Remarks on Realism

Remarks on Realism Colette Brooks "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof? Hast thou entered Into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all." -The Book of Job "What others in the world have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience of the world. i have to judge the world, to measure things." -Wittgenstein The figure of Job, man who would "reason with God," Is the very model of the ardent epistemologist, a born seeker after the nature and limits of human knowledge. "Eyes" to the blind and "feet" to the lame, the yet unafflicted Job had cast himself as the archetypal knowing subject, the living registry of all that was accessible to sight and Inquisition on the earth over 46 which he roamed. Even In the midst of his trials, addressing the stillunknown God, he is diligently collecting data: "Hast thou eyes of flesh? or seest thou as man seeth? Are thy days as the days of man? are thy years as man's days?" Such presumption to knowledge is curbed only when the Lord Himself appears to administer a terse catechism upon the limitations inherent in human experience. The world so presented, sketched with a dispatch worthy of the Imperial engineer, is a world utterly removed from the Individual's dominion: built to the scale of a non-human standard, marked by whole regions denied the privilege of the human presence. "Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not... I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." What Job has been granted, aside from general Insight, is a glimpse of the difficulties Inherent in any reckoning of Realism, for he has foundered on the two poles of the Realist Impulse: direct observation of the visible world versus the existence of an external world independent of a mind that knows or perceives it. The first Is an aesthetic principle, the second a philosophical stance, but each is intimately bound to questions that concern our claims to know and to experience the world In which we live. "The lover of knowledge recognizes that when philosophy takes over his soul It Is a veritable prisoner fast bound within his body and cemented thereto; and that instead of investigating reality by Itself and through Itself It Is compelled to peer through the bars of Its prison." -Plato The primacy of direct observation rests upon the unassailable authority of the eye. Sight has always exercised sovereignty over the senses; so preemptive are appeals to Its judgment that It is readily invoked to express certitude about almost anything, Including the non-visual ("Seeing is believIng " and "you'll see" are virtually equivalent assertions; expressions such as "see what I'm saying?" also point to Impending clarity). As Plato observed , however, the eye is bound to the body, and the body to the territory it can traverse given its spatial and temporal constraints. (Descartes: "I am lodged In my body as a pilot In a vessel.") In this light, the eye Is seen as a somewhat limited instrument, unsuited to "the search of the depth," able only to offer access to a series of more or less persuasive surfaces. One of the hallmarks of a certain kind of Realism, accordingly, Is Its emphasis upon sheer externality: the chrome and glass of Richard Estes, Tom Blackwell, Robert Bechtle, et al., draw and quickly deflect one's attention. There is no possibility of penetration; the eye is turned away upon its very approach. These Realists ask one to value the surface for itself. Certain Images that command extraordinary Imaginative assent...