Author Archives: Anastasia Mando Limogiannis

Eyes Like Sky But Definitely Not the Sea

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We were taught that we humans have a general agreement on color but would it be wrong to admit that some people see colors in a more vibrant way?

Cultural relativism begins to explore this theory, stating that basic perceptual experiences, color, may be determined in part by the cultural relativism. (Wolfe)

I personally found this to be especially interesting and true because i grew up in New York but spent my summers in Greece. I was exposed to two different languages and therefore exposed to two different color perceptions. Although english has many words to describe the color blue, i typically am accustomed to describing things like the sky, the ocean, eye color, etc, as blue unless asked to specify for a certain reason.

Spending my summers in Greece, whatever word i used really depended on whether the person i was talking to understood me regarding color. For example: There is a general term for blue, μπλε, and there is a specific term for describing someone with blue eyes as having γαλανά μάτια or the blue sky as ουρανός γαλανός. “γαλανό” can be compared to an azure blue, but you really never hear anyone specifying that in the english language. If i am referring to the color of the blue sea in Greek, i would call it γαλάζια θάλασσα. (oddly enough, the term for describing the sky and sea may be interchangeable depending on how you were taught Greek) The point is, compared to a non greek speaker, i might perceive shades of blue differently and with more precision than that of a non greek speaker.

Being that i am more fluent in english than i am in greek, i dont necessarily not understand people when they refer to something as blue, but i am more specific when it comes to picking out colors. This may not mean much to some people, but considering i’m pursuing a career where colors are important to a design, i’m thankful for growing up in a bilingual household.

Wolfe, Jeremy M., Keith R. Kleunder, and Dennis M. Levi. “Sensation & Perception: Eye Structure.” Sensation & Perception: Eye Structure. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

How Artists Trick Us

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Throughout my childhood, I always found an interest in art and spent most of my free time doodling  and painting until I started to take more serious and educational art classes in high school. I always gravitated toward artists like Van Gogh and Monet who created less realistic but more expressional works of art. In fact I almost always disregarded photo realistic art, because I never really found meaning to it other than envy towards the artist who could draw so well that it looked like a photo.

My taste in art has changed over the years, finding more interest in realistic art. I actually found such an interest in this one artist’s work that I found out she was an artist and not a photographer who specialized in black and white photography at all!

I stumbled upon her instagram which posted a lot about her progress and was amazed. I also found a new interest in figuring out how I initially couldn’t read the drawing as a drawing, but as an actual object.

After learning about how the eyes works and sends information to the brain, I gained a little bit more of respect and understanding for hyper realistic drawings, especially for those made of smaller parts, like artists who specialize in hatching or pointillism methods, which is basically making their drawing out of dots or small lines, rather than just blurring the graphite together on a piece of paper with a stump or tissue, which is one of the ways I was taught to draw. If you zoom into a black and white hyper realistic drawing, in this case one of Cj Hendry’s, you’ll see that it’s made up of several black lines on a white piece of paper. However when seen from a normal distance, the drawing looks like a realistic photo of boots, when it’s in fact a drawing.

 

Screen Shot 2014-03-18 at 1.48.34 PMScreen Shot 2014-03-18 at 1.48.43 PM (Hendry)

This can be related to the sine wave gratings that we learned about in class, which tests visual acuity by pairing a box made up of vertical lines and another box of horizontal lines together and requires you to step back until you can no longer read the orientation of the lines. photo (4)(Wolfe)

This has to do with the spacing of the photoreceptors on our retina, which is what Hendry has the human body to thank for her success. 

So, what we see is reflected onto our retina, this goes for both examples although the light intensity varies a little bit more irregularly in the drawing than it does in the sine wave gratings. If the photoreceptors are spaced so that the white and black parts of the drawing fall on different cones, we can make the two apart. However, if they fall on the same cone, we see a gray combination of the two, which is why we can’t tell that it’s made up of the hatching technique she uses. (Wolfe.)

 

Wolfe, Jeremy M., Keith R. Kleunder, and Dennis M. Levi. “Sensation & Perception: Eye Structure.” Sensation & Perception: Eye Structure. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

Hendry, Cj. “Instagram.” Instagram. Cj Hendry, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.