Do You See What I See?

I want to ask you a question. Do you see what I see? When we look at a painting by Velázquez or Reubens do we see the same thing? What do you see in more modern work such as Tracy Emin’s ‘My Bed’? How much of what we understand to be the subject of a piece of art is manipulation by artist to get us to ‘see something’? And how much is our own, often unconscious, response to visual stimulation that impacts what we actually see?

Christ contemplated by the Christian Soul - Diego Velázquez

Artists Create Illusions

Artists over the years have worked hard to create optical illusions in their work. Think, for example, of still life paintings that can look three dimensional. There are chalk artists who work on flat surfaces like side walks, steps and buildings to create three dimensional work that actually fool the mind. Take the work of Julian Beever (https://www.julianbeever.net/ ). Huge caverns appear on the side walk that people are frightened to walk over in case they fall in, but of course they are a very clever illusion.

Julian Beever 3D streetart

But what determines what we see? And, how much of our ‘vision’ when we look at a piece of art is the product of our own experiences and attitudes?

Pareidolia

The reason I ask the question is because I had a recent experience with a piece of my own work where people could see things in the painting that were not intended. There is actually a word for this tendency/ability, ‘pareidolia’. You may have seen news reports of people who have seen religious icons and/or faces appearing in cut vegetables or in cloud formations? These are examples of pareidolia, where people assign meanings to random patterns, something that has fascinated scientists for years.

It makes me think of the Rorschach Inkblot Test (https://www.rorschach.org/) that uses the concept of pareidolia to try and get an insight into a person’s mental state. This is a test that basically looks at what thoughts and feelings are elicited by respondents in response to ambiguous inkblot images.

In my own case, an abstract painting of mine entitled ‘Whoosh!’ elicited all sorts of interesting comments from my Facebook followers on my art fan page. And another artist introduced me to the idea of pareidolia as a result of my surprised reactions to those responses.

Whoosh - Dorothy Berry-Lound

Looking at this painting, one person said they could see jelly fish. Another could clearly see an angel fish. And yet another a peacock. And yet it is an abstract painting exploring colour combinations of blue and orange using an acrylic pour swipe technique – no fish or animals were intended.

So, going back to my original question, do you see what I see, the answer would appear to be, not always, perhaps. But let’s look a bit deeper at that.

Thought Is Real, Physical Is The Illusion

Going back to the idea of seeing shapes, objects and faces in clouds, of course people have been interpreting clouds for years, it was a game we played when I was a child (we would also look for things in tea leaves in the days before tea bags). It appears in our popular culture too. For example, in Kate Bush’s song ‘Big Sky’ she exclaims excitedly “That cloud, that cloud looks like Ireland!”. I remember in the film ‘What Dreams May Come’, the two main characters, played by Robin Williams and Annabella Sciorra lay on their backs and describe what they can see in the clouds.

Mamatus Storm Clouds Over Paciano - Dorothy Berry-Lound

Mind you, another character in that same movie, played by Cuba Gooding Jr, makes the statement ‘Thought is real, physical is the illusion.’ That leads me to ask, is that how we interpret that illusion, the art we are looking at, with our thoughts, rather than what we actually see with our eyes? And how do we know we are all seeing the same colours anyway?

What Is That Colour?

We Make Assumptions About What We See

We always assume that we see the same colours. So, if I tell you something is a gorgeous colour red and you agree, I assume you are seeing the same thing as me. But recent research (https://www.livescience.com/21275-color-red-blue-scientists.html) suggests we don’t always see the same thing, that our individual colour perspective can be slightly different. But we ‘feel’ colours in the same way, for example the sky is calm because that is how it feels rather than because we both see the same blue colour shade. This is the difference between seeing and experiencing a colour, according to a recent article in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jan/29/readers-reply-how-can-we-tell-if-we-see-colours-in-the-same-way).

The Old Guitarist - Pablo Picasso

Some People Really Do See Things Differently

Some people are born colour blind, also known as dichromacy. The most common type being where reds and greens get mixed up. These days there are colour blind spectacles available that can ‘correct’ the colours. You might think that a colour blind person has a different perspective on the world to me. But we are still ‘seeing’ the same things and what we see is normal to us. This is also true of people (usually women) who can see a much wider spectrum of colours than others, known as tetrachromacy. I have some artist colleagues who fall into that category. So even if we are seeing the same colour, it may not be a similar shade at all.

Is It All In the Presentation?

It should also be noted that our perception of colour may be distorted by the manner in which it is presented. For example, a painting may be shown in a dark corner and the colours seem muted. Display that same painting in an area with bright light and the colours may look completely different. The same is true if we view art on our computer monitor. Each computer may have the monitor on different settings of brightness and colour saturation. So, I could be sitting looking at the same painting as you on a computer screen but we may see different hues and nuances because of the differences in the monitor settings.

Our Experiences Influence Our Perception

Another issue with how we respond to colour is that our experience also has an impact on how we view the world around us. People can love or hate a colour, or a physical item for that matter, but that can be determined by a positive or negative experience associated with it. For example, someone might hate the colour orange because something bad happened to them in a room with orange décor. Equally, someone might be drawn to a particular shade of pink because it reminds them of a favourite item they had as a child.

Final Thought

Returning to my original question then. When we look at a piece of art, do you see what I see? It would appear that while we may appear to see the same things, and think we do, in reality that might not necessarily be the case.

To get to know our artist-writer Dorothy better and see some of her artwork, visit her website at https://dorothyberryloundart.com/