A Fixed Point of View

Old Kingdom, Egypt, Tomb Chapel of Raemkai: West Wall, ca, 2446-2389 B.C.; limestone, paint.

I've been thinking lately––because of my foray into a different kind of still life painting––about the history of perspective's fixed point of view and how it likely strongly influences the way we see the world today. In ancient Egypt, artists used the most easily characterized aspect of the human form in depicting it: heads in profile, shoulders mainly facing front, legs again in profile. This shifting of viewpoint seems sensible and true, but also so much of its time and place. The way we see bodies has changed. 

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory of Good Government, 1338-40; fresco

In this early Renaissance fresco buildings are piled up in vigorous masses. Each building obeys its own rules as to the way it exists in space; windows recede into a distance, but without a relationship from one building to the next. This makes for a charming hodgepodge, a sense of a crowded, rambunctious space. 

Piero della Francesca, Flagellation of Christ, 1455-60; oil and tempera on panel, 23 x 32 in. 

Then came the discovery of perspective in Renaissance Italy. The world became supremely ordered, with objects receding into the distance in a measured way. Because of the camera, which has a single fixed lens, this way of seeing has become embedded in our culture, but it still does have to be taught since it's not an innate way of seeing.

Pablo Picasso, Still Life with a Bottle of Rum, 1911; oil on canvas, 24 1/8 x 19 7/8 in.

This disconnect between perspectival order and the actual way we may see the world––multiple points of view at a time, objects assuming visual importance for psychological reasons, a true visual jumble––means that perception is more complicated than the clarity of one point perspective leads us to believe. Cubism pointed towards a true aspect of seeing and understanding.

Knowing all this, I am still tied, in my painting, to a fixed, single point of view. It's become the way I see the world, the way I understand it. So, when I began painting small still life paintings using folded cloth, I continued to use a photographic reference. The reason why is what got me thinking about shifting points of view: because I wanted a frontal image, I had to look at the still life setup from directly above. As an aside, there's also the light: I photographed this in sunlight pouring through a window, which I don't have in my workspace. 

If I placed the still life on the table where I work, the point of view changes.

If I put it lower on a chair, it also changes. It changes as I move forward and back, closer to the setup and farther away from it. Years ago, when I worked directly from still life, I set up tabletop arrangements and sat a certain distance from them, creating a fixed point of view. It's almost amusing to think that this shifting is closer to the way the world really works than the supposed "realism" of a work with precise and fixed edges. The way I see, the way I paint, is a construct, not any closer to reality than a Malevich black square on a white ground.