LMMtARY 



NEW VllftK 

 BOTANICAL 



VISION AND THE TECHNIQUE OF ART. 

 By A. Ames, Jr., C. A. Proctor and Blanche Ames. 



Presented by Louis Bell. 

 Received Jan. 20, 1922. Presented Jan. 11, 1922. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



There are many well known instances where very successful use has 

 been made by artists of certain of the laws of vision as a basis of 

 technique. The "pointillist" technique of Pissaro and Monet is 

 probably the best example. 



The artist Birge Harrison l has gone farthest towards recognizing 

 the dependency of the technique of art on the laws of vision. He 

 most forcefully and lucidly shows that a picture in its general form 

 should be similar to our retinal impressions. Mr. Ames and his sister, 

 Blanche Ames, who were painting together came to a similar con- 

 viction in 1912. Attempts were made to paint pictures of this 

 nature. The difficulty of analyzing the character of images of objects 

 upon which the eye was not focused was at once encountered. This is 

 without doubt due to the universal and probably immemorial human 

 practice of looking directly at, i.e., focusing upon anything we desire 

 to judge or analyze. Mr. Ames therefore undertook to determine 

 scientifically the characteristics of the images of those objects upon 

 which the eye is not focused in the belief that an intellectual concep- 

 tion of the characteristics of such images would help in the visual 

 recognition and analysis of them, and thus be an aid in the technique 

 of art. 



He thought that the desired information could be obtained in a few 

 weeks — at most a few months. The scientific data upon which such 

 information is based, however, had not been worked out. This 

 necessitated research work upon which he has been occupied up to 

 °^the present. The data collected, although representing a consider- 

 able advance, constitute hardly more than the preliminary steps 

 towards definitely determining the characteristics of the retinal 



1 "Landscape Painting" by Birge Harrison. Charles Scribner's Sons. 



