Painting Is A Guessing Game

Ernst Gombrich stressed the paradox of making and seeing a three dimensional sensation on a two dimensional plane.  He called this essential the problem of naturalism, of realism.  The solution lies understanding in how we construct  our vision, our view of our world. It lies in making a 2D construction into which we can project or  guess what we are seeing. It’s what we do in the three dimensional visual world therefore, converting the experience to two dimensions will work if we borrow some of the same mental construction principles. For example,  there is the principle of overlapping or occlusion which means that anything that blocks our view we conclude must be closer than the territory or object that is being blocked. We also learn that objects have continuity while their view is being blocked.  This is known as the Poggendorf illusion.  There are many other learned visual construction principles such as, degradation of  focus over distance and from the center of vision, diminishing size of objects over distance,  and color shifts over distance. They are also a function of  our previous experience. We access our stored memory when making a guess about the identity of someone or something or someplace. If we don’t have it on the menu of stored memory then, we won’t  guess it. And, we always make a guess. Because our experience and memory are limited our guesses are incomplete or sometimes wrong. But, we still continue to guess, nevertheless.  Our guessing works through anticipation. We expect to see  something and search for confirmation.  Without contradictory evidence we believe our guess.  Paintings work because they allow and encourage us to reasonably guess. We look at a painting and, if the overall sensation is unified in touch and  the relative quality of resolution then, we accept the painting as not offering contradictory evidence. We believe our guess.  Many a student of mine will walk up to a painting and respond by saying  “Is that a…..(fill in the blank) .” I respond by saying to them that by asking the question they have already revealed their guess and,  their guess is always right, at least until they accumulate  enough evidence to change their guess.  The role of the painting is to provide a tableau into which the viewer can enjoy throwing their guesses, making projections from their stored memory.  The painting may offer enough ambiguity to sustain the activity of guessing.  Too much ambiguity and the viewer only feels confused in the presence of threatening chaos. Too little ambiguity and the guessing is too easy. There is no reason to keep looking. Titles can lead the viewer’s guessing.  Here is an example (example 1). I have titled the painting ” Koi Swim Among  Shadows.”  I have seen people look perplexed in front of  this painting until I give them the title which provides enough mental anchorage to sustain their attention. Otherwise the painting seemed to them to be too obtuse, too chaotic to their reward looking. Take a look at example  2. I will tell you it’s origins later. You guess first.

example 1.

example 2.

Now that you’ve had time to examine example 2 you may have already made a guess, a projection from your stored memory. The image is the result of night photography of  traffic in a narrow downtown Boston street.

In Example 3.  I give you a scene of trees by Gustav Klimt  (example 3) and a later one by  Joan Mitchell (example 4). Knowing  that the Mitchell’s  work is of foliage and trees because her  title refers to the  Parisian Garden of the Tuileries, (her  title is  Le Grand Vallee VII)  helps us sustain our looking and broadens our category  of trees. She has expanded how our experience of  trees can be summoned in paint.  We will now go out and look at trees differently.

example 3.

example 4.

Finally, in my painting on aluminum in example 5,   are trees as seen when  inverted in a reflection and confused by both the subtle motions of a small vernal pool and the effects of transparency revealing other matter ( rocks? leaves?) beneath the reflections.

example 5. .