History of visual perception

Erwin Panofsky’s essay “Perspective as Symbolic Form” from 1924 is among the most widely commented essays in twentieth-century aesthetics and was discussed with regard to art theory, Renaissance painting, Western codes of
depiction, history of optical devices, psychology of perception, or even ophthalmology. Strangely enough, however, almost nothing has been written about the philosophical claim implicit in the title, i.e. that perspective is a symbolic form among others. The article situates the essay within the intellectual constellation at Aby Warburg’s Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek in Hamburg, and analyzes the role of Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms for the members of the Warburg circle. Does perspective meet the requirements for becoming a further “symbolic form,” beyond those outlined by Cassirer? The article argues that, ultimately, perspective cannot possibly be a symbolic form; not because it does not meet Cassirer’s philosophical requirements, but rather, because that would uproot Cassirer’s overall project. While revisiting Panofsky with Cassirer unearths the wide-raging philosophical implication of the essay, revisiting Cassirer with Panofsky means to highlight the fundamentally perspectival nature of all symbolic forms.

Dass Bilder zwischen dem Regime der Dinge und dem Regime der Zeichen niemals einen angestammten Platz erhielten und nicht Gegenstand einer eigenen Wissenschaft wurden, ist keinem wiedergutzumachenden Vergessen geschuldet, sondern Ausdruck eines anfänglichen Skandalons, das historisch auch die Geburtsstunde der Philosophie einläutete. Bilder lassen sich nicht einmal als reine Erscheinungen absondern, weil in ihnen als Wasserzeichen stets durchscheint, was sie sichtbar werden ließ. An Husserls Grundlegung einer Phänomenologie des Bildes lässt sich das obstinate Unterfangen verfolgen, die Bilderscheinung von jeder medialen Kontamination freizuhalten. Emmanuel Alloas Archäologie der Medienvergessenheit legt jenes Doppelparadigma frei, das die westliche Tradition seit Anbeginn begleitet – Transparenz und Opazität – und sich vor jenen Begriff schiebt, den es zu übersetzen beanspruchte: In der aristotelischen Wahrnehmungstheorie bezeichnet das Diaphane die Fähigkeit eines Mediums, die Form von etwas anzunehmen, ohne es zu sein. Auf unerwartete Weise wird durch Aristoteles’ Lehre vom Diaphanen erhellt, worin die Macht von Bildern liegt.

The article is devoted to Roger Bacon’s understanding of perspectiva as “the first of all natural sciences.” After considering a few alternative medieval definitions and classifications of this discipline – such as al-Fārābī’s, Grosseteste’s and Kilwardby’s – I study Bacon’s arguments for according to perspectiva so exceptional a role. I show that Bacon’s arguments are grounded in his peculiar understanding of the visual process: according to Bacon, vision is indeed the only sense in which perception takes place “by reasoning” (per sillogismum). I argue that this theory of perception also lays the foundations for Bacon’s – prima facie amiss – claim that “concerning vision alone, and no other sense, have philosophers developed a separate science.” I explore this point by contrasting with one another Bacon’s conception of perspectiva and of music, and close with some more general remarks on the implications of Bacon’s account of the visual process for his theory of knowledge. Based on his theory of a “vision by reasoning,” I conclude that Bacon came to reinterpret perspectiva as the organon of visual knowledge.

The many complex processes that characterised the Urban Revolution have been variously outlined, but the mental and cultural steps that were combined with the relevant phenomena are rarely discussed, and above all elusive is their connection with the archaeological evidence. On the other hand, some types of wall decoration techniques that are attested in Lower Mesopotamia in the early historic period can play an important role in revealing the occurrence of remarkable cultural transformation processes. Paying a special attention to the logics and technical organization of some findings, like the Uruk wall cone mosaics, features can be located that serve as clues to explain the development of certain types of mental paths which have a quite direct relation with the dawn of the historical ages. The central effort of this contribution is dedicated to accomplish these tasks through methodological tools that are provided not just by neurosciences, but also (and more meaningfully) by old and new reflections in the fields of cultural studies.

an essay review of
The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp
Edited by Thierry de Duve
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design / MIT Press, 1991

Compulsive Beauty
by Hal Foster
An OCTOBER Book from MIT Press, 1993

The Optical Unconscious
by Rosalind E. Krauss
An OCTOBER Book from MIT Press, 1993

Am Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts pilgert der Ulmer Dominikaner Felix Fabri gleich zwei Mal zu den biblischen Stätten. Während er sich bei seiner ersten Reise auf das Heilige Land beschränkt, führt ihn seine zweite Reise durch die Wüsten Sinais nach Ägypten. Mit seinem Evagatorium in Terrae Sanctae, Arabiae et Egypti peregrinationem hinterläßt er einen detailreichen Reisebericht. Neben der Schilderung der erlebten Abenteuer sowie der Sitten und Bräuche der angetroffenen Völker beschreibt er wiederholt die öden Wildnisse, die ihn faszinieren: Die Vielfalt der Landschaften und Klimate und vor allem die wechselnden Farben des Wüstenbodens seien das, woran sich Neugierige erfreuen könnten. Mal sind es rote Berge, mal weiße Gipfel, mal von schwarzen Steinen bedeckte Einöden.
Diese Feststellung erlaubt uns zu fragen, welche Rolle Farben in der Beschreibung der Landschaften in Reiseberichten des Spätmittelalters spielen? Erste Elemente einer Antwort werden zuerst in der Beziehung des spätmittelalterlichen Menschen zur Natur gesucht. In einem zweiten Schritt wird der Reisebericht Felix Fabris im Mittelpunkt stehen. Seine Wüstenbeschreibungen werden im Detail untersucht und uns veranlassen, der Frage nach der selektiven Farbwahrnehmung und Farbbenennung des Ulmer Dominikaners nachzugehen. Wir werden sehen, daß zumindest bei Fabri, die Wahrnehmung von Farben durch die Lektüre berühmte naturwissenschaftlich-theoretischer Abhandlungen beeinflußt wurde. Fabri betrachtet nämlich "das Buch der Natur" durch den Spiegel (Speculum) des Vinzenz von Beauvais und des Bartholomäus von Glanville.

This volume gathers together a number of new studies of Descartes' natural philosophy. We have not concerned ourselves with the textbook image of Descartes in philosophy or the history of ideas, as father of modern philosophy, or as the inventor of modern epistemology, mind/body dualism, or advocate of a universal method. Rather, we focus on Descartes in the context of his times as a pioneer of the mechanical philosophy and leading practitioner of mathematics and a number of the then existing specialised traditions of scientific endeavour, such as mechanics, optics, anatomy, and physiology (including psycho-physiology). We view Descartes, moreover, as a natural philosopher whose aims and agendas were not independent of the social and intellectual contexts within which he was working; and as someone who, over time, not only achieved numerous remarkable successes, but who also endured several deflections of aim, tactical retreats and outright failures.

Taking the German picture-encyclopedia Picture Book for Children (1790–1830) of Friedrich J. Bertuch as a vantage point, this article presents a thick historiographical description of the concept of experience and the role of visual material in relation to the figure of the child. I am interested here in the formation of the notion of experience and specifically in the ways experience has played a key role in the debates over the concepts of vitalism, epigenesis, and experience-based (verbal) imagery in the Enlightenment. The broad call for clearness, vividness and the employment of images in the literature of the period highlights crucial negotiations of sense-based practices in education and scholarly knowledge production. Experience, sensation, perception, and observation became catchwords within anthropological and philosophical reflections on how to showcase life itself. Through a careful analysis of early biological images and image practices in Bertuch’s Picture Book, I show the picture was supposed to initiate interaction. Pictures become a crucial part of communication processes and practices of bourgeois self-assurance, also with regards to racialized, sexualized and gendered subject formation.

Este trabajo se inscribe en la perspectiva de la historia de los sentidos, reflexionando acerca de la tensión medieval entre la valoración y la desvaloración de la percepción -en especial de la vista- como sustento para el conocimiento, y del campo de fuerza específico que de allí surge, referido a la relación entre el ser humano y el mundo.

Aquí se hacen algunos acercamientos a esta problemática a partir de los libros manuscritos en tanto objetos de características altamente visuales, que tienen también otras cualidades y funciones que les permiten dar cuenta de relaciones sociales y sensoriales complejas respecto del mundo en el que se producen y consumen. Por otra parte, la importancia de las imágenes dentro del formato del códice medieval, en especial en los Beatos de Liébana, conduce a plantearse algunas tesis sobre el modo de mirar de sus “lectores-espectadores” y sobre el discurso sobre la mirada que hay en ellas.

In this paper I address the question of why the everyday experience of seeing verticals converge remained taboo in Western visual culture until the late 19th century and in painting until the 1920s.  I argue that perspective theory was fused to a pre-Copernican, architectural model of space and a static model of vision based on Enlightenment optics rather than physiology.  The dynamism of modernity and technologies of embodied vision such as the stereoscope exposed the covert assumptions of perspective orthodoxy.  Efforts to rescue three-point perspective by invoking the station-point for viewing risked exposing perspective painting as just another peepshow art.

This is a survey paper about emblems and images of Justice during the early modern era. It aims at offering a short introduction to the subject.https://www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com/encyclopedia-chapter?docid=b-9781474206600&tocid=b-9781474206600-chapter1&st=