32 Reading: Perspective
Is seeing also understanding?
The physiological processes that come together to form our vision, or sight capabilities, are a component of the larger complex process of how we ‘see’ or comprehend the world. Consider the statement by Henry Sayre, “Everything you see is filtered through a long history of fears, prejudices, desires, emotions, customs, and beliefs.” Our understanding of visual culture, including art, is dynamic, informed by our prior experiences and identities.
We live in a time of unprecedented saturation of visual culture, exponentially increased by the ease of digital communication. The term ocularcentrism has been used to describe the dominance of the visual in contemporary Western life (Rose 3). But does seeing necessarily equal understanding? Consider Sayre’s example in questioning visual information, as to what colored stripe is at the top and bottom of the American flag (16)? As our national symbol, we assume we have a thorough understanding of it because we’ve seen it so frequently. However- not only seeing, but remembering what we have seen is often inaccurate, and can be more of a creative interpretive process than we may recognize.
To be able to engage artwork at a deeper level, beyond passive looking, it is necessary to develop a breadth of understanding in art history, methods of visual analysis, and specific descriptive language. To communicate how visual art affects you it is necessary to understand vocabulary, phrases, and concepts that allow you to think critically about visual images (Sayre 19). In the prior module you learned the terms and meanings of the language of form, the elements and principles of design. This module builds on that by considering perspective, context, and other methods of visual analysis beyond formalism.
Perspective
Perspective is a point-of-view. In a way it is regarding something through a specific filter. Each perspective or filter has unique characteristics that direct how something is considered. For example, if you were analyzing an artwork in regards to gender, an aspect of identity, you might consider how being male, female, or transgendered might contribute to the experience of an artwork. Context or contextual knowledge relates to perspective, in that all perspectives are shaped by the circumstances around them that constitute a kind of background they form within.
3 Basic Types of Perspective
Cultural Perspective
Culture is a complex concept that encompasses the ways that social life effects and informs our experiences. To quote Stuart Hall:
“Culture, it is not so much a set of things- novels and paintings, or TV programs or comics- as a process, a set of practices. Primarily culture is concerned with the production and exchange of meanings- the ‘giving and taking of meaning’ between members in a society or group… Thus culture depends on its participants interpreting meaning- fully what is around them, and ‘making sense’ of the world, in broadly similar wa