When the new electric Magic Lantern projectors were
introduced in 1892, the technology was enthusiastically
adopted by Heinrich Wölfflin … who … used slides
extensively and was the first to use two slide projectors
together so he could show details alongside the principal
image, or show different images side-by-side. Wölfflin,
who was professor of art history at the University of Berlin
from 1901 to 1912, is seen in this photograph examining
a framed reproduction of a painting by Giovanni Bellini.
William Holman Hunt, Our English Coasts ('Strayed
Sheep'), 1852, oil on canvas, 43.2 x 58.4 cm,
Tate Gallery, London
linear/painterly
plane/recession
closed/open form
multiplicity/unity
absolute/relative clarity
Claude Monet, Wheatstacks (End of Summer),
1890-1891, oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 39 3/8 inches
(60 x 100 cm), Art Institute of Chicago
“Sight slips over the surface of the universe. The hand knows that an
object has physical bulk, that it is smooth or rough, that …. The hand's
action defines the cavity of space and the fullness of the objects which
occupy it. Surface, volume, density and weight are not optical
phenomena. Man first learned about them between his finger and the
hollow of his palm. He does not measure space with his eyes but with
hands and feet.”
-- Henri Focillion
This passage describes the “haptic” way of perceiving.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Another way of perceiving the universe occurs when the eye takes in the scene with
a glance. Shadows and the bulk which produce them are no longer distinct; the
smooth is no longer sharply distinguished from the rough; the eye no longer puzzles
over surface, volume, density and weight to explore the “thingness” of each object.
The eye here takes them in as a continuum, an impression of the whole. Wölfflin’s
genius lay in extrapolating, from these two ways of seeing, principles which could be
discerned as alternating periods in earlier art. The change from the “haptic”
Renaissance to the “optic” Baroque was his paradigm of a basic shift in perception.
linear/painterly
plane/recession
closed/open form
multiplicity/unity
absolute/relative clarity
Saint François in ecstasy (1475 )
Giovanni Bellini
Frick Collection
Oil on panel, 124,5 x 142 cm
Saint François in ecstasy(1635-40)
Francisco de Zurbarán
National Gallery, London
Oil on canvas, 152 x 99 cm.
linear/painterly
plane/recession
closed/open form
multiplicity/unity
absolute/relative clarity
Benedetto da Majano, Pietro Mellini, c1474,
Bargello Museum, Florence
Bernini, Bust of Louis XIV, 1666, Versailles