GREAT ARTISTS WITH BAD EYESIGHT.
GREAT ARTISTS WITH BAD EYESIGHT. Capturing the depth of a three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface is the classic challenge for realistic painters. As reported in an article in Colloquy by Janelle Weaver, Margaret Livingstone, a Harvard professor of neurobiology, claims that—although it seems counter intuitive to me— it is an advantage for an artist to have poor depth perception. She formulated the theory after noting that Rembrandt’s self portraits showed that his eyes were badly aligned. She has found that established artists are more likely than the general population to have deviating eyes. The theory is that it is an advantage to see the world as slightly flatter than other people see it. Think of artists closing one eye from time to time as they work.