A defence of light: Ernst Gombrich, the Innocent Eye and seeing in perspective

Abstract

That ‘there is no innocent eye’ is one of the central propositions of Gombrich's Art and Illusion and a mantra that has played an immense role in art-historical and aesthetic scholarship for the past fifty years. It is also commonly thought to stand in a difficult relationship with Gombrich's rejection of the conventionalist understanding of human visuality. In this paper I examine this alleged contradiction in Gombrich's theoretical framework and argue that Gombrich managed to develop a consistent position that combined the view that there is no innocent eye with a non-conventionalist understanding of perspective. Criticisms that were directed against Gombrich need to be understood in the context of the collectivist historiographical commitments of his critics, which Gombrich strongly opposed.

Keywords

• Ernst Gombrich
• perspective
• innocent eye
• occlusion
• Norman Bryson