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Chapter 13
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CHAPTER THREE: A matter of Perspective
This chapter explores How & Why we see what we see. Not just visually but also Perspective in art and the human mind. I’ll also explain why the perspective in the background of the Mona Lisa is “off” and how it was anything but a mistake. I’ll also show how Da Vinci should be credited with the discovery of Stereograms and give some insight into his other famous painting – The Last Supper.
"Perspective is nothing else than the seeing of an object behind a sheet of glass, smooth and quite transparent, on the surface of which all the things may be marked that are behind this glass; these things approach the point of the eye in pyramids, and these pyramids are cut by the said glass." Da Vinci.
"First I saw the mountains in the painting; then I saw the painting in the mountains."
The answers to most questions lay within our perceptions: 1. The process, act, or faculty of perceiving. 2. The effect or product of perceiving. 3. Psychology a. Recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli based chiefly on memory. b. The neurological processes by which such recognition and interpretation are effected. c. Insight, intuition, or knowledge gained by perceiving. d. The capacity for such insight. 4. a. Insight, intuition, or knowledge gained by perceiving. b. The capacity for such insight.
Perception is the organization of sensation. We sense light and color and contrast with our eyes and then our brain turns those sensations into images in our minds which we call vision. What Da Vinci meant with the pyramids is our two eyes converging in pyramidal line of sight from two eyes to one object – the PERSPECTIVE. Our eyes will then focus on specifics and recognizable patters, words, letters, symbols, faces – etc. But it’s when they are THOUGHT about that we start to perceive them – THE PERCEPTION.
Perception is how we use our senses. It’s the faculty that’s doing the understanding. Perspective is from where, who, or from what point the perception is taking place. What is the one true perspective? Is there one? Would it be the perspective of an unbiased observer? That’s what the concept of a universal God is – the one and only correct perspective and way to perceive the world. Everything perceives the same thing (the world) but perspective is the consciousness or vantage point of each individual.
If you think of the quote “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” the perspective would be the eyes of the person and their perception would be their mind doing the considering.
To better understand perceptions imagine opening your eyes after a night of very heavy drinking. Your mind starts to receive images after being unconscious for a while. It takes a while to figure out where you are and how you got there. Sometimes you wont even notice a difference until that one instance - where the $%$$ am I?! What happened? Who are you?! - It’s in that very instance that you perceive. Up until that point you were seeing, and experiencing sensations but perception is that conscious awareness of the senses. It’s realizing you’re somewhere you don’t usually wake up. It’s caring about where you are and why you’re there.
Perception can be more than with just visual sensations. They can be from your sense of smell. Sniff Sniff “what’s that smell?” - ughhhh! There is that one point where you start to realize there is a difference and then once you start to think about what it is and then once you figure it out.
When I think about my own consciousness I’m always trying to figure out WHERE it is. It seems like it’s sitting in my eyes. But that wouldn’t be possible because I have two eyes but a single consciousness. So does it sit where the signals meet? At what point does my existence come into a point? – the soul. Is there a single spot in our brains that our soul stays? Or is that single spot the entire brain -the brain as a whole? The brain is the spot, the container for our minds? This wouldn’t be the case because you can have parts of your brain removed – up to half of your entire brain in some cases – and still not only be alive but be conscious. So it seems like we, our essence – our soul you could say. Isn’t a single spot but is the combination of all the processes going on inside your head. It’s not in the left part of your brain, the right part, or a grouping of cells. It’s the whole divided down into as many parts that you could still be considered you.
In my opinion the soul is the description of the combination of all the mental processes and equipment that allows you to make conscious decisions. Not just the computers’ processor but all the equipment required for it to boot up.
Consider it like a bee hive. Each individual bee is alive, but it’s the entire hive that constitutes a whole. You could loose half of the population but it would still be a hive. You could loose everyone but the queen but then it might not be considered a hive anymore. The hardest thing to understand, which even Leonardo struggled with- is finding a single spot of consciousness. It’s a struggle we all have. Are we just the sum of are parts – the ghost in the machine. OR are we a soul trapped in a vessel? Did a soul enter our mother or did it grow in the womb?
In one way we were born the second an egg and sperm collided. In another we were born once our brain formed. Science vs Religion in the most pure sense but yet still just different explanations for the same damn thing. It’s just life (hahaha) no matter how you look at it.
Durer’s words: “The first is the sight, that is the eye; the second is the form of the seen thing; the third is the distance between the eye and the seen thing; the fourth is the lines which depart from the extremities of the thing and come to the eye; the fifth is the intersection (termine) which is between the eye and the seen thing, and on which is intended to locate the things.”
Or in Da Vinci’s words:
“Painting surpasses all human works by the subtle considerations belonging to it. The eye, which is called the window to the soul, is the principal means by which the central sense can most completely and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature, and the ear is the second, which acquires dignity by hearing of the things the eye has seen. If you, historians, or poets, or mathematicians had not seen things with your eyes you could not report of them in writing.”
The strangest thing about the sense of vision is how intrusive it is. It dominates our other senses and in doing so dulls them down. Sometimes it seems we have to close our eyes to fully appreciate any other sense. But let’s face it, it’s a visual world. To appreciate this planet we have to see it, not smell it, or taste it, or even hear it. So lets try to understand how we see, so we can better understand what we see.
We perceive with all of our senses but let’s elaborate on the one we rely on the most:
My friend Heidi Chiles from my first “photo shoot”
VISION
Our sense of sight is nothing short of a miracle. Vision is a miracle that can be understood by science but which takes something of a grander sort to appreciate. The hand is quicker than the eye. The mind is quicker than the eye. The mind is quicker than the hand. Our minds operate at the speed of light, which is faster than any hand.
Vision is such a vastly complicated thing that we are barely able to comprehend its presence. We see, of course, but we don’t really know how. We usually know what we see, but now how we see it.
In order to fully appreciate the Mona Lisa and all visual works of art it’s important to understand how our eyes work. It’s a complex combination of a lot of things than you probably have not imagined before but obviously have experienced!
I think tv and movies have desensitized us to the real world, but at the same time have also expanded our minds in ways that have never been possible until this point in time. They’ve dulled our senses but increased our perspectives. With the abundance of new perspectives comes the difficulty of knowing what the right perception of the world is.
Vision is a sense that’s usually very seamless. We look, we see, we process – we perceive. Our Brain turns two images from two different eyes into one.
We don’t see the world as pictures or movies. We see the world in real time with perception and memories. It’s not just time that’s relative but vision as well. We can see one image - once and for only seconds and remember it more vividly than our own faces.
The Human Eye:
"You do not see with the lens of the
eye. You see through that, and by means of that, but you see with
the soul of the eye."
Most people don’t truly understand the processes that go on behind their own eyes. They don’t realize that they’re seeing things in reverse and two images – not just one. It’s something we all take for granted and fear loosing above all else. Da Vinci said, and I would have to agree -that we’ll protect our eyes before anything else. If something unknown starts to fly at us, it’s our eyes we cover even before our heart. Even though we die without it, it comes instinctually second to our eyes.
At the most basic level an eye is a device that detects light. It’s something almost every living thing can do, but all in slightly different ways because we all have slightly different eyes. Surprisingly it’s the Mantis Shrimp that have the most sophisticated color vision system. Snails have one of the least. They don’t actually “see” but only sense the presence of light. They don’t know what colors or shapes are. A rattlesnake sees heat, dogs see only in black and white, and eagles can see even more clearly than we do. The sense of vision serves the same purpose but in different ways for each different individuals purpose. The level of sophistication for each set of eyes varies depending on what they need to see, to watch out for, or to notice.
For humans we use our eyes as our primary way to perceive the world so our vision is very sophisticated. Probably the most amazing concept behind the human eyes isn’t the eyes themselves but the minds that use them. After reading this chapter I hope you’ll have a much greater appreciation for your own mind – no matter how stupid you thought you were!
To make something extremely complex – relatively simple this is how we see:
First light enters your eye through the cornea which is the surface of your eye. Then it is directed into the rest of your eye by your pupil which dilates to allow the right amount of light into your eye. It opens wider to allow more in, and contracts to allow less in. After that the light is inverted and reflected to the back part of your eye that is filled with mini light sensors called rods and cones. These little sensors detect the differences in the light and go through a photochemical process that turns the light into chemical/ electrical signals that then go to your brain for processing.
It’s like each rod or cone is a smoke detector that tells the system where the fire is, how bright it is, and the color. This is how light is turned into an electrical signal our brain can “See”. We’re not actually seeing light at all, we’re not seeing anything at all. We’re discerning electrical signals. For example, in the near future we’ll be able to create artificial eyes or cameras that will be able to send information to a blind person’s brain. This shows how it’s not the actual eyes that are doing the “seeing” but are just sending electrical information.
So imagine vision like a computer. Your eyes are cameras/ web cams/ the device that puts the pictures into the system. The Camera itself doesn’t know what it’s seeing, it just sends information to the brain.
Then your video card is the faculty that detects the various colors in the image you’re adding to your system. Your video card detects how much red, green, and blue there is. It also determines the contrast between each of them and intensity. It basically turns light into electricity to be interpreted. After this is done it’s in the system but what happens next depends upon what its purpose for being there is. Are you trying to see a picture, read text, play a game, or looking for something? What are you looking for in the image you’re receiving?
Think about human vision as havening two web cams that are constantly sending images into your computer. Then the user (your consciousness) decides what to do next. What do you notice? You can control the cameras to move and focus on different things or spaces in front of you. Each camera *eye* is directed to the same thing and where they focus is the tip of a pyramid.
If you’re reading for instance, think about it like this;
1 2 3 4 5
Your eyes will look from each number to the next because you’re telling them too. It happens so fast you don’t think about it. So in this case you’re looking for the next number. In the case of this paragraph you know to look to the next word, then the next sentence to look for the meaning. You’re always pretty much looking at the same space (this paragraph) but you change your focus from each word to the next. So it’s not like you’re only seeing one image (word) then the next but directing your FOCUS from one image to the next.
Your eyes are not directing you; you’re directing your eyes. Your subconscious is pretty much the thing that controls all the details. Your conscious is the faculty that you are currently perceiving whether it be the faculty of reading, writing, listening, talking, or looking at a picture.
Some can be done at the same time, some require your full concentration. You can walk without thinking about it, or if you’re on a run way then it might be the only thing you’re thinking about. You might be singing without thinking about it while you’re in your car, or have it be the ONLY thing you’re thinking about when auditioning for American Idol. Your consciousness is the delegation of your focus- Where you place the relevance and your mental resources. Your subconscious takes care of the details.
This is very relevant to vision because it is our main sensational input. But we also use our other senses at the same time.
Think of us as a computer with 5 different types of web cams or inputs. One for vision, one for taste, one for sounds, one for smell, and one for touch. Then there are various places in your brain that control each. It’s like having a different computer card for each of them that interprets, recognizes and sends that information needed or requested.
When you’re reading this, your sense of sight is being activated as well as the parts of your brain required to understand what the hell I’m talking about. Your other senses might not be needed; this doesn’t mean they aren’t still taking information in, they’re just not relevant right then so they’re not keeping your focus.
If your phone were to ring RIGHT NOW, your sense of hearing wouldn’t be activated (it was already on) it’s just that something new is perceived and the part of your brain responsible for understanding that sense would become relevant and become the focus of your consciousness. Then you would activate yet another part of your brain to understand the person’s words who’s calling you. A different part would be needed to identify who they are, then yet another part when you have to think about an answer, and then yet ANOTHER when you speak that response. So it’s safe to say you can do a lot more than walk and talk at the same time.
I’ve been listening to music, biting my nails, humming, and thinking while writing this. Let alone digesting, adjusting my position for comfort, checking my phone etc.
This also makes you wonder what your limit is. How many things can you concentrate on at once? They say that you can only think one thought at the same time, but that is just not true. Maybe we can only be conscious about one thought at one time but we are really having millions of them at every moment. Your controlling your breathing, what to listen to, and what to ignore, what you’re smelling, and what you’re not, what you’re sense of touch is feeling, and any taste in your mouth. Not to mention things we don’t even know about.
Basically vision is our eyes detecting the reflections of light off of something and into our eyes. From there it turns the light into something our brains can work with.
The best part isn’t the eyes themselves but the brain and mind that understands them. Once the brain gets the information, how does it know what it is??
Consider the picture above to be the information that your eyes have sent to your brain. How do you know what it is?
There are many techniques we use to understand what we see - Most of which are related or dependent on each other. To know the size of something we need to know how far away it is, or how big it is in relation to something else. If you see a car, how do you know if it’s a model car or a real car? You would have to see something next to it for perspective. Or know how far away it is. If it’s only a foot away you would know if it’s a full sized car or a model car. But if it was a picture of one and you didn’t know the distance or anything else to compare it to you might not be able to tell.
Memory is probably the most important aspect to vision. If you didn’t know/ remember information you wouldn’t know what anything was. You could see it, but wouldn’t know what it was. When you see something like a flower, you know it’s a flower because you have memories of what flowers look like. You don’t have to know specifics, just relative shape and size and characteristics. Without our memories we would be lost.
In almost every way learning how to paint is like learning how to see. I take Da Vinci’s journals, a lot of which are written to the reader about how to paint, as a guise to understanding the world. Although you might think what he’s saying is about paintings, it’s really about life – most of which is based on vision –which is based on light. He teaches you how to see…
Da Vinci’s take on perspective in painting: “The first thing in painting is that the objects it represents should appear in relief, and that the grounds surrounding them at different distances shall appear within the vertical plane of the foreground of the picture by means of the three branches of perspective, which are: the diminution in the distinctness of the forms of the objects; the diminution in their magnitude; and the diminution in their color. And of these three classes of perspective the first results from the structure of the eye, while the other two are caused by the atmosphere which intervenes between the eye and the objects seen by it. The second essential in painting Is appropriate action and due variety in the figures, so that the men may not all look like brothers.”
I remember the first time I read that. I was like what the hell is he talking about?!. It took a lot of reading, reflection, and thinking to understand. This is where my OCT comes in handy. Although it may not be the only thing on my mind my subconscious is always hard at work. I would wonder why it’s taken so long to finish this book. Or how I would know what to write next, or what to research. How do I know? I don’t have a guide, I’m not in a class room. This isn’t a research paper. How do I know what to do? – I don’t. I’m figuring it out every page of the way.
I remember the second time I read that. I was like wtf is he talking about. I read it again, I thought about it really hard. Hmm. Still didn’t get it. It took months of experience but when I finally read it again. I understood.
He’s saying that things should look like they’re not flat -that they should appear in relief, like they are 3d. That the things around the object you’re painting (or seeing) is within view of the vertical plane of the foreground. Meaning that if something is in front of the object it will be bellow it, if it’s further away – behind it. Like if you’re looking into the distance and see mountains, they are above you or on the top of a photograph. (A river wouldn’t be above the mountains in the sky, they would be bellow the mountains since they are closer) The three branches of perspective are just the ways that our eyes judge distance.
Diminution in the distinctness of the form – The further away an object is, the more blurry it is. Diminution in magnitude is their size in relation to the surroundings; The further something from the observer, the smaller it is compared to its size up close. Third is the diminution in color – the color is brighter the closer it is, and more dull the further away it is. Of the three, the first is because of the actual structure of your eye. The further something is away from you, the harder it is to see its details. The other two are not because of the eye itself but because of the “stuff”/ atmosphere in between the object and your eyes. The moisture in the air, the smog, the clouds, etc. The water in the sky makes colors appear to change – this is why the sky is blue. Due variety and appropriate action are just making sure you don’t paint the same things in the exact same way.
And that’s just one brief description of one short quote from his journals. He has thousands. This also shows how much you really have to know, before you can know more. I could sit and read the same thing over and over again but unless I know what the words mean I wouldn’t be able to figure it out. It’s the difference between remembering the definition of a word for a multiple choice test and writing an essay about what they mean – in your own words. Now try writing a book about it – it takes not just time but understanding everything that’s needed. Not only did I have to teach myself about art and painting and eyes and vision and color and blah blah blah, I had to understand them enough to write a freakin book about them.
All this, just to explain a painting. All this – and I’m only half way there.
Ok so back on subject.
Obviously color plays a huge part in vision. But how do we see color? How can we tell the difference? I remember being in a submarine before and as soon as we got deep enough all the colors of my clothes changed – they lost their intensity almost to black and white. I was younger and didn’t understand why. They told me, but I still didn’t get it. The whole idea of colors in general is strange if you think about it. That things look different because of how light is reflected off them? Then when you realize that we only see a certain range of color and light makes things even more bizarre. What does life really look like anyways? What would it look like when seen with a combination of all the different types of sight?
Color:
There are only truly three colors. Red, Green, and Blue. We can perceive 7million combinations which create separate colors but they are still only the combination of the three main colors. RGB
In the last year I’ve realized that most of life can be divided into three different things that can be represented by these colors. Red being Positive, the aggressor. Blue being the negative, the passive. And Green being the mediator, the thing that brings them together – the neutral. You can’t have the good and the bad without something to relate it too – usually you. It’s the conscious decision or the thing doing the comparing of two things. The sun is red, water is blue, plants are green. The sun & water combining create plants. Red is the sperm, blue is the egg. Green is the compulsion and allowance for one to reach the other. Etc. This will be the basis for my attempt at the “theory for everything” Which seems to be the goal for every great thinker and scientist. I’m calling it “Existent Philosophy”
You’ll see a lot
of red, green, and blue in Da Vinci’s art. Think about what they
mean and why he would use them when and where he does. It almost
always has some meaning. Something I made when going a lil’ “Crazy” I was trying to make a graph that described life. The purpose being to reach the upper right field, and stay there without crossing over – staying at the most ideal location, emotion, or ___ without having too much of it to ruin it. Think of it like Ying and Yang. You can’t have one without the other or it wouldn’t be. So the goal would be to have as much ying and still keeping the yang. Where you go on the graph is up to you. But it’s a lot easier to fall, than to climb. Anyways… v
Like I said we have rods and cones in our eyes. There are about 7 million cones in our retina. Each of them is sensitive to a different region of the color range. 64 % Red, 32% Green, 2% Blue.
Recently we’ve been able to take the first pictures of the living human retina. These pictures revealed some very interesting findings. We don’t all see in the same way. There are different variations in the proportions of red green and blue receptors. This means that if you see the same picture as someone else, they’re going to physically see something slightly different. But some how we all perceive the same thing – or so we’d assume. It’s like how everyone see’s something online a little different because we all have slightly different monitors, video cards, and settings on both. You’ve probably come across the frustrating experience of printing off pictures that look different than how they did on the computer.
I can’t help but wonder, as I did before reading about the variety in cone sensitivity, that we all see in slightly different ways. Not just because we all have different eyes, but because we all have different minds. How could an Indian from deep in the jungle of South America have the same type of vision or understanding of vision as a painter in New York? Someone who’s seen billions of pictures throughout their life vs someone who has never seen a single photograph? It’s probably like Da Vinci’s understanding of vision compared to everyone of his time and even our own.
How do we know if we all see the same things in the same way? Most people who are color blind don’t even realize they are unless they’re tested or it becomes a problem. How do we know if we’re all really seeing the same thing? Maybe we need to ask each other - Do you see what I see? - More often because maybe we don’t.
CONTRAST:
Like I said our eye’s main purpose is to sense light. We don’t actually see objects but the light that is reflected off of them. So when you’re reading this you’re not actually seeing anything but the light that’s being reflected off the page – the contrast between the white background and the black letters. If the letters were also white obviously you wouldn’t be able to see them.
Above I’ve made
something that shows that you’re able to see the contrast between
the same relative “shade.” duh
In the final image I’ve made the contrast between the letters and the background almost the same. You’ll notice how much more difficult it is to perceive the letters actually being there vs. how easy it is when the letters were white. You might also notice that as you look at one side of the rectangle the letters appear to disappear and blend in with the background. This is because we have a concentration of cones in a certain place in our vision. What we see where our eyes are focused (both of them together, and separate) is different than what we see out of the “corner of our eye”
Try this real quick:
As you’re reading this notice how much you can see outside the page. Without moving your eyes or focus or head - how big of a space are you really taking in? Move your hands out as if you’re doing a jumping jack – how far can you spread them until they are outside your range of sight? Move them in and away till you can perceive your range. Isn’t it interesting to notice, to become aware, of how much you are really seeing? That although you’re only usually noticing one specific thing, you’re really seeing so much more than that?
Another thing to consider which you can expand upon to your advantage is speed reading. It has everything to do with vision and your perception. As you’re reading this you’re probably going from one or two words to the next. If you can remember learning how to read you probably remember how you’ve evolved from going from sounding out each letter in a word to recognizing the whole thing.
Mmmmooonnnnnnaaaaallllleeeeeeessssssssahhhhhhh
Mona Lisa. M o n a l i s a
But as you’re able to recognize words as whole units you can go from reading letters to whole words. Instead of going from letter to letter you go from word to word. Then eventually some will go from words to sentences.
Read this sentence. This is short. This is easy. This could be read in one “chunk” of information. How many 0’s are in each line?
00000000000000000 000000000000 0000 000 00 0
You probably have to count how many o’s are in the first line, but as they get smaller you just recognize oooo is 4 ooo is 3 oo is 2 o is one. You can teach yourself to be able to recognize numbers as patterns. E.g. You’d be able to recognize bigger chunks of information at once.
You know how they
say a picture is worth a thousand words? Two of My Budgies. Check out Ryan Reynolds parrot research. It’s very cool
You can instantly, in one glance, get a lot of information from this picture. Maybe not a thousand words per say, but a lot. You could get even more if it were in color. You don’t have to go word by word or pixel by pixel – you see it as one image. If you looked at it once and had to close your eyes and describe it you could. Now if you think about this paragraph in the same way – that it’s taking up the same amount of space – why can’t you do the same?
Actually you could. You just haven’t learned how. You were taught to read one word at a time and probably haven’t tried to expand on that. Speed reading is teaching yourself to read bigger chunks of information at a time. Instead of going word by word you learn to see and read the whole paragraph. After all you’re still able to see it in its entirety; it just requires time to go word to word. Once you’re able to break that habit you can read things a lot faster. You also have to learn to not “say” the words subconsciously with your vocal chords. Usually when you read you’ll say them with your mouth – it’s very hard to stop. We learned to read that way. I think it would be beneficial to teach this type of reading at a young age to avoid the difficulties of breaking those bad habits later in life. They slow you down a lot. I still have to sing the alphabet song most of the time, I need to re-learn it without the song! The first way you learn something embeds it deeper in your mind. That goes for all kinds of things! Religion, perception, spelling, math, etc.
In short, you could try to teach yourself to see pages of words instead of reading one word at a time.
The next way we decipher what we see is:
DISTANCE:
Distance can be relatively difficult to judge. You’ve probably found it hard to guess exactly how far away something can be. “Oh it’s about 3 blocks” Or it’s “just around the corner” Distance is measured in all kinds of ways; miles, centimeters, hands, feet, inches, etc. It doesn’t really matter what you call it as long as the distance is understood. For example the space between A to B.
A....................B Is 20 .’s the . is the unit of measurement. Looking at this example it’s easy to determine the distance between A and B because you can see each dot/ period. BUT the units can be of varying distances. In the examples on the next page you’ll see what I mean.
There are still 20 unites between A and B but the distances are different. One is about 2 inches, and the other is 20 feet. But how could you know for sure without being there? You use your memory to “guesstamate” from what you can remember about the size of a flower.
Although it takes up the same distance on this page, in each photo the distance between A and B are very different. Also consider how the Distance between A and B would change depending on which part of the picture they’re placed. The higher up and the further away from the camera – the more distance between them.
Something significant to consider from this is trying to improve this aspect of vision within yourself. If I was to ask how long a foot is, you could get pretty close. But anything shorter or longer than that would require more knowledge. It’s definitely within our abilities to gauge distance with uncanny accuracy, but it’s a skill you need to work on. A lot of people will only understand distance as it relates to something else. A football field, a car, how far the grocery store is. It’s something very good to develop as it will come in handy very often throughout your life.
It also shows how important memory is in relation to distance. You have to remember relative sizes of things to know how far away they are if you aren’t given any other information. If you’re looking at something in real life (as opposed to a picture) then you can gauge the distance by how far away it is from you.
Color is also related to distance. The further away something is the less colorful it will be. Shape is also related because it becomes less conspicuous the further away it is. Like I said these are related and somewhat dependent on each other – they work together.
SHAPE:
It’s not surprising that shapes are the staple of early education, they are the staple of vision. We know a lot about something based on its shape. They can be simple;
Or more complex:
Although you recognize the picture to be of my eye, it’s only because you remember what shapes make up an eye. You’ll notice that within more complex shapes are more simple ones. In an eye there are circles within circles. Our brains look for and recognize shapes, although we have to learn the names for the various shapes – we know what they are almost instinctually. A baby can recognize what a face is, what eyes are, and smile without ever being taught. How?
There comes a time when geometry is not enough and we graduate to symbols.
Symbols:
Symbols are very complex but easily recognizable shapes.
A B C E D F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Letters and numbers are both just shapes, but shapes with meaning. A circle by itself might not hold any significant meaning, but a ring would.
Although all of the above could be considered to be circles, Each can also have a separate meaning. A moon, a ring, a bowling ball, a face, a zero, or an O. How can you tell the difference?
Symbols are shapes that represent a meaning. These are obviously dependent on your memory. You might not know the symbol of a bowling bowl if you’ve never seen one.
To someone who doesn’t know Chinese, the above just looks like squiggles. It really means “Calmness” Although you know what Calmness is, you don’t recognize it in Chinese. We don’t have a single symbol for it, we have 8 letters which makes a single symbol. It’s pretty amazing if you think about it.
The greatest example of this is this sentence itself. Each letter is just a shape that represents a letter. Each word is a combination of shapes to represent a single meaning. Each sentence is a combination of words to represent a combined meaning. Its memory that plays the biggest role in our vision – again, without it we would be lost.
Here are a couple exercises to get you seeing.
Blind Spot:
Close your left eye and focus on the square with your right eye. Move your head closer and then away from the shape until the circle disappears. Do the same with your left eye as you look at the circle. You’ll see (or not see) the other shape seem to disappear. This is called your blind spot. It happens because of a small absence of rods and cones in the place where your optic nerve is connected to your eye. You might also find it curious that you don’t notice this blind spot normally. You have a little spot in your field of view that is blank but somehow your brain just fills it in subconsciously.
Try this:
Close your eyes and try to think about what your very own face looks like. Can you do it? Why, or why not? Go look in the mirror. Then do it again. It’s almost like our sense of vision becomes desensitized just as much as our sense of smell. If we see the same things for so long we start to think of it differently. What’s visually stunning to one person would be boring to someone who has to see it every day. A compelling image is one that doesn’t get old, it’s timeless and it’s something you can look at without getting bored.
I think the Mona Lisa is one of the best examples of this ever created. She’s captivating - not because of her beauty but because of what our eyes can’t see or perceive- The information that our brains aren’t fully capable of realizing. (You can’t know what you don’t know) Almost how we can’t control how we transfer and store images our eyes process. Again -Vision is linked to memory very closely. What would our vision be without the memories we have to understand what we see? That’s what perception is, our abilities to comprehend what our senses and memory are putting together.
Now that you roughly understand the physical dynamics behind what you see it’s time to put things into perspective.
Sometimes what we see and what we think we saw are two totally different things. If we don’t have a memory - or can’t understand an image that we’re seeing - it’s hard to remember or comprehend what we’ve seen. It’s why someone who’s never seen a goat might think it’s a dog until they perceive the differences. This might explain a lot of ghost and ufo sightings. If you don’t have an idea of what something might be, you’ll just assume it’s something you do know. A bear standing on two legs might be mistaken for a yeti. A reflection off a cloud might be considered an alien space ship. Remember that UFO doesn’t mean “aliens” it means Unidentifiable Flying Object. It’s just a word to describe something that no one could figure out what it really was. UFO’s definitely exist – the real question is why can’t they be identified? Or better yet, what is flying them? You might find it interesting that there is a group of people that created something called the “disclosure project” whose goal is to enlighten the public to the presence and reality of UFO’s. They have hundreds of accounts from military and reputable sources that verify the phenomena. Like I said, there are definitely things flying around. The question isn’t if, it’s who! Get ready, we’re living in an amazing time.
Leonardo Da Vinci used a lot of his brain and fine tuned his vision. He was able to see things like we can only imagine. I think he could see the world as Hellen Keller did and more. I know after looking at his paintings for hours on end I could even start to see things differently myself.
It reminds me of the different stages of growing up. We’re able to perceive things differently as we get older. When you roll a ball under a babies crib it will think that it has “disappeared” but eventually as their perception of the world increases they’ll understand that it just rolled underneath. Babies can’t perceive “under” until a certain point of their development.
I think there are new levels of perception very few people have ever tried to develop like Da Vinci did. The ability to draw, to paint, to mentally come up with new ideas – creativity. If you think about the stages of growing up and how differently we perceive the world at different ages (perspectives) then it makes you wonder if there is a limit – or more importantly if we’ve reach it. That’s why it’s important to keep learning and bettering yourself. You should be constantly trying to reach a new perspective until you reach the ultimate, death, and you no longer have a choice.
On a basic level I think The Mona Lisa is encompassing a new medium. With his painting techniques he was able to trick our eyes into seeing things that we didn’t know were there. That’s why it looks like she’s following you with her eyes and changing her expressions – it’s in the shading and how our eyes are looking at it. You know those pictures you can blur your eyes at and things pop out? It’s the same idea – as you un-focus your eyes they’ll refocus on new images! That’s why it’s so hard to agree on her facial expressions, they change the more you look at them. Like I said there are certain clusters of rods and cones that give us better focus – where we focus. Try staring at the Mona Lisa – she will change and seem to move as if she’s alive.
Here are some exercises you can do that will help you train your eyes.
Crossing Training: You can start by slowly crossing your eyes and trying to control how fast they cross. Stopping, going slower and faster, and then uncrossing (diverging) as well. Be careful it can strain your eyes muscles if you've never done it before. Only do it for very short periods at a time and work your way up!
Try crossing different dots in different ways and then going back.
Dilation Training: This is easiest to do in a mirror. It's basically blurring your vision. The sensation is like crossing your eyes but only slightly - enough to blur them but not cause them to cross. What's happening is that you're focusing on something that isn't there -at various distances from the front of your face. Hold your finger in front of your face at arms length and then bring it close to your nose while keeping your focus on the tip of your finger. You'll notice that the "background" of your field of view doubles, but your finger stays as one until a certain point in front of your face - about an inch in front of your nose. Then you see two. The goal is to do this same thing but without the finger there. Your eyes are just focusing at different distances in front of you but not necessarily dilating. To work on the dilation it's best to work on one eye at a time. Cover one eye with your hand and then try to get your vision to blur. Like I said it's the same sensation as crossing your eyes. So as you have one eye covered try to cross your eyes but without letting them cross - the goal is to keep the eye itself from "Crossing" or moving, but your vision to blur. Soon you'll be able to blur your eyes without crossing them. The next step is to get really close to a mirror and look at your pupil. Then try the same thing and watch your pupil get smaller and bigger. You'll eventually be able to control it! It can be very irritating and frustrating the first couple times, it takes a lot of practice. Basically just stare at one of your pupils in the mirror and try to make it get bigger and smaller. You have to learn to recognize the particular sensation/ feeling that controls them.
Stereo Pairs These are called "Stereo Pairs" I made them myself. They're created by taking a picture and then taking another one with a slight shift to the left or the right about the distance between each eye. I would look through the lens and inside my camera are focus points - I would keep my head still, take the picture with the camera through one eye. Then without moving, move the camera to my other eye and make sure the center focus was in the same spot and take another picture. The result are two images that are very similar but different enough to enable your brain to process them as 3-dimentional.
This is what it looks like with both images combined together with a computer. Where it's blurry is where they are different from each other. Your brain takes those areas and perceives them at different depths - thus you see them in 3d! It's really cool if you think about it. This is how shows why you see the world in 3d and enables you to see depth. This is also why sometimes people who are blind in one eye are not allowed to drive. They don't know how far things are in front of them.
Cross the two images into one and they’ll turn 3d.
"Here [in the eye] forms, here colours, here the character of every part of the universe are concentrated to a point; and that point is so marvellous a thing ... Oh! marvellous, O stupendous Necessity--by thy laws thou dost compel every effect to be the direct result of its cause, by the shortest path. These [indeed] are miracles;... In so small a space it can be reproduced and rearranged in its whole expanse. Describe in your anatomy what proportion there is between the diameters of all the images in the eye and the distance from them of the crystalline lens. "
STEREOGRAMS
It’s those who have to overcome a problem, that helps differentiate themselves from everyone else. When there isn’t a problem to overcome, people usually don’t even think about it. It’s those who have difficulty with something, who have to understand it better than everyone else who truly “know” something. Rembrandt had a lazy eye. This disability and making up for it led to one of the greatest painters who has ever lived.
It wasn’t someone who saw in a better way than everyone else that discovered 3d, it was someone who could not that did. In his quest to understand something he could not perceive, he discovered someone new. Stereogram’s weren’t “invented” (or noticed) until 1838. Charles Wheatstone figured them out when he was trying to describe binocular depth perception. The distance between each eye -It’s why we see in “3d.”
Interestingly in my research I’ve found that Da Vinci was completely aware of this phenomenon. (see quote on previous pages) Sorry Charlie, your discovery was already discovered long before you did. In some of the images I’ve created they’ve shown the same characteristics as stereograms. I’ve also found that Da Vinci used the “crossing of the eyes” technique in much of his art and drawings. If you cross your eyes while looking at his “Annunciation” painting you’ll see the angel touching Mary’s stomach and Mary’s hand on its shoulder.
Think of it like a stereo pair, but within one single image.
It’s interesting because this painting which is called the “Annunciation” depicts the biblical scene of an angel telling Mary she will give birth to Jesus. So the hand on the belly is more than a simple coincidence. If you do it with your eyes (instead of with a computer) it actually works better and you can see that it was designed to be viewed this way. The angels hand actually appears to move when it gets near the belly.
In this one, which has been mirrored and then crossed, you’ll see the angel sitting on Mary’s leg.
I realized this independently and don’t know if anyone else has ever noticed this. I’ve found other paintings that have this same propensity but nothing about it written anywhere. This might be a secret between artists. Sorry guys! I’ve noticed it very often once I knew to look for it. Anytime you see something that’s parallel to something else – then you might be surprised what happens when you cross your eyes
THE LAST SUPPER
Considered the second most famous painting in the world; The Last Supper, is a prime example of this eye crossing technique. It’s worthy of its own book but I’ll at least demonstrate what I’ve found. Interestingly it supports what Dan Brown was getting at his book: The Da Vinci Code. What I present next is what’s being displayed in a PAINTING which only really demonstrates the opinion of the original artist- Leonardo Da Vinci.
Did Da Vinci know for sure that Jesus had a wife and child or was it just his opinion? That is for others to figure out. I don’t want to get into that with this book. The only thing I’ll say about it beyond what’s being shown in Da Vinci’s art is that he was a very wise man and intent on truth – not lies. Would it matter if Jesus was married and had a child? Does that make him any less of a person or more of one? Was he really the son of man or the son of a God? He claimed both. The only thing I know about Jesus for sure is that he’s helped the world realize that love and forgiveness and compassion are more important than anything else. His message was true and clear but the details about his life are not. Especially the first 30 years – pretty convenient.
The Last Supper cannot be fully seen without crossing your eyes. Both mirrored and not. Once you do you’ll see the painting almost come to life as an animation. Although some might argue that this is just coincidence I assure you it is not. This is a clue that Da Vinci intended for this painting to be viewed by crossing your eyes;
You’ll see by the hand expression that it’s like he’s taking the bread from one spot and moving it to the next. This alludes to what you have to do with your eyes. It also explains the hand that’s holding a knife which has no apparent body attached to it. There is also a drawing Da Vinci made when preparing for this painting that shows a set of fingers walking across the table.
It would be difficult to explain at the moment without spending hours analyzing each “frame” the crossing makes. This will be saved for another book but so far I’ve confirmed that the person sitting next to Jesus is a woman and has a child – at least in the context of this painting.
It’s difficult to see at these sizes but as the painting is crossed over on itself the characters appear to be passing and holding a baby. There are very distinctive hand positions to holding a baby and these appear in front of “Mary” and the other characters.
As the painting crosses itself the characters combine and form new facial expressions and even form new people. The green tie on the character on the far left combines over the faces of many of the others and creates a mask. That was the first thing I noticed when trying this technique. Like I said it would take hours of examination and knowing the story behind each character and knowledge of the bible and this scene I don’t have.
Some things I have noticed that no one seems to have (even Mr. Brown) which seemed fairly obvious are these;
In this copy of the painting you might notice that the hand isn’t gesturing threateningly as some might think but it’s actually pulling back the shirt and pointing to where the characters Adams apple would be. Why? There is also a shaded indentation where the Adams apple “Should” be as well.
The face of this character also matches up with the face of Mary from Da Vinci’s painting “Virgin on the Rocks”
And curiously both faces appear to be looking down at a baby. In the virgin on the rocks she definitely is. And you might notice it’s the same expression in The Last Supper. They also have the expression you’d expect of a mother looking at her baby.. Remember how I said there were only 3 colors? RGB, and that they are symbols for Positive, Negitive, and Neutral. You’ll notice the red and blue contrast with Jesus’s clothes and the person to his right. Where “She” is looking down is, Green. Green is the color that represents a baby, the red being the father, and blue – the mother.
It’s all in the details.
Again these are just observations from a painting and not real life. I have no doubt that Da Vinci intended and designed for the painting to show this but whether it is true or not isn’t my prerogative.
The painting started to fall apart before Da Vinci died and the details are almost completely lost. The main themes are intact and can be seen when you cross the painting on itself but the slight details that would have told the story better are barely there and were restored by other artists. I’ll leave this for another book and for people who wish to pursue it further. It requires both a change of perspective and perception to appreciate. How did he do it? That is Genius! I also think this demonstrates he was able to mirror an image on itself in his mind – it’s definitely not impossible.
Even more
intriguing isn’t what happens when you cross your eyes within the
painting itself but what happens when you combine the painting with
its mirrored form. The top two are the same image. As you combine them with your eyes (by crossing them) it will cause one version of events – an animation. You can also cross your eyes from within one copy of the painting by crossing from one side of the table to the other. – When you cross the second set of images which is the last supper and a mirrored version of the last supper it creates a different more abstract animation which is entirely different. Just imagine the immense planning and brain power required to both think of this, and then execute it – wall sized no less.. There is also another clue within the painting hinting at it being viewed yet another way. There is a cup on its side on the walls within the painting. I believe this is there to make you think of doing what I’m about to show you. First turning the painting into a square. Then rotating it 90 degrees. You’ll see what look to be cartoons going from the center to the top as if being viewed from the top of stairs. Each step being the next step in a series of the “cartoon.”
Here I’ve separated some of the steps. In the image on the next page you can see Jesus holding a baby over his shoulder. Once I can figure out exactly how to process this I guarantee it will make an animation!
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