Working as I do in a branch of the visual arts, I've always been fascinated by what people see. More particularly, by the differences in what people see. When two people are looking at the same thing, they're likely to be registering something completely different.
This is often apparent, in my case, when introducing a new design to a client. What they see will be affected by their expectations. There will also be aspects of their life-experience that will mean they see some things in great detail, while other things remain invisible. The engineer might look at practicalities; the social worker might see how well the spaces enable people to interact; the historian might detect the origins of the design concepts and be able to track their lineage.
We can't help ourselves. The best that we can do is become conscious that we all wear blinkers, and that your blinkers are different from mine.
However, being able to see things differently can also be advantageous. For instance, it's vital for generating new ideas and innovation. It's just that it's challenging to break free from our conditioning; it's hard to lose those blinkers. Throughout history, those people who have managed to overcome cultural norms have often been regarded as mad or weird. Unless, of course, they made beneficial use of their insight and were thereby transformed into visionaries or geniuses.
If you've studied aspects of the visual arts yourself, you will probably have read 'Ways of Seeing' by the late John Berger. Based on the seminal 1970's BBC TV series of the same name, Berger's work emphasised that 'the way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe'.
The book, which I read as a late-teenager, was my introduction to the notion that other people might not view things in the same way as I did. It had a significant impact on me, and even now, whenever I hear mention of the title, I immediately recall the author's account of two paintings by Rembrandt.
The first is a self-portrait of the artist with his new wife, Saskia. Rembrandt had recently made his name on the artistic scene. He was successful, and he was using his talent to do what oil painting had been traditionally developed to do; to show off his wealth and status. The painting is from the artists so-called 'happy period', but Berger argues that the happiness of the work "is both formal and unfelt".
The second painting is a self-portrait of the artist as an old man. He is alone, and there are no trappings of success. All there is, is him. "All has gone except a sense of the question of existence, of existence as a question". In contrasting these two self-portraits, Berger highlights the enormity of Rembrandt's struggle to overcome the conditioning of his culture, training and profession; his quest to see things differently so that he could paint his masterpiece.
Fortunately, we don't all have to overturn the traditions of 300 years of European Renaissance painting to achieve our ambitions. Sometimes a simple change of circumstance leads to a fresh perspective. Occasionally we are gifted an unusual juxtaposition which we didn't anticipate. Once in awhile adversity demands that we drop our guard and see things anew.
If there's one thing I'd like my children to learn from the experience of our current predicament, it is that the lockdown has inadvertently allowed them to perceive things differently. They have now seen that things don't have to be as they always have been and that we desperately need to change things for the better.
Changing the way they see things will enable them to make a difference in the world and allow them to paint their masterpiece.
"You have a masterpiece inside you, too, you know. One unlike any that has ever been created, or ever will be. And remember: if you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you."
From ‘Orbiting the Giant Hairball’ by Gordon McKenzie
This article was written by Andy Foster for the May ‘20 edition of the Sherborne Times.