The rules of perspective
explain what Vermeer did. But
why does the resulting painting
create the impressions in us
that it does? How, for example,
do we come to perceive a
circular bowl out of the image
of an ellipse? Why are we able
to perceive the table top as
circular when what meets the
eye is the contour of an ellipse?
If we saw a photograph of the
scene, the same discrepancies
between what actually meets
the eye and what we
spontaneously perceive would
be evident, and the same
questions could be asked.
Perception of pictures differs
from perception of the three-
dimensional world, but, even if
we had looked at the scene
itself from the artist's vantage
point, close attention to the
image our eyes received would
have revealed many of the same
discrepancies: Trace on a
transparent surface held in
front of one eye the outline of a
plate resting on a table across
the room, for example, and it
comes out as an ellipse, not a
circle. In short, whether we
look at a painting, a
photograph, or the world
around us, how does it happen
that the image the eye receives
is transformed into the quite
different impression that
characterizes what we
spontaneously perceive?