Claude Monet, Wheatstacks (End of Summer), 1890-1891, oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 39 3/8 inches

Claude Monet, Wheatstacks (End of Summer),1890-1891, oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 39 3/8 inches (60 x 100 cm), Art Institute of Chicago

William Holman Hunt, Our English Coasts ('StrayedSheep'), 1852, oil on canvas, 43.2 x 58.4 cm,Tate Gallery, London

When the new electric Magic Lantern projectors were introduced in 1892, the technology was enthusiastically adopted by Heinrich Wölfflin … who … used slides extensively and was the first to use two slide projectors together so he could show details alongside the principal image, or show different images side-by-side. Wölfflin, who was professor of art history at the University of Berlin from 1901 to 1912, is seen in this photograph examining a framed reproduction of a painting by Giovanni Bellini.

linear/painterlyplane/recessionclosed/open formmultiplicity/unityabsolute/relative clarity

“Sight slips over the surface of the universe. The hand knows that an object has physical bulk, that it is smooth or rough, that …. The hand'saction defines the cavity of space and the fullness of the objects which occupy it. Surface, volume, density and weight are not optical phenomena. Man first learned about them between his finger and the hollow of his palm. He does not measure space with his eyes but withhands and feet.” -- Henri Focillion

This passage describes the “haptic” way of perceiving.

AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAnother way of perceiving the universe occurs when the eye takes in the scene witha glance. Shadows and the bulk which produce them are no longer distinct; the smooth is no longer sharply distinguished from the rough; the eye no longer puzzles over surface, volume, density and weight to explore the “thingness” of each object. The eye here takes them in as a continuum, an impression of the whole. Wölfflin’s genius lay in extrapolating, from these two ways of seeing, principles which could be discerned as alternating periods in earlier art. The change from the “haptic” Renaissance to the “optic” Baroque was his paradigm of a basic shift in perception.

Saint François in ecstasy (1475 )Giovanni Bellini Frick Collection

Oil on panel, 124,5 x 142 cm Saint François in ecstasy(1635-40)Francisco de ZurbaránNational Gallery, London

Oil on canvas, 152 x 99 cm.

linear/painterlyplane/recessionclosed/open formmultiplicity/unityabsolute/relative clarity

Bernini, Bust of Louis XIV, 1666, Versailles

Benedetto da Majano, Pietro Mellini, c1474, Bargello Museum, Florence

linear/painterlyplane/recessionclosed/open formmultiplicity/unityabsolute/relative clarity