AboutDocumentary & portraiture photography
The gaze in
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Intermediate Part 1 of 4
“A division separates the activity of the
gaze, prolonged, contemplative, yet regarding the field with a certain
aloofness and disengagement - from that of a glance, a furtive or
sideways look - carrying messages of hostility, collusion, rebellion
and lust.”
Norman Bryson.
The
eyes are the single most defining characteristic of how we relate and
define each other - the most important place to look is into another’s
eyes - to see the truth of their communication, to reveal, verify and
understand for ourselves what we see in each other and the world around
us.
The eyes are also the most romanticized part of the body in art. They
are mythologized, eulogized and never explained, which adds to their mystery
and perpetuates their use as the most dynamic focus point of the great
works of visual communication. We owe much of our richness of culture
to the feelings we describe through our arts through what we have witnessed
with our eyes and through the eyes of others. It is this relationship
of the created work, by the person of vision or passion, with the process
of seeing that needs exploring through the quote above.
Norman Bryson is an art historian who looks at the way we see things based on class models of who we are in society. In his book1, he tries to explain that looking is a predetermined act, based on the
cultural luggage we bring to the things we see. He talks about painting
in his book, but his quote above can be used to start a debate about seeing
and photography. In simple terms, Norman Bryson tries to enliven the debate
by stating two polar opposite views to encourage reaction. The division
between glance and gaze is somehow a division of intent - the gaze is
forceful, concentrated, the glance is a passing look, something noticed
in the midst of engagement elsewhere - a pleasant coincidental distraction.
Yet both ways of looking, of which there are as many as us, are not so
dissimilar.
Our fundamental understanding of the world does not rely on the quantity
of time we give the subject of our intentions. It relies on the quality
of thought and technique of translation if this observation is to be successfully
communicated though an artistic representation. The universal truth that
no two people are alike leads to the conclusion that no two people see
the world in the same way.
Quiet simply, Bryson applies a moral value to the act of seeing relying
on the perceived intent of the viewer in terms of the subject. This moral
value is inferred with the division between gaze as somehow pure, masterful,
and glance as something stolen, illicit, subversive.
There is no real evidence that I have read or through my own experience
that would suggest that the longer one looks at something, the better
the insight into the inherent meaning of the subject in view. Often,
the
opposite can be true, a glimpse of something can reveal more that a prolonged
study, clichés like “can’t see the wood for the trees”
come to mind.
While it is true that there are levels of observation, best described
in the nuances of the language we use, verbs like; to look at, to see,
to view, etc. all relate to the same action in varying degrees, and these
degrees are dependent on degrees of attention, rather than moral valuation.
Thus the gaze has a complex process behind it, rich in meaning and history,
social judgment and assumed masculine superiority. The gaze has purpose,
confining the elusive, challenging the furtive look - the glance.
Once again some moral righteousness has been applied to the furrowed brow of the gaze - its seriousness delivering insight. The glance is a second division attribute of a passer by, unable to see the same things as seen by the educated mind. This is said without irony - and with almost scientific evidence of a history of English landscape tied to the rural myth of "Ye Olde England".