Lightness and Brightness and Other Confusions

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Zeki goes on to say to say that Monet was in fact trying to bypass the phenomenon of colour constancy that is an integral and natural part of our visual mechanism. When Monet painted a series of some thirty paintings of the façade of Rouen Cathedral, he turned his attention to the changes of perceived colour arising from the different illuminations and weather conditions. Zeki says that he was able to achieve this astonishing series by his supreme ‘cerebral powers’, or one might say, visual intellect. According to Zeki, Monet was “…using the knowledge in his brain to deliberately paint something that departed from what he was actually seeing.” (Ibid.) Zeki argues, that Monet was, in fact, working in precisely the opposite way to how he had had wished in his conversation with Clemenceau. Instead of attending to what the eye ‘sees’ only, he used his memory (Monet finished the works in his studio) and his knowledge of light, accumulated over a lifetime of painting outdoors. Paul Gauguin is reported as exclaiming that Monet painted with his eye, but, Great God, what and eye! This famous quote presupposes modes of attention that deploy different parts, indeed different levels, of the eye–brain mechanism. What Zeki is saying is that to see and to depict objects as remaining constant in colour despite substantial changes in their illumination is natural to us. To do otherwise requires a special mode of attention that demands a trained eye and brain. Zeki concludes that “Perhaps it would be better to say that ‘Monet painted with his brain but, Great God, what a brain.’ ” (Zeki 2002, p. 215). To paint like Monet requires both living perception and the reflective attitude – an awareness and apprehension of the difference between the two. The parts and the whole We do not see or perceive space as spectators of events unfolding before us; neither is our visual experience of space an exploration of stimuli waiting to be revealed to us. We experience space as active participants; our spatial experience is created in the interaction of outer stimuli, our intentionality and our actions. 43 Our intentionality has many levels: the personal, the social and the biogenetic. The biogenetic intentionality stems from the process of natural selection that has moulded our species into what it is. This intentionality governs our ecology, which in turn impresses on – and sets constraints on – how we see and perceive. Seeing is the integration of our perceptions into a total visual experience. In order to try and understand spatial experience, object recognition and the perception of colour and light, we can try to break down and analyze this totality into its components. This can be done in many ways, but not all of them contribute to a deepening of the understanding of the human experience of light colour and space. We need many approaches to understand how we see and experience space, light and colour. Some of these are of necessity 43 See: Noë 2004. 42
highly specialized and focused – and sometimes quite abstract – in their scope. They, however, need to be integrated into a holistic understanding of the human experience in order to gain meaning. When we walk in the street or forest, we are able to perceive a multitude of features and integrate them into the experience of seeing. These features are interlaced as details and layers that we are able to examine also separately without destroying the experience of the whole. External stimuli and internal intentions direct our attention from one layer of perception to another. Our attention moves freely between layers and details while our experience of the world remains constant. We are able to separate the invariant and constant quality of the colours of objects and surfaces from the ever-changing and inconstant quality of lighting. From these we are able to apprehend the quality of the light and the atmosphere afforded by its variations. This apprehension is an essential component of the aesthetic experience of the world. 44 44 See also Natural Experience and Physical Abstractions in this volume. 43
Page 5: Contents Foreword .................
Page 8 and 9: faculties. It is therefore most fit
Page 10 and 11: We are left with the paint chip. He
Page 12 and 13: The domain of colour psychophysics
Page 14 and 15: greater than the smallest colour di
Page 16 and 17: involved. It is worth mentioning th
Page 18 and 19: Ulf Klarén Natural Experiences and
Page 20 and 21: that without “benefit of logic”
Page 22 and 23: er of mental categories perceptions
Page 24 and 25: ence derives its origin from multip
Page 26 and 27: oth for perception of lightness (Gi
Page 28 and 29: knowledge constitutes logical knowl
Page 30 and 31: INDIRECT EXPERIENCE culturally tran
Page 32 and 33: tinctions and colour similarities.
Page 34 and 35: References Baumgarten, Gottlieb (19
Page 36 and 37: Harald Arnkil Seeing and Perceiving
Page 38 and 39: ception is entirely integrated with
Page 40 and 41: parallel lines although they almost
Page 42 and 43: What Gregory is saying is that at t
Page 46 and 47: References Billger, Monica (1999).
Page 48 and 49: Light and colour as experienced thr
Page 50 and 51: conventional concepts, which can be
Page 52 and 53: could be called the constancy colou
Page 54 and 55: colours yellow, red, blue and green
Page 56 and 57: etween about 380 and 780 nm, which
Page 58 and 59: Cadmium Red 1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 4
Page 60 and 61: meaning of the word to be more corr
Page 62 and 63: Examples of photometric concepts an
Page 64 and 65: Examples of colorimetric concepts a
Page 66 and 67: Figure 15. Visual measuring of nomi
Page 68 and 69: References Billger, M. (1999). Colo
Page 70 and 71: Especially problematic is the situa
Page 72 and 73: continually confused with each othe
Page 74 and 75: W 05 10 20 30 40 50 C 60 90 70 80 7
Page 76 and 77: elation to the light source or obse
Page 78 and 79: ecause the lower reflectance of p i
Page 80 and 81: and religious symbolism. It is also
Page 82 and 83: Munsell’s principal hues and Heri
Page 84 and 85: As the inks developed the three-pri
Page 86 and 87: David Hubel has proposed that the f
Page 88 and 89: any hue is one of constant value. I
Page 90 and 91: saturation, taken together, and is
Page 92 and 93: Discussion From all of this one may
Page 94 and 95:
The real colours of objects To see
Page 96 and 97:
measured either trichromatically wi
Page 98 and 99:
Inherent, identity and nominal colo
Page 100 and 101:
uniformly coloured. Colour variatio
Page 102 and 103:
flexibility is a natural part of th
Page 104 and 105:
About the Authors Harald Arnkil is
Page 106 and 107:
Hardin wrote the book for philosoph
Page 108 and 109:
- system 9-10, 13, 22, 29, 49, 51-
Page 110 and 111:
- colour 8, 24-25, 30, 42, 49-50, 5
Page 112:
110
show all

Lightness and Brightness and Other Confusions

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?