Practice question · Put in order
Arrange the stages of looking at a composition in the order the visual system carries them out.
- Separate the field into figure and ground
- Read the relations between the groups
- Group the figures with one another by proximity, similarity and continuation
- Recognise what the groups depict
- Interpret the whole against what is already known
Hints
- The earliest stage happens before anything has been recognised.
- Interpretation is the last thing, not the first.
Show the answer
- Separate the field into figure and ground
- Group the figures with one another by proximity, similarity and continuation
- Recognise what the groups depict
- Read the relations between the groups
- Interpret the whole against what is already known
Why
The order explains why a compositional fault cannot be argued away. If the first two stages deliver the wrong objects, everything above them is interpreting a picture the painter did not make, and no amount of subject matter or explanation reaches back down to correct it.
Practise The Principles of Visual Perception
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