Lindsey Pritchett - Outside Reading

In my Religion and the arts class, we were assigned a reading that dealt with vision and how it affects the way we perceive art. Vision limits us because we can not focus in on one thing, we must see the object and what is surrounding it. Though we can focus on certain aspects of a piece of art, we are doomed to see the entire piece. Each person sees things differently and, inevitably, culture has also shaped the way we see things. As a result of this, perception and interpretation of art is going to be just as different. Very rarely will two people look at the same piece of art and notice the same details. Thus, those same two people will interpret the piece differently. Also, as language has been attached to every object, we are not able to merely perceive colour and texture. We must see the whole, for the whole is what has received the name, not each individual stroke of colour. Thus, when we look at a painting of, say, the Virgin Mary, we immediately recognise it as such. We do not search for greater meaning in the painting because we see what it already there. It is in this way that vision limits us. However, we are also granted an imagination that also impact what we see. Vision is, in fact, relative to the individual. It is as diverse as personality.