The Politics of Vision: Optics, Painting and Ideology in Germany

发现和创造的过程不仅对我们理解科学是如何运作的，而且对我们理解人类思维本身是如何运作的，都是至关重要的话题。虽然科学的过程在许多方面都是独特的，但很明显，科学和艺术的发现和创造力在某种意义上是相关的。勒努瓦博士在19世纪中期德国的经验主义视觉理论及其与绘画中的现实主义运动的关系的背景下研究这种相互关系。在1848年革命失败后的二十年里，德国文化和政治生活面临的中心问题之一是需要构建一种新的未来愿景，这种愿景拒绝政治、哲学和科学中的理想主义，转而追求实际利益。这种新的取向要求建构一种新的现实主义话语。勒努瓦博士关注的是在视觉理论和绘画中同时追求现实主义。他研究的核心是赫尔曼·赫尔姆霍兹在生理光学方面的工作，以及赫尔姆霍兹在以强有力的经验主义为基础的康德认识论方面所做的努力。他认为亥姆霍兹将眼睛视为一种测量装置，他将自己的工作置于19世纪50年代发起的一场更大的运动中，这场运动旨在“回到康德”，构建更以实践为导向的知识基础。对于这项研究同样重要的是现实主义画家的作品，尤其是阿道夫·门泽尔。现实主义者画的主题充满了意识形态色彩。门泽尔在画布上描绘了德国社会在追求实际利益方面的团结形象，这也激励了赫尔姆霍兹和其他科学家，如埃米尔·杜波依斯-雷蒙德、卡尔·路德维希和维尔纳·西门子。勒努瓦博士的兴趣超越了现实主义的主题，而是现实主义的表现技巧。因为正是表征理论将绘画中的现实主义与视觉和知识的现实主义理论联系起来。现实主义画家的作品是亥姆霍兹的资源。确定画家如何成功地创造现实的幻觉是确定大脑在构建视觉图像时使用的规则和策略的一个重要来源。现实主义画家认为，现实主义表现之所以“有效”，不是因为它是现实的复制品，而是因为它是实践行动的指南，这种观点与亥姆霍兹的符号理论相一致，亥姆霍兹的符号理论是他对视觉感知的建构主义方法和经验主义认识论的核心。这项研究的目的是表明，画家和生理学家通过对构建现实世界的问题达成相同的解决方案，参与形成了一种共同的话语。绘画上的现实主义和光学上的现实主义是在不同的领域同时解决了对世界的改造。通过对视觉的相关关注，共同的表征模式相互联系，产生了一种由语言、图像和认知方式支持的现实主义话语结构，这是稳定生活世界的基础。

The processes of discovery and creativity are topics of critical importance for our understanding not only of how science works, but also for our understanding of how the human mind itself works. While the processes of science are certainly unique in many respects, it has become clear that discovery and creativity in science and art are in some sense related. Dr. Lenoir is studying this interrelationship in the context of empiricist theories of vision in mid-19th century Germany and their relation to the realist movement in painting. One of the central issues facing the cultural and political life of German in the two decades following the failed revolutions of 1848 was the need to construct a new vision of the future, one which rejected idealism in politics, philosophy, and science in favor of the pursuit of practical interests. This new orientation required the construction of a new kind of discourse of realism. Dr. Lenoir's concern is with the simultaneous pursuit of realism in theories of vision and in painting. Central to his study is the work of Hermann Helmholtz in physiological optics and its relation to his efforts to reformulate a Kantian epistemology with strong empiricist foundations. Arguing that Helmholtz treats the eye as a measuring device, he places his work within a larger movement initiated in the 1850's to go "back to Kant" and construct more practically oriented foundations of knowledge. Equally important for this study is the work of realist painters, particularly Adolph Menzel. The themes painted by realists were ideologically charged. Menzel depicted on canvas the image of German society united in terms of the pursuit of practical interests which also inspired Helmholtz and other scientists such as Emil du Bois- Reymond, Carl Ludwig and Werner Siemens. Dr. Lenoir's interests go beyond the themes of realism to the techniques of realist representation. For it is the theory of representation that links realism in painting to realist theories of vision and knowledge. The work of the realist painters was a resource for Helmholtz. Determining how painters succeed in creating the illusion of reality was one important source for determining the rules and strategies the mind uses in constructing visual images. The view of realist painters that a realist representation "works" not because it is a copy of reality but because it is a guide to practical action paralleled Helmholtz's sign theory, the centerpiece of both his constructivist approach to visual perception and his empiricist epistemology. The aim of this study is to show that painters and physiologists participated in forming a common discourse through arriving at the same solutions to the problem of constructing realistic representations of the world. Realism in painting and realism in optics were simultaneous solutions in different domains for remaking the world. Linked to one another through their related concerns with vision, the common modes of representation gave rise to a structure of realistic discourse supported by language, images and ways of knowing, the basis of a stable life-world.