Inattentional blindness is a psychological lack of attention that is not associated with any vision defects or deficits. It may be further defined as the event in which an individual fails to perceive an unexpected stimulus that is in plain sight.
This is a difficult concept, that stuff right in front isn’t seen because it’s unexpected, or maybe we don’t care, but in any case it questions our belief in basic sight, don’t you think? The story goes that the ships that brought Cortez to Vera Cruz weren’t seen at first by the natives on the shore, and they assumed he arose from the sea, having never seen european ships before. Maybe it happens all the time. Could it be that while everyone looks at the same things, what they see is different, depending on how they assign their attention? It would explain a lot.
Did the person in front of you at the checkout use food stamps, and what frivolous non-essential did they buy? Is there a state trooper on the overpass? Are there any celebrities in this bar? Some people go through life without seeing or thinking any of that, but enough about other people, what about you? Driving to work how much do you see? Traffic lights, of course, and lane changes up to about four cars ahead, pulling into the parking space. A ball bouncing down a driveway should ring a bell, but clouds reflected in the lake, dogwoods on a hillside, the magic at dusk in the springtime when fireflies fill the fields might be missed. When driving it’s understandable, but how about the rest of the time? How much in front of you do you habitually not see at all, and how would you know?
Politics makes it fairly clear people on the other side are seeing something totally different, responding to different ‘facts’ in the same story, but only the ones that verify their own beliefs. They, those on the other side, have tuned their attention to stuff you don’t care about, and they’re not seeing anything on your side. We’re all on different pages, maybe not even in the same book, and getting worse everyday, what a dilemma. Art has a role to play, and it’s simple, but first, do you see paintings at all? This is a good first question for both layman and expert, for different reasons. The ordinary citizen may have believed the evening news, that art was a caviar-class trophy hunt for billionaires, or maybe they were intimidated by the priceless art in museums, and just never felt ‘invited’ to take area artists seriously. On the other hand, scholars and various sorts of experts perceive art though such an overlay of category and classification, whatever's on the canvas is opaque to them, and they only look at signatures and rank previous owners, such as that.
If you actually look at paintings, you’ll wind up seeing more -- doesn’t matter which side you’re on. Did the artist do something you wouldn’t expect, and have you finally noticed it? Maybe not the first time, but the third time, the thousandth time, or maybe each time you might see something you haven’t seen before. Did the artist intend that mark or was it an accident, and does it help define the image or perhaps reveal a character trait of the artist, thoughts like that. Paintings inspire these thoughts by degrees, but it’s the question you’ve asked yourself that causes growth, and art is just the hook, the facilitator, the nautilus equipment you use for the task. If you can decelerate your normal operating speed and direct your attention toward a painting, slow down enough to actually see what the artist presented, this readjustment will carry over, opening new channels in your head and sooner or later you’ll be seeing stuff new to you that was there all along.
Now I understand for many art is about something else, economic and social arrival, a barter in autographs, and I find all that status seeking and celebrity bumping remarkably uninteresting, leave it at that. Here at owning art we contend painting represents a prior technology, essentially dating to the renaissance, one capable of altering reality by opening and reordering the perceptual net, by stretching expectation and jarring awake complacency and inattention. Admittedly, there is an open question about whether painting has become irrelevant in a digital age, or if, as a result of our condensed modes of info consumption, original paintings have become more potent and more transformative than ever. Some paintings you might see in a museum of will advance from the frame to greet you when you come into the room, but that’s a pretty heavy dose for the average home, and some form of original art from a local painter you might know, or know of, or have seen before in other places, might have the same beneficial effects over time.
Maybe you won’t see the other side, they’re an obstinate bunch, but your world will seem less black and white if you develop an interest in art, looking at all of it and trying to see. Your inattentional blindness will grow less, your lenses will be cleansed and scales will fall, if just a little, and the world will seem wider and in more detail. You really don’t even have to buy a painting to gain this purely personal super-power from looking at art, but you’ll probably want to.
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