Euclid Enhanced
By
Amy Ione and Christopher Tyler
The
Diatrope Institute
Magritteâs
Les promenades dâEuclide (1955) offers us a view of a scene outside a
window that is hidden by a canvas inside the room, portraying the identical
view.Ê A number of correspondences are
evident here.Ê Perhaps most striking is
that the shape of the street inside the room seen in receding perspective
appears to be an exact correspondence to the conical form of the tower.Ê Yet what the mind sees as analogous is not
exactly rendered, as shown by this detail of the Îcorrectedâ area in the image
on the right.Ê ÊÊÊÊÊ
Thus while an artist like Albrecht DŸrer might use a plane of glass as a
tool to help him represent the world as if viewed through a window, Magritte
has turned the window into a means to ask how we see.Ê Showing us that the mind might draw incorrect conclusions when
attempting to organize and order perceived relationships, he shows us how retinal
information is a part of a more complex visual mechanism.Ê
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