"The longer you work, the more the mystery deepens of what appearance
is, or how what is called appearance can be made in another
medium.--Francis Bacon, painter
This, in a nutshell, is the central problem in the theory of art. It has
fascinated philosophers from Plato to Wittgenstein. And it fascinates
artists and art historians, who have always drawn extensively on
philosophical ideas about language and representation, and on ideas
about vision and the visible world that have deep philosophical roots.
John Hyman's The Objective Eye is a radical treatment of this problem,
deeply informed by the history of philosophy and science, but entirely
fresh. The questions tackled here are fundamental ones: Is our
experience of color an illusion? How does the metaphysical status of
colors differ from that of shapes? What is the difference between a
picture and a written text? Why are some pictures said to be more
realistic than others? Is it because they are especially truthful or, on
the contrary, because they deceive the eye?
The Objective Eye explores the fundamental concepts we use constantly
in our most innocent thoughts and conversations about art, as well as in
the most sophisticated art theory. The book progresses from pure
philosophy to applied philosophy and ranges from the metaphysics of
color to Renaissance perspective, from anatomy in ancient Greece to
impressionism in nineteenth-century France. Philosophers, art
historians, and students of the arts will find The Objective Eye
challenging and absorbing.
