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Thursday, September 16, 2004Having studied 36 of those rather unforgiving self-portraits, a neuroscientist suggests that Rembrandt was stereoblind - that is, because his eyes did not align correctly, his brain automatically used one eye for many visual tasks. This may have allowed him to flatten images automatically as he observed the world, and then transfer that perspective onto the two-dimensional canvas, says Margaret S. Livingstone, a professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. Click on the collage of Rembrandt's eyes in the upper right hand of the New York Times article to enlarge it. It certainly looks like he had exotropia. Or is it pseudostrabismus? Look at the eyes again, concentrating on the light reflex in the iris and pupil. Although it's difficult to tell in half of them because the left eye is often portrayed in shadow, the reflex is in the same spot in both eyes in five of them. That suggests the gaze is convergent rather than divergent. Whether or not he was stereoblind, he still produced plenty of great art. posted by Sydney on 9/16/2004 09:45:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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