Painting
is reborn…….Enter the new awareness of Stereo Space and a New Aesthetics
…
….The centuries long conquest of plastic forms within a monoscopic pictorial space is ended… …..A new era lies ahead for the visual arts…….The living third dimensional space-field awaits its birth. It asks nothing more than the trance-like stare of the middle eye to invoke Cyclops to waken from his 35,000 year sleep. This primeval giants reward will be the sudden revelation and witness to the dematerialization of the picture surface into an aesthetics of pure space where visible forms will materialize and release themselves—forms that are suspended, floating, hovering, poised, driving backward and forward, near enough to touch and far enough away to escape into the void………...So now enter a new aesthetic empathy, meditation, subjective intensity and an unparalleled form-space generation and communication. All
of this exciting injunction could have been declared 134 years ago had
it not been for the invention of photography. But at that
time, 1838, the full investigation of form within the limits of the
monoscopic surface had not yet been fully realized: the genius
of Cezanne, Picasso, Braque, Duchamp, Balla, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy,
Pollach and Escher lay ahead. Awaiting the future, too, would
be the subjection of the picture plane to the forces of sculpture with
such explosive consequences that our galleries and museums are graveyard
and garden of plastic visual forms rented from the ribs of paintings.
Looking back to 1838, one gazes with astonishment at the paper presented
to the philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London on
June 21, 1838 by Charles Wheatstone. Entitled “ON SOME REMARKABLE
AND HITHERTO UNOBSERVED, PHENOMENA OF BINOCULAR OF BINOCULAR VISION”,
this paper must now be recognized as describing one of the most remarkable
techno-visual discoveries in the 35,000 years of the History of Art.
This paper revealed a discovery as stunning as were the great polychrome
visions painted by Magdalenian artists. Its contents were
as innovative as was the first portrayal of overlapping planes and depth
by the great neolithic cultures. It’s thesis was a powerful as
the conquest of the third dimension rendered by Greek and Pompeian painters
as focused in the Villa of Mysteries—yes, as revolutionary as was Brunelleshi’s
invention of the laws of perspective and Campin’s and Van Eyck’s development
of the oil medium in the early hours of the 15th century—even
as momentous for our twentieth century as were the shattered and re-combined
forms of the Cubists and the pioneers who explored “simultaneity”, psychic
symbolism and free association. (1)
 Fig. 1 Returning to 1838, to Wheatstones stereoscopic drawings in the light of what was to boil out of Paris and London by Turner, Constable, Delacroix, Corot, Daguerre, Plateau, and to the oncoming tide of Courbet Manet, Monet, Seurat and Cezanne, one can be stirred by the lonely singular event portrayed in the stereoscopic drawing of two cubes by Wheatstone (Fig.1). If it meant little at the time to artists, too shocked by Daguerres “sun-pictures” and Talbot’s “The Pencil of Nature”, it now means the eclipse of our monoscopic view of the picture surface as a staging arena for plastic form and the beginning of a new space aesthetics of air, light, form, color—all discharged into the openness of windowless space. Now
awakened from its long sleep, the discovery by Wheatstone of the psycho-optical
consequences of our binocular vision of reality, one sees that this
is but the product of our two spaced-out eyes rendering two different
retinal views of forms in the visual field. Two views, however,
brought into a cyclopean fusion by the mind to render a profound single
spatial awareness of reality—as reality is. Aware of this phenomenal
rendering, Wheatstone wrote:
“It
will now be obvious why it is impossible for the artist to give a faithful
representation of any near solid object, that is, to produce a painting
which shall not be distinguished in the mind from the object itself.
When the painting and the object are seen with both eyes, in the case
of the painting two similar pictures are projected on the retinae,
in the case of the solid object the pictures are dissimilar;
there is therefore an essential difference between the impressions on
the organs of sensation in the two cases, and consequently between the
perceptions formed in the mind; the painting therefore cannot be confounded
with the solid object.” (2)
Despite
this remarkable achievement and prescience of Wheatstone, all of the
progress and innovative developments of painters to his time (and yes,
ours) to arrive at “a painting which shall not be distinguished in
the mind from the object itself”—all were doomed to failure in spite
of the incredible monoscopic illusionist successes of Van Eyck, Raphael,
Heda, Zurbaran and Harnett.
 It
remained for Wheatstone to make the singular discovery that when we
view a cube which is set before us and when we close one eye and then
the other, it is apparent that we see two distinctly different appearances
of the cube. While corroborations of this fact can be traced back
through illustrious writings of Francis Agullonius, Baptista Porta,
Leonardo Di Vinci, and even more into the remote past—to Galen and Euclid,
it remained for Wheatstone to produce the first stereo- synthetic form
and the means to achieve a conscious stereopsis of it in the mind.
It must have been an extraordinary moment of insight when he realized
that when two outline drawings representing the binocular view of a
cube might become fused together, then this image would be accepted
by the mind as a concrete solid existing in the same real spatial sense—as
though one could reach out to touch it. Indeed this was
the case. Wheatstone devised a simple mirrored apparatus to aid
the cause of fusing his three-dimensional drawings. He called
this device a Stereoscope (Fig.2). Wheatstone does not
appear to discuss, at any length, the direct vision viewing of stereo
pairs, nor does he suggest that he has delivered to the visual arts
a new revolutionary method. He speaks to this, however, in these
words:“For the purposes of illustration I have employed only outline figures for had higher shading or coloring been introduced it might be supposed that the effect was wholly or in part due to these circumstances, whereas by leaving them out of consideration no room is left to doubt that the entire effect of relief is owing to the simultaneous perception of the two monocular projections, one on each retina.. But if it be required to obtain the most faithful resemblances of real objects, shadowing and coloring may properly be employed to heighten the effects. Careful attention would enable an artist to draw and paint the two component pictures, so as to present to the mind of the observer, in the resultant perception, perfect identity with the object represented. Flowers, crystals, busts, vases, instruments of various kinds, etc., might thus be represented so as not to be distinguished by sight from the real objects themselves” (2) (Fig. 3).
We
must return back to the moment before the photographic stereo view of
reality overwhelmed Wheatstone and his contemporaries. A mere
seven score years is but a moment in the strata of history—but the soil
is now ready. Today we are dealing with the possibilities that
entire orchestrations of color forms can be made to exist synthetically
in a binocular space-field that is itself consonant with reality.
The phenomenon of the Cyclopean Eye which miraculously renders our visions
of the pristine, sylvan landscape now prepares us for the new stereoscopic
art. Oliver Wendell Holmes, speaking in the year 1859, (Atlantic
Monthly) might as well have directed these words to us when he wrote:
“Nothing
but the vision of a Laputan, who passed his days in extracting sunbeams
out of cucumbers, could have reached such a height of delirium as to
rave about the time when a man should paint his miniature by looking
at a blank tablet, and a multitudinous wilderness of forest foliage
or an endless Babel of roofs and spires stamp itself, in a moment, so
faithfully and so minutely, that one may creep over the surface of the
picture with his microscope and find every leaf perfect, or read the
letters of distant signs….just as he would sweep the real view with
a spyglass to explore all that it contains.” (3)
Though
Holmes was referring here to the art of stereo-photography, this augury
is but a stone's throw to an art of pigment, dye and ink. When
the art of stereo-drawing and binocular disparity is mastered, one is
within reach of a totally new aesthetics; an art of undetermined
power—radically different, and basically new, whose only requirement
will involve a capacity at everyone’s disposal who has normal binocular
vision—the converging of lines of sight.
This
will require some examination of our binocular powers of vision.
Two distinctly different projections of outside environments, falling
upon the active retinal screens of both eyes cause the unexplainable,
as yet hidden, power of consciousness to form a coherent, corespondent
synthesis of the outside environment. When we fix our eyes,
in a relaxed manner, upon the most distant reaches of a landscape,
both eyes, are said to be staring with parallel lines of sight.
(Fig. 4) Each eye, under these circumstances, is rendering its
own different view of what might be a line of mountains. We
may say that in the “mind’s eye” the images of the mountains have
coalesced—fused into one image; as though we had an eye in the middle
of our foreheads. In a sense, metaphorically, we have;
we will refer to this as the cyclopean eye. (Hering, “oeil de cyclope
imaginaire,” 1867) Vision
is mainly, however, concerned with convergence. Now as we look
with both our eyes at specific objects located within the binocular
field, from six inches to as far as we can see, we are rotating our
eyes to converge two lines of sight upon an object. Our
eyes can accommodate to focus and converge upon any form, anywhere in
the visual field, with fixed attention, or with saccadic strokes.
A single eye can do just as well, in the sense that the visual field
is formed by the eye into a great cone of space—like a giant cyclone
light flux 150 degrees wide. The eye of the cyclone, at its apex
corresponds to the fovea of the retina which is the seat of our sharpest
vision. One has a view of it by imagining a fine pencil of laser
light emerging from the vanishing point of some self-directed linear
perspective. All of the visual cues available to painters today
to suggest distance and depth are entirely the domain of the single
eye. But when both of these great visual cones converge upon an
object in space—a profound property of vision emerges: stereopsis.
Two retinal screens, not one, signal the cascading light show from outside
the lens window of the eye to the cyclopean eye which opens to consciousness
a psychic field consonant with the binocular field. (Fig. 4)
The more conscious we are of the spatial distinctions within the vastness of this fused, binocular-psychic space, the richer it can be said is our “stereopsis”. The key to our sensation of stereopsis is through two well known factors acting together: Convergence and Disparity. (4)
When both retinal cones converge upon a specific object in space, the eyes have found the range, so to speak, and the mind computes an accurate sense of distance. Binocular convergence involves the fact that our eyes are separated by a width of about 2 ½ inches. With this width serving as a base, our two lines of sight converge upon specific objects in space, spraying a profusion of triangular fixations upon them. With each fixation, a train of focal adjustments for each eye lens issues simultaneously as the eyes fix upon a distant aircraft, a nearby tree, or an ant passing over a leaf. The brain gives a critical evaluation of both factors and computes its sense of definition, distance and scale. Acting in concert with triangulation and focal accommodation is the brains computation of the shifted differences observed in objects that are seen separately by the left and right eye. This is called binocular or retinal disparity. (Parallax-displacement-shift) It is absolutely critical and important to our sensation of depth perception.
By examining Fig. 5, No. 1 to 5, one can easily ascertain the fact that we see everything double except for the area around the foveal point of convergence of the primary lines of sight. Unconsciously, we simply pay little attention to this double vision unless we make a point to observe it as indicated by the diagrams. The mind however, compares and regards this rain of light bombarding the retina, with all its subtended angles and shifts of position, with computed finesse. Disparity as we shall see, will be at the center of the new space aesthetics. Connected with convergence and disparity, and important to this thesis, will be the realization that just as one has the ability to converge upon these words, any one can just as easily acquire the skill of crossing the visual axes in an imaginary space. (5) This essential factor, combined with disparity, opens the way to learning the methods and skills in both the construction of primary binocular forms and the viewing of them. The illustration in Fig. 5, No. 6 suggests that a left and right line of sight can be brought
to cross in space at an imaginary point (cv) to fuse two objects
(A & B), at a distance, into one. This imaginary point is
obtained by fixing the lines of sight at about reading distance, usually
by staring ahead (obtaining a fix) through the index finger.
Obtaining such a “fix” upon the tip of the index finger will cause
any pair of objects in the distance, two balls for example lying along
the same path of sight, to coalesce into one new ball at the center
position. The two original balls remain in sight, as two residual-phantom
images. This can all be very easily demonstrated another way
by using only the fingers. Simply raise the forefinger and
middle finger of one hand into the familiar V sign, at arms length. Bring the tip of the finger of the opposite hand between the eyes at about reading distance and stare ahead. By closing one eye and then the other, one can corroborate precisely what is illustrated in Fig. 5, No. 6.
An interesting example of the early use of this idea, published in 1860, is the advertisement shown in Fig. 8. This example serves to demonstrate the arrangement of words as merely decorative as distinguished from the expressive-spatial interrelationship found in 3-D Concrete Poetry. (6)
You stare—you willfully converge your eyes at your finger tip and at the same time observe the dual construction ahead as it divides into three images. It is at this instant that you stare at the third central image—you gaze—concentrate—meditate fixedly upon the center image until it comes on you—and it will—with the clarity and power of sudden revelation. The painted forms will be seen to exist in real space, actually and concretely, as if in the nether world of dreams you have just opened a middle eye—a cyclopean power. Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing in Atlantic Monthly, July, 1861, in an article titled: “Sun-Painting and Sun Sculpture” speaks of this faculty: “Perhaps
there is also some half-magnetic effect in the fixing of the eyes on
the twin pictures, --something like Mr. Braid’s hypnotism……At least
the shutting out of surrounding objects, and the concentration of the
whole attention, which is a consequence of this, produce a dream-like
exaltation of the faculties, a kind of clairvoyance in which
we seem to leave the body behind us and sail away into one strange scene
after another like disembodies spirits.”(7)
When
you will have once raised the lid of the middle eye—the cyclopean power
will remain open and becomes easier—finally effortless. You will
have before you a visual field of immense spatial depth, an arena where
the total of the visual vocabulary will be given the distinction of
reality and life in space. A powerful intensification of communication—of
communion with form. Elements which formerly were locked within
the monocular field are now free to exist above, within, and beyond
the surface upon which the forms themselves are painted. There
are no longer any barriers to position or place in stereo space—no boundaries.
Any diptych pair can be paired with any other to render a sense
of boundless repetition in all directions. (Fig. 9 and Fig.10)
With the simple act of cyclopean fusion even the very walls of architecture
will dissolve away into immense stereo spatial fields of crystalographic
color patterns. The physical carrier of form, be it canvas, paper,
concrete, fresco will no longer have any meaning. Dot, Line, Plane,
Volume, Space, Color and Texture will orchestrate in open space where
formerly the dynamics of such spatial entities were displayed in concert
with the surface. In the new aesthetics of stereo-space the
surface dematerializes and evaporates itself into space. It
is quite remarkable that this dematerialization of the picture surface
was described in some detail by Sir David Brewster in his book “On the
Stereoscope” published in 1856. In a Chapter titled: “On
the Union of Similar Pictures in Binocular Vision”, he describes experiments
on large surfaces that he covered with similar plane figures.
Brewster stated:
It
seems impossible that these words should lie buried for 116 years.
And it is even more astounding that this marvelous description by Brewster
could possibly have been and still can be an art involving repeated
patterns, continuous friezes, whole architectural assemblages of crystalographic
color-forms suspended in air, existing beyond and beneath a dematerialized
planar surface. Buried in the 19 Century, and clearly within the
scope of this statement—of the new aesthetics, also lie experiments
by Brewster, H. W. Dove, and O. N. Rood on what they called the theory
of “Lustre”. This involves the binocular fusion of color
fields giving rise
to phenomenological kinds of atmospheric, optical color mixture.
The monocular color fields of Seurat and color field abstractionists
today will pale before the new possibilities of binocular color fusion.
Returning to Brewster, one cannot underestimate the enormous possibilities
suggested by him. Not only is he saying that the surface has dematerialized,
but that stereoscopically paired graphic forms can be multiplied
n-times-in all directions. In Fig. 10, one of Wheatstone’s
paired drawings has been organized as a potentially n-crystalographic
field—either by the method of parallel sight or by cross-viewing, you
will immediately witness something very astonishing: One will
find that his “Cyclopean” sense, the unconscious, (Gestalt) or whatever
it will eventually be understood to be, will hold the entire
field fixated while at the same time, he (the viewer) is free to direct
his eyes to any portion of the field—to focally converge upon any particular
isolated point, figure or cluster of figures. How does the
mind hold so large a psychic field of visible forms constant
while permitting a foveal examination of details in any direction?
It is as though one has induced hypnosis to one level of mind while
permitting another level of mind virtual license.
One will find, too, that the more he exercises this psycho-optic ability,
the easier and easier it becomes to fixate both the field and its detail.
After a time, it will seem quite natural to cross-view synthetic forms
as it is natural to converge the eyes normally upon objects. This
suggest the vista of an aesthetics that will undoubtedly bring forth
a very powerful (psychosynthesis) transcendental, meditative art.
This binocular art may also have within it the power to bridge the gulf
between the traditional Western and Eastern conceptions of space.
Here, then, will be an aesthetics that will involve the philosophical,
historical, spatial invention of both East and West into an unparalleled
new synthesis. The picture surface has only been understood, up
to now, monoscopically, as though we were all inhabitants of some “Flatland”
(9). This is not to say that the great tradition of monoscopic
painting is to be occluded any more than it is to view the techno-spatial
inventions of the last 35,000 years are suddenly brushed aside.
Monoscopic, flat field, or space-illusionist art whether it be Paleolithic,
Medieval, or of the nature of “The Garden of Delights”, Michelangelo’s
“Sistine Ceiling”, “La Grand Jatte”, “Guernica”; all of
these are among the treasured heritage of the past. The long history
of hard-won innovations of rendering visual illusions upon planar surfaces
is an immense fund of techno-visual language. From the Aurignacian
to the present, the list of spatial invention is long: vertical
position, overlapping planes, diminution of size, aerial and linear
perspective, inverted and multiple perspective, foreshortening, shadows,
texture gradients, optical illusions, interpenetrating form and space,
advancing and receding color fields, two dimensional space division,
illusions of motion and after images. A stereo art cannot properly
exist without the involvement of these important monoscopic space illusions.
What is called for now is the re-integration of this knowledge
with our psycho-binocular powers of stereopsis—a sensing of the three-dimensional
space field that lies both within and without us. This is both
possible now and necessary. Speaking both to the art of pigment,
dye and ink and to the art of light sensitive emulsions—inevitably they
must now be driven together. Stereoscopic aesthetics will be an
arena that will see the plastic forms of the past 100 years fusing into
staggering arrays of re-combinations of familiar and unfamiliar forms,
new synthesis, shimmering-lustrous color fields; all existing
in air—a space without a canvas base, paper base or physical carrier
whatever. There will be complete and remarkable deceptions of
the physical and mental eye. The space outside our heads will
match the space inside our minds. It will mean the discovery of
a mental force that will warp two constructions into one—into single
a cyclopean phantom, as though our primitive, infantile diplopia were
being brought into fusion and synthesis. We are at the beginning
of a new era in the visual arts no less momentous than was our thrust
into the depths of space, which was to link the surface of the earth
with the Lunar Sea of Tranquility. We looked back upon ourselves
from that luminous Astral sea with psychic shock and a compelling awareness
of where we really are. No less are we enthralled by the vastness
of inner-space. We can truly be aware that this intensification
between ourselves, this planet “space-ship earth” coupled with our relentless
bombardment of atomic nuclei will all inevitably drive the arts (as
we know them) into totally new perspectives. The time is now.
The tools are here: they exist in the photographic arena of Holography,
Xography, Vectographs, Anaglyphs, polarized stereo pairs, wide screen
stereo-panoramas, stereo-cinematography and stereo-video. They
are before those of us who must now awaken the sleeping cyclops to reform
– and to refashion in paints, dyes and inks, synthetic assemblage orchestrations
of color-forms in a psychic-binocular space.
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Fig. 5, No.1 to 5
