Cartesian Perspective: The Mechanization of Art

Martin Jay focuses on what he perceives as the loss of the emotional connection between the object in the painting and the viewer, in art that demonstrates the “Cartesian perspective.” He writes, Cartesian perspective is “situated in a mathematically regular spatio-temporal order filled with natural objects the could only be observed from without by the dispassionate eye of the neutral researcher.” (81) Jay’s argument does not dismiss the accomplishments of Northern Italian perspectives but favors a more “natural” practice of art, such as art from Southern Italy.
I, like Jay, feel that the Cartesian perspective mechanizes art and creates a picture of life that doesn’t exist. Art becomes more about geometry than about the artistic expression. Cartesian perspective shifts the focus of the painting from the object to the space the object occupies. Due to this shift, the artwork lacks the natural imperfection of real life objects. The skylines of cities, the heights of trees in a park, and the positioning of people in a crowded plaza, for example, do not geometrically fit into the space in which they occupy.
When art is mechanic as in Northern Italian art during the Renaissance, it suppresses the creativity of the artist and the importance of the objects in the painting.