Psychological Theories

This paper will be a written depiction of a piece of artwork, Sol le Witt: Lines in Four Directions in Flowers, that is currently on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Psychological theories of visual sensation and perception will be used to guide this analysis and critique. Ten concepts will be included in this paper and concepts related to visual perception will be clearly identified. Also, how each concept is represented in this chosen piece of artwork will also be fully explained.

The first concept is reflectance edges. A reflectance edge is literally what it sounds like. It is an edge where reflectance of two surfaces changes. In this piece of artwork this can be seen where the white sidewalk and the green grass meet, it shows two different materials. The change from grass to sidewalk creates a reflectance edge.

The second concept in the paper would be similarity. Similarity is the grouping of the stimuli based on similar features such as size, shape, color and texture. The different patterns of flowers in this piece of art are grouped together based on those four features.

The third concept in this paper would be proximity. Proximity is the grouping of stimuli based on being close to each other. The flowers in this piece can be grouped together in this piece of artwork because they are so close to each other.

The fourth concept in the paper would be occlusion. Occlusion is presented as one object blocking the sight of another object. In Sol le Witt the trees are blocking part of art museum. Even though the trees are blocking part of the museum one still knows that the art museum exists behind the trees. One knows that that just because the museum is not being shown it still exists.

The fifth concept in this paper would be relative height. Relative height is considered a monocular cue. Relative height can be seen when near objects are low in the visual field and objects in the distance are higher in the visual field or closer to the horizon/vanishing point. The first row of flowers are lower in the visual field meaning they are closer where the art museum is at the horizon point meaning it is farther away.

The sixth concept in this paper would be relative size. Relative size is also a monocular cue. Relative size can be identified by the smaller the retinal image is, the farther away it is. This concept can be seen in the boxes of flowers. The one box that's closer appears bigger than the farther one that is smaller.

The seventh concept in this paper would be perspective convergence, which is also a monocular cue. Perspective convergence is when two parallel lines appear to meet as they travel into the distance. When the two lines are seen as closer together, the further the distance appears in the pictures. This concept can be seen when looking at the two walkways. The closer the two walkways are when you get to the art