Claude Monet, Wheatstacks (End of Summer),

1
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
2
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. Wölfflins 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.
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.
3
linear/painterly plane/recession closed/open
form multiplicity/unity absolute/relative clarity
Saint François in ecstasy (1475 )Giovanni
Bellini Frick CollectionOil on panel, 124,5 x
142 cm
Saint François in ecstasy(1635-40)Francisco de
ZurbaránNational Gallery, London Oil on canvas,
152 x 99 cm.
4
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