Transparent Eyeball

Perspectives from The Artists Road

Transparent Eyeball ca. 1836-38 Christopher Pearse Cranch

Both Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and Christopher Pearse Cranch (1813-1892) were graduates of Harvard Divinity School and both served as ministers after their graduations. But both turned away from more traditional religious institutions and toward transcendentalism, a philosophical movement of which Emerson was a leader. The movement incorporated, among other tenets, what its believers saw as the sacred power of nature.

The idea of the “transparent eyeball” was originated by Emerson to illustrate his belief that in becoming one with nature, one must become a transparent eyeball oneself—an eyeball that absorbs, rather than reflects, allowing the observer to perceive all of nature’s details. Emerson believed that one should experience solitude in nature to experience its power and that nature should not “be a toy to a wise spirit.”

Landscape with Couple Boating 1860 Christopher Pearse Cranch