The Eyes Have It

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Nymphaea Reflets de Saule Claude Monet

We can never imagine a world without vision. Whether one works as a realist or abstract artist, the quality of our vision determines the ultimate appearance of the art that we make. As viewers of art, we can rarely know or consider if the art we are looking at is meant to be expressive of a particular style, or was produced by an artist with a vision problem or perhaps super-vision. Why would we? We can never see through another’s eyes, only the resulting expressions of their vision, good or bad.

Readers of Perspectives know that we are always interested in the science of vision and the brain, so when we found the 2009 book by Michael F. Marmor and James G. Ravin titled The Artist’s Eyes: Vision and the History of Art, we had to share some of their fascinating research with you. Much has been written about the late paintings of some of the Impressionists, especially Degas and Monet, ascribing their increasingly gestura…