painting is in fact flat.
Of course, some paintings are not completely flat because they apply the paint in an almost sculptural manner, as Livingston points out of Cezanne's painting on pg. 144. This reminded me of the Pattern and Decoration exhibit I saw at the Hudson River Museum when I worked there last year. One of the pieces was Pfui Teuffle by Cynthia Carlson (http://images.artnet.com/images_US/magazine/features/spivy/spivy1-9-08-19.jpg). I thought of this piece in particular when the discussion came up in Livingston about the paintings whose brush strokes indicates depth by being almost sculptural applications of the paint. Pfui Teuffle is truly that kind of piece – the paint was applied in thick globs, and when one walks a 180 degrees around it (because it's mounted on the wall, so going from edge to edge in a half circle), the view at any given point is very different from all other points. It is only from straight on that this grid-like appearance comes out so distinctly; at other angles, the depth relations are completely different, and parts of the painting that are vital to the grid arrangement are occluded by globs of paint that stick out further.
It's also interesting to me to think of the Pattern and Decoration artists in comparison with the Gestalt psychologists and the Bauhaus movement. The P&D artists were minimalists, attempting very abstract works of art. They also believed in reconnecting arts and decoration, using fabrics and crafts not typically thought of as “high arts” - similarly to the Bauhaus movement. Furthermore, many of the artists played with depth perceptions, including the Cynthia Carlson piece I mentioned previously, but also Tony Robbin. The piece here appears to have lots of depth (to me at least, it appears that the rectangles on the left side recede perpendicularly to the diamond shapes in the forefront), despite being a photograph of the actual artwork. (http://www.curatedobject.us/photos/uncategorized/2008/01/16/patternslide7.jpg)
I was also fascinated to find that the ironic realities surrounding "realism" and realistic portrayal in paintings that we discussed last week extended to this week's reading on depth perception and stereopsis. I had realized before that impressionist paintings were more "realistic" than sharp-focus, traditional works, because of the fact that no one looks at a scene and sees every object in focus at the same time - as you mentioned, we focus on certain things, like the face of a person, and the rest is observed in less detail. I also knew that impressionist paintings conveyed a sense of movement that could not be achieved in a painting in which all objects and figures were frozen in place by virtue of their clear, "realistic" rendering. It was very fascinating, but not surprising at this point, to learn that impressionist paintings are more successful in conveying a sense of realistic depth to the viewer than traditional paintings. While traditional paintings portray a representation of how we THINK we see a scene, impressionist paintings play upon the specific brain processes involved in creating that scene in our mind.
I was pleased to find Klimt's "The Park" included in Livingstone's chapter 9. I had always loved that painting and was struck by Klimt's ability to create a scene of so much dynamic interest using a technique that I did not expect to create depth. "The Park" seems full of different layers of depth to me, yet at the same time, I know that it's a two dimensional work. This concept continues to amaze and confuse me - how do we "see" depth while simultaneously knowing that depth is not there? Livingstone writes: "When we look at a painting, no matter how skillfully the artist conveys depth through the use of the perspective and shading, the fact that the images in our two eyes are identical and the fact that there is no relative movement between objects in the painting tell our brains that the painting is really flat." Yet Michael Morgan describes the multiple cues utilized in the painting "The Five Senses" to inform our brains that the scene we are witnessing is three-dimensional. It would not surprise me to know that humans only see paintings as flat, or that they are fooled by the cues used in paintings and see them as three dimensional. It's the fact that we simultaneously perceive depth and know it is not there that is strange and baffling to me.
I remember being taught in art class in grade school that the Impressionist paintings were not realistic renderings of the world, but only “impressions” of the real world. What is fascinating, as Gordon pointed out, is that these “impressions” of the real world may in fact be more realistic renderings than the painstakingly detailed renderings by those like Ingres and Stoskopff.
That got me to thinking about “Stereo Sue,” and wondering how it is that she viewed paintings before regaining her stereopsis. She described seeing objects as flat against their surroundings behind them, instead of seeing the objects projecting out into space. She used other visual cues in order to see depth. The interesting thing is that many of the cues she used to understand depth are the same that painters like Ingres and Stoskopff used in their paintings to portray depth. As Morgan outlined in “The Space Between Our Ears”, these cues are: (1) shape from shading, (2) perspective, (3) texture, (4) occlusion, (5) the upwards-sloping ground-plane, (6) familiar size, and (7) atmospheric perspective. So this leads me to the question, when Sue looked at paintings, did she view them differently than we do? Was the depth more convincing?
Of course, there is still the important cue of motion parallax, which would also indicate to her that the painting is two-dimensional, not three-dimensional. Still, I wonder if her experience with paintings was different than ours.
11/4
Depth, space, color, shading; all of these give our brain cues about dimension. Although we can fucntion without oneor all of these cues, without all of them our perception is dramatically different. I had no idea how significant stereography is. As Sacks quotes Dr. Romano, "Binocular stereoscopic depth perception is not a visual phenomenon. It is a way of life..."(p. 3, but as Morgan points out it is not an initial natural way of life for an estimated 7% of people. This understanding of depth and dimensionality has been evolving for centuries, but has the rate of monocular vision and the lack of stereopsis decreased? In Susan Barry's case, monocular technology and modern understandings of the brain, along with her will to see to her full capacity, she over came her monocular vision. The 'window of opportunity' that Susan allegedly missed for stereopsis raises questions, not just about visual perception but how malleable the brain is throughout life. I found Livingstone's discussion of impressionism interesting. I am studying psychedelic art works for my conference project. The techniques of repetitive forms and exaggerated depth effects used by impressionists like Monet was reintroduced with psychedelic using similar techniques, but with new technologies and in new mediums such as on posters or in advertisements and movies. Stereopisis and the human understanding of it has come along way.
The power of Impressionist technique—including thick application of paint and muddled brushstrokes, allows the viewer to see the subject matter as a textural and three- dimensional space. Just as Gordon was saying, realism in paintings had been considered the European norm in the art world. It was not really until the Impressionist group surfaced that ideas like depth were truly explored. Take Cezanne’s post-impressionist painting found in Livingston’s chapter on Stereopsis, for example. Entitled Dominique Aubert, the Artist’s Uncle, Cezanne applies the paint in such a way that the painting takes on a sculptural quality. The surface appears cracked and uneven, causing depth discontinuities. In some way, the man seems to emerge from the confines of the canvas and becomes a living, breathing human being.
A series of photographs that has always interested me was Eadweard Muybridge’s Horse Galloping made in 1878. In order to show the motion of horses galloping in a race, Muybridge took “a series of multiple-camera motion studies that recorded separate photographs of progressive moments in a single action.” When you look at the photographs aligned side by side there is no sense of depth, however if you were to put them in a flip-book medium they would surely come alive. The flip-book was not discussed in any of the readings but I believe it is important to discuss. It gives the illusion that the image is blurred and, therefore, we are not able to use stereopsis. This trick of the eye could not be achieved solely by playing the sequence of photographs next to one another. If they were, they would be flat and two-dimensional.
“For those of a creationist bent, one could note that God must have loved depth cues, for He made so many of them.” (Gavin Bremner, 2004)
I just read this quote from my textbook on infant perception, from another class and thought it was particularly relevant to this week’s discussion. Sacks argues that the reason Sue’s transition to stereopsis was enriching rather than disturbing, was partially because of prevalence of depth perception cues already available to her. This really got me thinking about the multitude and interaction between different aspects of visual perception.
Many of the responses from this week have already mentioned how different periods of art seem to utilize different visual pathways for reconciling two-dimensional representation in a three-dimensional world. Da Vinci’s solution for making art more enjoyable lies in the viewer’s action; covering an eye to appreciate the illusion of 3-D. The Impressionist solution is to confuse the viewer’s perception using repetition, blurring and playing upon foveal vs. peripheral vision. In this vein, artists from different periods work within a tradition that is constantly reinventing how the artist provides illusions to the viewer. It is interesting to then consider Felice Varini’s work that Gordon has posted, or other artists, where the viewer must actively experiment with perceptual ability in order to even perceive the artistic vision. In a sense, artists are always exploring how active viewership should be depending on the type of visual cues the artist provides. As a result, artistic works are so diverse because our visual perception is so rich and consists of so many different cues. So to misquote the initial comment I posted, the artist must love visual cues, for there are so many available to him.
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