Some of the figures (particularly the holy ones) in El Greco paintings seem unnaturally tall and thin. An ophthalmologist surmised that the painter had a defect of vision that caused him to see people this way.
The zoologist Sir Peter Medawar pointed out that we can reject this conjecture on purely logical grounds. What was his insight?
|
SelectClick for Answer |
Suppose a painter’s defect of vision was, as it might easily have been, diplopia — in effect, seeing everything double. If the ophthalmologist’s explanation were right, then such a painter would paint his figures double; but if he did so, then when he came to inspect his handiwork, would he not see all the figures fourfold and maybe suspect that something was amiss? If a defect of vision is in question, the only figures that could seem natural (that is, representational) to the painter must seem natural to us also, even if we ourselves suffer defects of vision; if some of El Greco’s figures seem unnaturally tall and thin, they appear so because this was El Greco’s intention.
(Peter Medawar, Advice to a Young Scientist, 1979)
|
