Showing What Cannot Be Seen

Abstract

‘We can never understand a picture unless we grasp the ways in which it shows what cannot be seen’ observes Mitchell (1986, p. 39). He makes this observation in the context of a discussion about the way perspective produces an image of the visible world, an image that is constructed according to a particular logic and as seen from a specific point of view. This construction is explicitly visible in perspectival drawings, in which receding lines serve to constitute unity as a result of which all elements appear as part of a meaningful totality. The point where receding lines meet (the vanishing point) mirrors the vantage point, the point from where the scene depicted is seen. The scene reaches out to the viewer, inviting him or her to occupy the vantage point. By taking up this position as implied by the construction of the image, the viewer is granted a perfect view from where everything looks the way it should. Seen from this point, the image is like a finestra aperta, a window opening on the world.¹