The first part of this text, by Adolf von Hildebrand (Germany, 1847 - 1921), has the merit of introducing elements of optics in relation to the viewing of three dimensional artworks. Noticeably, for the 21st century reader (but perhaps not so much at the time the text was written, when the culture of Enlightenment was prevalent and one could be an artist, and a scientist, and a politician, for instance, as the gout du jour was to be a well-rounded person in all matters of human interests) Hildebrand offers a rather scholarly approach even though he is known, primarily, as a sculptor. I say “merit” because my tendency is often to approach three dimensional works of art with optical matters in the background (no pun intended) of my concerns, while those of criticism, content are usually foregrounded. Not unlike Freud unveiling the arcane and unconscious workings behind our dreams, Hildebrand articulates the hidden mechanisms of our sight and our attempts to grasp and make sense of art in a spatial perspective.
Having said that (if Hildebrand were reading, he would know that this expression augurs temperament, perhaps refutation) this is where, as the French say, le bât blesse. Hildebrand’s approach seems mechanistic, geometric (p. 22) even: the viewer approaches the work of art with very little thought, or volition - barely choosing one’s position in space. His is a gradual but continual progression from telescopic to microscopic - very much like Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, but political satire is replaced here by the mathematics of aesthetics - as if the viewer had no choice but to move on in her or his tracks, as if the only acceptable mode of viewing was an impeccable straight line from far to near. The only way is forward. The cult of and faith in Progress finds itself iterated here in the linear mode of viewing of art. Stepping forward, stepping back - this remind me of those 18th and 19th century illustrations in which the art viewer (manifesting here as the vox populi / vox dei) was portrayed contemplating the work from afar, then coming in closer for detailed inspection (is the Enlightenment’s secular God not in the details?), usually holding their chin in a sign of thoughtful concentration. Then back again: the dance, un pas de deux, microcosm and macrocosm - the consecrated perspectives des Lumieres, a time-period apparently emancipated from religion, yet thoroughly grasping one of religion’s fundamental paradigms: the bird’s eye view / the bug’s eye view, the whole vs. the part.
In addition to rationalistic linearity, Hildebrand’s analysis is replete with what seems like, from, again, a 21st century perspective, awkward functional assessments. “Movements of the head are often made for the purpose of bringing together successive perceptions of an object from different points of view…” (p. 23). What if the movements of my head have no purpose at all? What if I look the other way (la demission du regard et du regardeur)? What if I don’t want to move my head and decide to miss an entire portion of the artwork? And what if I have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and my head moves in accordance to its own whimsical schemes? I’ll be blunt: Hildebrand’s viewer is a coarse archetype, at best. At worse, a sort of robot.
And, because I am mildly dyslexic, I ended up a bit cross-eyed when I attempted to see for myself what Hildebrand meant in his comments on the placement of the image on the right eye and the left eye (p. 26).
I’ll digress a bit here by evoking Bruce Nauman: how would we apply Hildebrand’s approach to this type of work?
Live-Taped Video Corridor, 1970. Wallboard, video camera, two video monitors, videotape player, and videotape, dimensions variable, approximately: (ceiling height) × 384 × 20 inches ([ceiling height] × 975.4 × 50.8 cm).
The videos playing on the monitors are two-dimensional, the monitors themselves -- which the viewer approaches from afar as part of the installation apparatus -- are three-dimensional, and the corridor is as three-dimensional as can be. How would Hildebrand categorize - and which type of looking would he recommend for - works that are immersive, with which the viewer is to engage, not only with sight, but with body? Especially here, where the movement of the viewer towards and away from the monitors, and its delayed rendition on the screens, is the very focus of the work - not an ancillary or mechanical way one views the work. In other words, the process of viewing here, activates -- and thus, ultimately, alters -- the work, as well as, one can assume, the viewer.
Some of Hildebrandt’s observations are helpful, however, to understand the modalities through which we approach three-dimensional space and works of art. For instance the distinction between purely visual sight perception and sight perception involving kinesthetic elements. Here the work - its form and its placement in space - command or solicit a certain type of response from the body (yes, those movements of the head) in order to accommodate the seeking eye. Elsewhere, another comment of his brings to mind something I heard in a drawing class: translating a three-dimensional object placed in front of us onto a two-dimensional plane is challenging because, even though we only see the part of the object that is facing our eyes, our mind imagines - we visualize - all the parts of the object, and unconsciously attempt to render them. However in the two-dimensional space we would only represent the front view -- the actual view.
But we needn’t look to only recent works to complicate Hilderbrand’s theories: how would these apply, for instance, to Kurt Schwitter’s “Merzbau” (1923-1943, yes, this work, like people, lived and died) -- not just its immersive cave-like quality, which could literally engulf any viewer, but the fact that it was, primarily, a work-in-progress (one that spanned 20 years, and, as such, was never static)? In other words: how does Hilderbrand account for that fourth element, or dimension, in viewing a work of art (be it sculpture, or more contemporarily, installation): time? Increasingly, works of art are to be seen, viewed, understood, not in abstraction of their time and context but, on the contrary, as an emanation of and in dialog with it. This is probably more a matter of intellect (or mind) -- of thought perception -- than eye.
Elsewhere in the text (p. 26), what do we think of this addition?:
It stands out quite a bit (and would make a good text for a T-shirt) -- like those highlighted excerpts in magazines, which editors print in larger type in the margin to anchor or claim, similar in that way to advertising, the reader’s attention. Here, however, it performs like an afterthought or , perhaps, a disclaimer. But more importantly: it implicitly affirms the dichotomy or binary art / life. If art is not life, then what is it? Is the science of the eye, for instance, more life than art is? If so, how can it claim to apply to art, if they are of distinct realms?
The question, in the end, may be, then: is there a way to look at art that is specific to art? Far from eluding the matter Hildebrand addresses it, but perhaps only partially.
Christophe Cherix’s, in his preface to Hans Ulrich Obrist’s “A Brief History of Curating” (JRP|Ringier, Les presses du réel, 2009) writes: “... Obrist asked the former director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Anne d’Harnoncourt, what advice she would give to a young curator entering the world of today’s more popular but less experimental museums, in her response she recalled with admiration Gilbert & George’s famous ode to art: “I think my advice would probably not change very much; it is to look and look and look, and then to look again, because nothing replaces looking … I am not being in Duchamp’s words ‘only retinal,’ I don’t mean that. I mean to be with art—I always thought that was a wonderful phrase of Gilbert & George’s, ‘to be with art is all we ask.’” How can one be fully with art? In other words, can art be experienced directly in a society that has produced so much discourse and built so many structures to guide the spectator?”
Hildebrand, writing in the early 20th century (the 1st edition of “The problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture” is dated 1907) and though only a few years before Duchamp’s groundbreaking work, is quite retinal indeed. Is he being with art? Or just looking at it?
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