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The Artist's Eyes: Vision and the History of Art

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In "The Artist's Eyes: Vision and the History of Art", Michael Marmor (a professor on the faculty of the Stanford School of Medicine and an acknowledged expert in retinal physiology and disease) has teamed up with opthamologist James Ravin to produce a unique approach and perspective on the role of vision and eye disease in the creation of art and the perceptions of the artists. Examining art history through the framework of the biology of human vision, "The Artist's Eyes" is organized into informed and informative chapters dealing with the eye as an optical instrument, coding and contrast, color and its limitations, perspective and illusion, the 'aging eye', external eye disease, as well as cataract and glaucoma, retinal disease. Of special note is the concluding chapter 'The Artist's View' focusing upon the work of Degas and Monet with respect to stimulating vision. Enhanced with an extensive bibliography and a comprehensive index, "The Artist's Eyes" is profusely illustrated with 175 full-color illustrations. The result is a welcome and enthusiastically recommended addition to academic and community Art History reference collections, as well as supplemental reading lists for art students and non-specialist general readers with an interest in art, artists, and art history.

THE ARTIST'S EYES: VISION AND HISTORY IN ART is an illuminating book written with intelligence and considerable insight by Drs. Michael Marmor and James Ravin who share the common threads of interest in their study of vision and the anatomy and physiology and function of the eye and their passion for art. The result is a book of great interest for scientists, art collectors, art historians, and student and practicing artists. The authors have presented the aspects of vision - the normal visual perception and all of its variations (astigmatism, nearsightedness, farsightedness, changes with age, use and lack of use of corrective lenses, diseases of the eye (glaucoma, cataracts, etc), and diseases of the body (metal poisoning, infection, drugs side effects, etc) that alter the manner in which the eye perceives and object. According to Cezanne 'Monet is only an eye, but what an eye!' and 'The sky is blue, no? It is Monet who discovered that.' Such quips are dusted throughout this fascinating book on how the eye functions and fails to function.

Divided into chapters or sections that deal with variations of normal vision, each of these sections features artists whose impairments altered the way they viewed their subjects. 'Why do Georges Seurat's paintings appear to shimmer? Why is it that the eyes in certain portraits seem to follow you around the room? Are the broad brushstrokes in Monet's Water Lilies due to cataracts? Could van Gogh's magnificent yellows be a result of drugs? How does eye disease affect the artistic process? Or does it at all?' The authors discuss artists from Rembrandt to Chuck Close with the bulk of exploration being with the Impressionists - a fitting group to study as they were presenting impressions of the world through their eyes and less concerned with the camera obscura detail that fascinated earlier artists. A description of the effects of bilateral cataracts on Monet's painting is one of the longer episodes in this book: 'I no longer perceived colours with the same intensity, I no longer painted light with the same accuracy. Reds appeared muddy to me, pinks insipid, and the intermediate or lower tones escaped me. As for forms, they always appeared clear and I rendered them with the same decision. At first I tried to be stubborn. How many times ... have I stayed for hours under the harshest sun sitting on my campstool, in the shade of my parasol, forcing myself to resume my interrupted task and recapture the freshness that had disappeared from my palette! Wasted efforts. What I painted was more and more dark, more and more like an 'old picture', and when the attempt was over I compared it to former works, I would be seized by a frantic rage and slash all my canvases with my penknife.'

At times the writing feels as though the artistic gifts of the artists discussed are too categorically described by disease or dysfunction of vision. Doubtless it added to the way they painted, but does it explain the special gifts of expression that have guaranteed them a place in visual history? There is a point when the arts can be 'explained ' by scientific method but beyond that is the quality of genius that filled the brains and hands of these gifted men, with or without perfect vision.

The book is rich in illustrations - of anatomy, of visual information, and of both details and various stages of paintings by the artists discussed. It makes for a great read! Grady Harp, July 11

Unusual approach to "looking at art". Great info on well-known artists and their view of the world as they painted it. A bit heavy on technique, but worth a good read if you're up to it. Marmor and Ravin did an "insightful" job here!

The authors explain how the eye works and examine the paintings of many artists to illustrate several things: the use of perceptual knowledge in creating the painting, the presence or lack of eye disease in the use of distortion, shading, colors. Each chapter deals with a different facet of visual perception and how it is employed in painting. A book for someone interested in the way artists create. Many fine illustrations.