Paintings as Architectural Space: “Guided Tours” by Cézanne and Hokusai

Abstract

In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of 2 painters' (Cézanne and Hokusai) efforts to enhance active participatory perception (Gibson, 1966, 1979/1986) in their landscape work. As exemplars, we use Cézanne's paintings of Mount Sainte-Victoire and Hokusai's prints of the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, noting how the similarities and differences in scientific and Chinese perspectives affect our perception of the landscapes. Although both artists used linear perspective and axonometry, geometric standards that originated in architecture and later were adopted by painters, they frequently violated these standards through innovative technical devices. As a result, Cézanne and Hokusai created unique architectural spaces into which we are not only invited but also guided by our own active perception and anticipated 20th-century artistic and scientific movements, including cubism, phenomenology, and Gibson's (1966) theory of active perception.

Notes

¹Plato's critical comments on the futility of depicting realistic images (i.e., mimicking Nature), if interpreted within the context of these paradoxes, are naive because they imply that faithful pictorial representation is possible. To put it differently, Plato's naivety is evidenced by his failure to recognize that skepticism is the twin of Platonism. Platonism becomes dogmatism if its paradoxes are suppressed, but facing these paradoxes does open the gate for skepticism.

²This complex task includes important aspects such as Representation of objects properly scaled in such a way that same-size objects are of the same size in the pictorial space; Objects look increasingly smaller with increasing distance; Selection of the viewpoint from which the scene is best seen; etc.

³Early Renaissance masters were both artists and scientists. To be a scientist at that time was to be well trained in basic geometry and implied the use of sophisticated mechanisms (e.g., drawing grids, drawing machines, mirrors, lenses) to create realistic images (Kemp, 1990).

⁴The exact and systematic elaboration of physical optics (Newton, 1952) and projective geometry (Desargues, 1976) was completed later.

⁵The early Renaissance thinkers had a different standard and methodology of science from those widely used today. Artists were satisfied with mechanical solutions for pictorial depiction such as drawing grids, drawing machines, mirrors, and so on.

⁶The developing changes in representation can perhaps best be observed in the cave frescoes of Tun-huang, an important location of commerce along the Silk Road in West China (De Silva, 1964). These frescoes represent more than 1,500 years of changes in style and show traces of influences associated with ongoing trade with Middle East and India.

⁷Japanese artists learned the principles of scientific perspectives primarily from the engravings brought by Dutch merchants with whom they had intensive trade relations in the 17th century (Krikke, 1998).

⁸This apparent paradox could be resolved by distinguishing between the two cultural perspectives in assessing Hokusai's art. In the West, Hokusai is considered a Japanese artist, whereas in Japan, his art is often viewed as non-Japanese. Superficially, these overall characterizations could be justified by claiming, on the one hand, that in Hokusai's art, Japanese aspects are dominant. On the other hand, too many Western elements for Japanese taste make him a “non-Japanese” artist.

⁹Hokusai's self-reflection focuses on a gradual development as well as a dramatic change at age 70. In these notes, he anticipated even more changes in the future.

¹⁰Here we ignore altered states including the meditative state, in which we aim to be intentionally detached and passive.