By implicit vp in Manet's painting, I refer to the multiple vps in the work, none of which organizes the whole painting but only sections, implying that when one looks at a section it is organized to a vp but when one looks elsewhere in the painting, another vp takes over, that contradicts the other, and so on. Actually there are many vanishing points in the painting and they tell you where your eye level is and what your position is vis-a-vis the painting. wc
----- Original Message ---- From: Chris Miller <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, October 29, 2009 8:21:00 AM Subject: Re: Art and Optics Caravaggio gave an equally sharp focus to everything in that painting, as well as a similar size to the same object (human heads and hands) whether they would be closer or farther from the viewer. In other words, he completely ignored Renaissance perspective -- just as children tend to do -- or Asian painting has been doing for thousands of years. Should we acknowledge this as a great discovery in how we really see --- a failure to imitate the retinal image of reality -- or just a preference for placing the viewer inside instead of outside a scene? Regarding vanishing points, there can't be any -- in either the "Supper at Emmaus" or the "Folies Bergere" -- since there are no receding parallel lines. And what's an "implicit vanishing point" ? The convergence of any two lines that can be drawn from any pair of points? There certainly are lots of those in every painting. Why look for them? > So when you see each your brain relates them to the body and your memorized notion of what seems right. An example of this is evident when you look at yourself in an ordinary mirror. You see yourself half-size or less. the distance between you and the mirror plus the distance of the reflected face back to the surface of the mirror. But we tend to correct our vision and imagine the reflection as life-size. Again, seeing is a construction in (mainly) the visual cortex. Caravaggio tended to show what we see, that is, parts, part by part, and in relation to the canvas surface which was another imagined plane, sometimes to be "broken" by an illusory projection. Manet paid attention to this realism in Caravaggio and took it further (see his Folies Bergere) to move the implicit vanishing point all around the painting as if to follow the eye. Of course, the vp is always where you're looking. What makes perspective interesting is that it enables yo to split your vision: the vp is where you're looking but it holds its place while your gaze wanders. Manet just took the vp with the gaze as it wandered. The hints of that occur in Caravaggio. One reason why artists like Caravaggio are so great is because they are so far beyond the simple business of direct imitation, with or without a camera lucida. ____________________________________________________________ Weight Loss Program Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/c?cp=SnnvzcSkQ32KPpRDBbavjAAAJz6c l_zTaptgNR5c8Mer1v9kAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEUgAAAAA=
