[Excerpt from manuscript chapter 1]
Perception has been extensively researched in both the natural sciences and the humanities. It primarily describes an information process between the inside and outside of a living being. Perception is also one of the most important tools with which artists work.
Regardless of whether it uses the language of hyperrealism, abstract expressionism, the language of political, social or simply beautiful images, art is the sensual window of perception through which the mechanisms and interactions of nature and society become visible knowledge. The British painter John Constable postulated as early as 1816: ‘Painting is a science and should be practised like the study of the laws of nature’.
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One of the earliest concepts in the history of visual perception is the idea of seeing with eidolons, small copies of real objects consisting of indivisible particles, so-called atomos, that fly into the eyes. The pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus (ca. 460-371 BC) was convinced of this idea as he had observed the reflection of such objects on the surface of the cornea. He also held the view that there are two ways of knowing, one through the senses and one through the mind. Plato, on the other hand, believed that knowledge was possible through the mind alone. He assumed that the eyes, like a scanner, cast a beam onto the objects of reality. Aristotle, on the other hand, assumed that only shining objects such as fire or the sun produce light that is reflected by the objects and whose reflections reach the eyes.