JC 2: Some fine detective work

Ref.: Livingstone MS and Conway BR, Was Rembrandt Stereoblind? N Engl. J. Med. 351: 1264-1265


Abstract:
Stereopsis is an important cue for depth perception, yet it can be a hindrance to an artist trying to depict a three-dimensional scene on a flat surface. Art teachers often instruct students to close one eye in order to flatten what they see. Therefore, stereoblindness might not be a handicap — and might even be an asset — for some artists. Stereopsis requires precise alignment of the two eyes. We examined a number of self-portraits of Rembrandt,
an artist known for his astute powers of observation, and noticed that many of them show his eyes as exotropic, some to a degree that would be incompatible with normal stereopsis. We wondered whether the gaze angle of the eyes in Rembrandt’s self-portraits was random or whether the gaze deviation was systematic, as it would be if he were accurately portraying a feature of his physiognomy.

Summary:
One of Livingstone's interests is the interaction between Vision and Art. In this paper, she analyzes the self-portraits of Rembrandt in an effort to understand if an observed lateral deviation of his left eye in these paintings was intentional portrayal of a real strabismus. They analyzed high resolution images in 24 oil paintings and 12 etchings where they could quantify the position of the pupil (or center of the iris) and the extent of its deviaiton from the center. In 23 of the 24 paintings, the right eye looks toward the viewer and the left eye looks outward. In all 12 etchings, this trend is reversed, because of the method of etching: the artist first draws on a metal plate and tranfers it to paper, creating a mirror inversion. The one painting that did not show the effect, the authors guess, could either be a copy of an etching or painted by a student. Since lack of stereo-vision is an advantage to artists (as they have to paint 3D scenes on a flat surface, Rembrandt's stereo-blindness could have contributed to his greatness.

Comments:
The purpose of the JC series was also to discuss what we thought were cool papers, so I guess I'll vaguely justify this post by saying it was cool.


This is not an article in the class of Lipton, but it still shows how far some logical thinking goes. An observation of an apparent strabismus, a logical experiment to generalize the observation (to make sure it is not a proof-by-example type effort) together with a theory of how it may have helped the great Master. Again, the perfect interaction of Thinking and Experiment. Plus, I think it's really cool: like performing a forensic exam from a painting.

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