Dear Group,
"Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University has argued that
the smile is mostly drawn in low spatial frequencies, and so can best
be seen with one's peripheral vision[6]. Thus, for example, the smile
appears more striking when looking at the portrait's eyes than when
looking at the mouth itself."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa
I wrote this sometime around September in response to Turtoni, but I
guess it did not take.
I am very astigmatic with this habit and tendency not to look into
people's eyes but mouths. I am also experienced in the mathematics
and physics of optics.
Professor Margaret Livingstone is wrong. Look directly into Mona
Lisa's mouth, & if you wear glasses, take it off. The blurry image
should have the optical effect of making her smile more distinct. It is
as if you are looking at her from the distance. Leonardo did this on
purpose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mona_Lisa_detail_face.jpg
Dr. Livingstone and the people at Boston University Hospital, (I think)
said it was due to Leonardo's aging eyes. I think this is false. I
think he did it deliberately.
According to David Hockney (art historian) & Charles Falco (Physicist &
Optics), during the Renaissance, certain artists like Jan Van Eyck used
optics to create their most precious masterpieces.
The art almost resembles the details of photo realism that certainly
cannot be drawn free handed.
What happened is that they used mirrors or lens to reflect an image
upside down onto a canvas and traced the detailed outlines of their
picture. Then, they would pour on the paint.
Hence, what you get is a very close picture perfect image capturing
every single minutia of every line.
The picture will be close to realism, but not quite.
For anyone who has training in mathematical optics & physics such as I
- once you do that you will most certainly copy the mistakes of the
lens - and these are the telltale signs of these paintings.
Artists are not scientists.
Artists learn from nature by way of imitation.
Scientists learn from nature by way of experimentation.
Here, the painter is nature itself. The scientists just set up the
conditions and let the colors fly.
Both seek truth by way of Descartes' God who acts in this world
through of recreation.
In this, the image of God is Man imitating God doing this activity.
This was not an accidental gift of nature due to Leonardo's aging
eyes.
It was the gift of a lens effect of the camera obscura. The use of it
was documented according to my research in Leonardo's own hand in the
Codex Atlanticus.
The effect of the camera obscura gives a very dark and blurry image.
While most artists looked for light, Leonardo's style was to search
for the shades of darkness.
While Jan van Eyck searched for the details in the lines, Leonardo saw
blurry smudgedness. The style of painting for this blurry 'smudge
over look' is called 'sfumato.' It is the blending over effect
through minuscule brushwork. It creates the far away illusion of lines,
volume and depth of perception.
Nature up close and personal will not give you exactitude of lines.
This is a Platonic idealism. This is what Jan van Eyck could not see.
Note the sharpness of line and details in this picture then compare it
to Mona Lisa's smile.
http://www.realschule-ennepetal.de/Projekte/Brugge/eyck7.jpg
It is also the nature of complexity theory. There can be no sharpness
of lines in nature up close and personal.
Leonardo was a powerful natural realist.
Nothing was wrong with his eyes.
He saw nature with absolute clarity by way of their
***approximations*** and he used the lens effect to obtained it.
In this way, Leonardo was a scientist.
He was in part experimenting with optics all over the place, using
mirrors to do backwards writing, etc . . .
Freud's examination was ok.
So was Magritte's 'This is not a pipe,' picture.
According to Freud, it is not a pipe but a symbol of a mental concept
that is not in the picture, i.e., a phallic symbol.
However, this is relativism according to subjectivism or according to
psychology.
To a certain sense, this is also relativism according to
Wittgenstein's Tractatus when he said, 'we are held captive by the
picture.' In this, there is no way to get out of our subjectivity.
Except here, the subject is never to be seen. It must be posited. That
is why it exerts a Kantian type transcendentalism.
The eyes that see this painting cannot see itself. If one is to look in
the mirror, it is not your own eyes that you see but an image of it,
and an image of it is not it. This follows from Magritte's painting,
'This is not a pipe.'
There is relativism out there that does not deploy psychology or
subjectivity.
It is the relativism of optics and physics. It is the most objective
way of looking at Magritte's and Leonardo's Mona Lisa.
In Magritte, the image is not the object, and the effects of Mona
Lisa's smile is due to lower spatial frequencies.
It is not due to the mind that you see her smile.
It is not due to the mind that the object pipe, is not the image, pipe,
is not the spoken word 'pipe,' is not the written word, 'pipe.'
This is not subject to your belief systems or interpretation.
It is truth.
It is relativistic truth like a prism changing colors as you
differentiate the angles, or a stick that seems to bend in water due to
the refraction of the surface.
It is not an illusion created by the mind. It is an illusion recreated
by reality of nature and the artist imitating the reality of nature.
It is due to the relativistic viewing of your eyes growing tired or
your glasses slipping down, as was the case with me.
It is something the deconstructionists will not understand.
Sometimes, relativism does not invite subjectivism. B.T.
