A moment of illusion

My wife (Katie) and i visited The Clark museum in Williamstown the other day. My hope was to see a new exhibition entitled "Like breath on glass: Whistler, Inness and the art of painting softly." This we did see, and it was truly a wonderful, exciting display of soft painting. However, that was not what constitutes the occasion for this post. 

As we first walked into the main gallery space I happened to catch sight of a lone trompe l'oeil painting, the last of a row of paintings hanging on the wall adjacent to where we entered. I knew that I wanted to see it, at least before we left, so the two of us continued throughout the space looking at works by Turner, Gauguin, Degas, Manet, Latrec, and others, until we were about to leave. "I just want to see one more painting on our way out," I said to Katie, "it's just around the corner up here." We sauntered around the corner, stopping to look at a few works by Corbet. Hanging directly in front of us at the end of the hall was the trompe l'oeil, and as we approached it Katie asked, "Which painting did you want to see?" There were other paintings around it, as well as some in an adjacent room, so it was unclear which one I was intending to look at. "This one, the tromp l'oeil, " I said gesturing at the painting. As she turned towards the painting I watched her reaction—I assumed that she knew what trompe l'oeil paintings were, but I wanted to see if this particular one would "get" her. For a brief moment she looked puzzled, then her face showed that the jig was up: "My gosh, I thought that was a light box or something." "Yeah?", I said. "I saw it from down the hall," she replied, moving closer to the painting to inspect it, "but I thought it was just lots of objects hanging on the wall. You know, like when they put things from the Civil War in a light box to display them. I was wondering why they would hang random things on the wall." I chuckled and nodded. She stepped farther back to get a better look at the painting, laughing the whole time as she did. I thought for a moment, watching her move around the painting, and then asked, "Well, can you get it back?" She must have known what I was talking about because she half-heartedly answer, "No. I can't. Do you think I could, though?" We started to walk back to the exit. I thought for a moment. "Maybe, but you would—" "Have to almost forget I saw it," she cut me off. I nodded again; it was more a statement then a question.

Ernst Gombrich: "When you step before any picture a second time…you are suddenly aware of making an advance which is only one of an inch compared to a mile but you have the feeling 'well, now, I begin to see something which I didn't see before.'"

Theodore M. Brown: "And you cannot necessarily go back to the old way of seeing."

Gombrich: "No, you cannot necessarily go back…[but] suddenly it becomes a little transparent…[and] You have a fresh dimension; a new meaning has been added. And you do gain such insights."