Paintings as Architectural Space: “Guided Tours” by Cézanne and Hokusai

Abstract

In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of 2 painters' (Cézanne and Hokusai) efforts to enhance active participatory perception (Gibson, 1966 Gibson, J. J. 1966. The senses considered as perceptual systems, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. [Google Scholar], 1979/1986 Gibson, J. J. 1986. The ecological approach to visual perception, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. (Original work published 1979) [Google Scholar]) in their landscape work. As exemplars, we use Cézanne's paintings of Mount Sainte-Victoire and Hokusai's prints of the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, noting how the similarities and differences in scientific and Chinese perspectives affect our perception of the landscapes. Although both artists used linear perspective and axonometry, geometric standards that originated in architecture and later were adopted by painters, they frequently violated these standards through innovative technical devices. As a result, Cézanne and Hokusai created unique architectural spaces into which we are not only invited but also guided by our own active perception and anticipated 20th-century artistic and scientific movements, including cubism, phenomenology, and Gibson's (1966) Gibson, J. J. 1966. The senses considered as perceptual systems, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. [Google Scholar] theory of active perception.

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