Perspective (visual)

“ To a large extent we are misled by the impressive prominence of the visual data. In vision we are presented with a system of inter-related and simultaneously occurring sensations which we find by experience to be the sure and certain indicators of the potent obstructions which our activity encounters. For this reason we habitually make use of the visual sign as the guide and instrument of our exertional activity, and this habitual use leads us to regard the visual presentation as the essential form of Reality. ”

“ We learn, therefore, to react to a visual shape in a manner corresponding to how it would appear if it were in the centre of the field of vision, provided we do not immediately focus153 upon it, which is what we naturally do when anything visible interests us. ”

“ Thus it is that the eye, without any conscious effort of the observer, is directed in succession to the various points of an object, and it is only by an effort of will in fixing the eyes upon one spot that one becomes aware of the blurred and confused forms of all the rest of the visual picture. ”

“ Not speech abstractions, the highest conquest of the mind, but the development of the visual conceptions, which are its earliest spontaneous achievement, should be the first object of systematic training. Forms and colors are the elements of all visual impressions ”

“ The mind may be seriously dulled by over-concentration, and will only recover its freshness by such change of scene and occupation as will encourage freedom and discursiveness in the flow of the ideas.
All that remains to be said refers to the utility of the visualizing faculty, and may be compressed into a few words. A visual image is the most perfect form of mental representation wherever the shape, position, and relations of object in space are concerned. ”

“ When the eyes are caught by something in a picture, they do not at first rest there, but proceed, as we have said, on a tour of inspection of the whole area within the frame of that picture, after which they return again to the first visual interest. In making this tour the eyes seek, or at least, follow a pattern. ”

“ It will help you to become conscious of these mind's eye pictures if you will look away from the stranger's face for a moment and see both the face and name pictures in the visual impression which you have been forming. ”

“ It is as in those devices of perspective, where certain beautiful designs look like mere confusion until one restores them to the right angle of vision or one views them by means of a certain glass or mirror. ”

“ So, on the authority of repeated experience, whatever is unsuitable is gradually excluded, and only those eye movements are retained which further the proper convergence of the two retinal images.”104 Of course, the power of vision is by no means completely developed at five months, though the technique of the function, so to speak, is by that time essentially perfected. Now begin the real tasks of visual practice: acquiring familiarity with external objects, imprinting the visual images on the mind, and widening the scope of association. ”

“ As a matter of fact, we are constantly looking in different directions, and, as a rule, only noticing what, at the moment, is in the centre of our field of vision. Thus our visual world consists rather of a synthesis of things viewed directly in succession than of things seen simultaneously while the centre of the field is kept fixed. ”

“ We will return, for the sake of simplicity, to the sense of sight, which we chose as our example.The result of positing sensations and then constructing perception with them. Psychology has accustomed us to assume the elementary sensations corresponding to the impressions received by the rods and cones of the retina. With these sensations it goes on to reconstitute visual perception. ”

“ The sense of sight has been wonderfully endowed with a duplicate power which we have come to call the mind's eye. With this visual faculty we produce some very important mental operations. We must first become conscious of this faculty and learn to use it intelligently and then to broaden its scope and increase its power to deal with details.
Visualization is the mind's eye reproduction of an impression made by the sense of sight. ”

“ Here, in this book, for example, are one hundred photographs of one hundred of the most famous sights, scenes and monuments in the whole world. To see these sights, these scenes, these monuments, is to attain a liberal education. Now what is seeing? Seeing, the philosopher will tell you, is to have certain waves of light strike your eye and create an impression on your retina of the objects that are in front of you. The retina, in other words, is nothing but a natural camera obscura. And what is a photograph? ”

“ If it be not colours, then what is it that the touch compels us to associate with the eye? We answer that it is the abstract condition of impressions as the general law on which all seeing depends, but as quite distinct from the particular visual sensations apprehended in virtue of the observance of that law. ”

“ When this is definitely clear to you, open your eyes. The reality will be very different from your imagined picture. But sharpen your perceptive faculties, develop a "camera eye;" then the reality will be exactly impressed on your mind. ”

“ In the stage anterior to this, perspective is conventional, as if a man should say, “I have painted two horses on the canvas, but this one must be considered as far away because it is put on the right side of the picture; things on the left must be considered as near by.” A great many devices for conventional perspective were invented by tribal men before they acquired the concept of true perspective. ”

“ Sight converses with its objects at a greater distance than does any other sense, and it furnishes our minds with a greater variety of ideas. Indeed, our mental imagery is most largely made up of reminiscences of visual impressions; for when the idea of anything is brought up in our minds by a word, for example, there arises, in most cases, a more or less vivid presentation of some visible appearance. ”

“ I am forced to think that the visual field in particular is a thoroughly vicious metaphor when employed to body forth the distinction of focus and margin. Whatever this distinction may in the end turn out to be, it is not such as this comparison would lead one to suppose. Objects seen in indirect vision appear obscure and blurred precisely because they are in the focus of consciousness. ”

“ The science of perspective gives the dimensions of objects seen in space as they appear to the eye of the spectator, just as a perfect tracing of those objects on a sheet of glass placed vertically between him and them would do ”

“ Before answering either question, let us be doubly sure about our facts, and see how true it is that in our dealings with objects we always do pick out one of the visual images they yield, to constitute the real form or size. ”

“ But in each of these lines the mind takes in a wide horizon, comprising a multitude of objects at once, as the eye takes in a picture, with scene, and action, and figures, fore-ground and background, all at once. ”

“ The eye is the royal road to the mind, and most people are eye-minded; and the moving picture is a wonderful agency to convey to the mind, through the eye, accurate pictures of the world around us, natural and social. ”

“ Light comes into those open windows, the moving panorama of external nature passes before them, but distinct vision, which recognizes and individualizes objects, is something more than a mere passive, bodily sensation. ”

“ Not less powerful is his visual sense, the quick, direct discrimination of his eye, which explains the singularly vivid concision of his descriptions. These are never prolonged nor analytic, have nothing of enumeration, of the quality of the observer, who counts the items to be sure he has made up the sum. ”

“ Hence there is always a view, definite and yet very complex, made up of every variety of line, but always of clearest perspective: perfect horizontals at one's feet, perfect perpendiculars opposite the eye, a constant alternation of looking up and looking down, a never-failing possibility of looking beyond, an outlet everywhere for the eye, and for the breath ”

“ The substitution of simultaneous retinal perception of form for successive perception has the effect of bringing together the terms of the relations of variety and contrast, unity and similarity, under what is approximately one act of attention. If we watch the movements of a painter's hand as he draws the outline of a human figure on a canvas, our eye may attain a rough perception of the successive directions and distances ”

“ No matter what the field of view means, he sees it also as it feels—that is, as a collection of patches of color bounded by lines—the whole forming an optical diagram of whose intrinsic proportions one who is not an artist has hardly a conscious inkling. ”

“ That many images of objects rove In many modes to every region round— So thin that easily the one with other, When once they meet, uniteth in mid-air, Like gossamer or gold-leaf. For, indeed, Far thinner are they in their fabric than Those images which take a hold on eyes And smite the vision, since through body's pores They penetrate, and inwardly stir up The subtle nature of mind and smite the sense. ”

“ The eye is a perpetual camera, imprinting upon the sensitive mental plates, and packing away in the brain for future use, every face, every plant and flower, every scene upon the street, in fact, everything which comes within its range. It should, therefore, be easy to discern that since mere seeing may create false impressions in the mind, and that only by careful observation can we gather for future use such impressions as are thoroughly reliable, we cannot well overestimate the importance of its cultivation. ”

“ VISION is performed by having a picture, formed by the rays of light which are reflected from the object, painted in one piece, instantaneously, on the retina, or last nervous part of the eye. Or, according to others, there is but one point of any object painted on the eye in such a manner as to be perceived at once; but by moving the eye, we gather up, with great celerity, the several parts of the object, so as to form one uniform piece. ”

“ By and by, a little practical perspective can be taught by means of holding a thread, horizontally and vertically, over the points of a solid rectilinear figure, in order to see the bearing of its outlines upon the plane of the picture; and thus the discouraging disgust that children are apt to feel, as they learn to compare their attempts with the originals which they make their models, will be avoided. The idea of perspective drawing once taken, the career of improvement is entered upon at once. ”

“ It is strange to think how a scene, in itself uninteresting, becomes agreeable to look at in a picture, from the truth with which it is depicted, and a perfection of colouring which at once contrasts and harmonises the hues of sky and water. ”

“ A great part of the contents of our minds consists of sensuous (chiefly visual) images, and though we may imagine reflection to go on without further images supplied by vision or hearing, touch or taste or smell, yet we cannot well see how fresh experiences could be gained in such a state. ”

“ The approximate or scale perspective completely avoids all the difficulties of choosing a point of sight, of having several views, vanishing points and measurement points, and thus offers a representative view, with a great saving of time and labor. Particularly for mechanical purposes, where an artistic impression is not called for, it presents a distinct advantage over the true or real perspective. ”

“ Visualise an object if you have the power of visualisation at all: if you have not, try to make it. It is an artistic faculty, of course, hut most people have it more or less. See how far you can reproduce perfectly a face you see daily. ”

“ When in nature we observe a scene that naturally fits a frame and we find ourselves gazing first at one object and then at another and returning again to the first, we may be sure it will make a picture. ”

“ My argument is, that the generic images that arise before the mind's eye, and the general impressions which are faint and faulty editions of them, are the analogues of these composite pictures which we have the advantage of examining at leisure, and whose peculiarities and character we can investigate, and from which we may draw conclusions that shall throw much light on the nature of certain mental processes which are too mobile and evanescent to be directly dealt with. ”

“ The kind of perspective drawings I told you how to do under the caption of Drawing in Perspective is true perspective but engineers do drawings which they call isometric perspective, that is, while the object seems to stand out in relief there are no vanishing points. ”

“ CHAPTER VI - THE CIRCULAR OBSERVATION OF PICTURES The entrance into a picture and obstacles thereto, as applied to landscape, has already been considered, from which it is evident that wisdom renders this as easy as possible for the vision, not only negatively, but through positive means as well. An obstruction through which penetration must be forced, diverting the attention, is like the person who claims us when we are trying to listen to someone else. ”

“ In all of these the light proceeds toward us through an avenue which the sides create. Under this effect we receive the light as it comes to us. In the other form the vision is carried into the picture by a series of mass attractions the balance being less apparent. ”

“ CHAPTER XIV - IMAGINATION AS AN AID TO VISION
WE see very largely with the mind, and only partly with the eyes. The phenomena of vision depend upon the mind's interpretation of the impression upon the retina. What we see is not that impression, but our own interpretation of it. Our impressions of size, color, form and location can be demonstrated to depend upon the interpretation by the mind of the retinal picture. ”