The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing – How Sight Alters the Seen and Transforms the Seer

by James Elkins

In this “remarkable tour de force” ( Publishers Weekly ) and “ceaselessly thought-provoking book” ( Kirkus Reviews ), art historian James Elkins marshals psychology, philosophy, science, and art history to show how seeing alters the thing seen and transforms the seer. Black-and-white photographs .

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Art History, Theory, Psychology, Photography

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

James Elkins (1955 – present) is an art historian and art critic. He is E.C. Chadbourne Chair of art history, theory, and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He also coordinates the Stone Summer Theory Institute, a short term school on contemporary art history based at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Reviews

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book about the act of seeing and how it affects both the object seen and the one seeing. Very philosophical at parts, and he had some interesting points about how opting not to see (i.e. with sexually charged objects) is itself a way that the act of seeing transforms both subject and object.

Lots to digest and I think I would have enjoyed this book best in a university class, with a professor parsing the ideas down for us, and classmates bouncing insights off each other.

[Pat Settegast · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philosopher Immanuel Levinas in arguing against the primacy of "being" in favor of ethics was once asked, "Attention to the other, can it be taught?" He replied, "In my view, it is awakened in the face of the other." Elsewhere he said, "The face is underneath the 'face' one puts on things." The questions of obligation and desire that spin off from this almost spiritual stance form the substance of art historian James Elkins' essays on sight collected in The Object Stares Back.

Elkins is clear and direct in his writing, and his arguments range far outside the field of art history and theory, moving quite effortlessly into psychology, philosophy, science, and metaphysics. He has a true gift for sifting through the most ephemeral limits of perception and describing in detail what he feels.

Here, in his own words, is the crux of his argument: "Vision is inexhaustible once it reveals itself as more than a machinery for the efficient processing of light. My principle argument has been that vision is forever incomplete and uncontrollable because it is used to shape our sense of what we are. Objects molt and alter in accord with what we need them to be, and we change ourselves by the mere act of seeing."

Of course, this is the smallest sample of the delights of Elkins' book. His discussion of the meaning and even language we find writ in the human face is powerful. And the essay discussing the latent desires of objects is radical and absorbing. I would recommend this book to poets, artists, and even priests... insofar as it offers a new way of considering the unseen.

[Patricia · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are no words for how much I disliked this book.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely looping travels through art history, psychology, philosophy, and a bit of science. Interesting to stop to think about the seen and the seer. By happenstance I read it concurrently with a New Yorker article about facial recognition and machine learning, which enhanced both writings. The author writes ploddingly at times for this non-philosopher, seems overly squeamish about sex and death, and often is oddly redundant within sections, but it’s an enlightening read.

[Anna Marsden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for my third year university "dissertation". Whilst studying photography I was fascinated by the idea that the camera, as an object, looks back at the subject as the photo is taken. I was focused on female self-portraiture in particular and this book informed a lot of my essay on the camera as a voyeur. I remember I was recommended this book to read in first year by my favourite tutor but never picked it up until third year. and...I loved everything about Elkin's writing, the tone especially. The personal elements to his theory and his ideas was great and I really liked the way I stayed immersed because of how clearly passionate he was about his own thoughts. I would recommend this to EVERYONE as I feel each person would get something different out of it. I loved it from an arts and photographic perspective but there are so many different ways this book can be read. It was brilliant. I can't wait to read it again...I feel that this book will inform my practice for years to come

[Larry · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm gonna give this one star for the set up/payoff though it probably deserves two. Suffice it to say guy starts telling you you can't explain Heidegger or Lacan without the jargon just like you can't explain qm without linear algebra and then proceeds to do just that. All he got from Lacan is that "the object returns the gaze" which he dumbly misinterprets as "stuff looks at you in a creepy way when you come to think about it". How about... no? The abundant lack of intellectual rigor, conceptual precision and clear argumentation mixed with personal storytelling about his wife's face and his experience of watching naked human models in art classes makes him go for long and winding developments to state the obvious and sometimes make ridiculously wild claims not at all warranted by anything he has been saying so far on top of it, which he manifestly thinks look deep. But they don't.

[Alexander Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book full of metaphors about sight. It creates a lot of inspirations for aesthetic analysis but also about what could be missed by scientists in their analysis. However oversubscribing to some of these metaphors would be a mistake. Elkins seems more interested in establishing metaphors to psychoanalyze the viewers and creators of the visual, and this can lead to very real issues when taken as matters of fact about the mental states of his subjects. Nevertheless, there are some highly valuable metaphors for aesthetic analysis and critique. Comparing this book to something like Laura U. Marks' more contemporary work on media theory would be valuable as they seem to be opposite sides of this sort of analysis.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting book about the physical and mental elements that comprise human sight. The author, with various examples from across the world and centuries, illustrates how, even though it seems complete and seamless, our view of the world is fragmented and incomplete. He goes into different reasons for this fragmentation, some physical and some social. The chapter on blindness didn't seem so well done to me--he more talks about how normal sight really incorporates blindness into itself than about perceiving the world as a blind person (this disappointed me). Best read in chunks, this is worth checking out if you want to muse about perception and reality.

[Trinster00gmail.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

A chapter of this book was required reading for a college class I was taking. After finishing that chapter, I wanted more so I bought the book and read its entirety. Simply put, this book is incredible, it makes you think about all the vision you have and all that you take for granted. I actually started using this book in my class when I started teaching an intro college course to art history and my students always respond positively to this book.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating, if sometimes troubling and disturbing, look at how we “see” and perceive objects. It has its useful moments, and was helpful to me in learning to look more closely at objects around me, particularly artwork. It often takes detours into the morbid and fetishistic, and that’s when it lost me. Overall, though, a solid time that will change the way you think about visualizing the world around you.

[Elisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting and there are a few good ideas to think over, but it was a struggle. I did have fun picking out the odd quotes and sharing them with my friends. Like chimpanzees masturbating to porn or getting turned on by drawing.

Worth the effort and I'll probably get more use out of reading it than I realize right now.

[Mo Nichols · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very, very interesting! I couldn't put it down. I read the whole thing on a 2 flights to and from New York and I was underlining and annotating the whole time. I kept texting my friends about certain phenomena Elkins wrote about.

[Chans · Rating 2 out of 5]

4/10

[Hugh Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

cool asf

[Shae · Rating 5 out of 5]

discusses themes of the limitations of visual perception. very interesting

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad I read The Object Stares Back. It's beautifully but densely written and I confess I didn't work as hard at understanding the book as it merited. I decided to read it with the attitude that if I took away two or three ideas it would be worth my time. The book is about how we see, seeing as a selective act (for example when we walk into a room to actually see anything we have to not see everything around it), seeing as an aggressive act, as a reductive act. How people in different cultures see; a member of a traditional hunting culture would look at an area of forest and see all sorts of information about animal movements that would be unavailable to me.

As fascinating as this book is, there are times when I quibbled with the author's reading of certain acts. For example, he writes that something that catches your eye is an active participant in the act of your looking. I have trouble assigning agency in the absence of intention, particularly when you're talking about an inanimate object.

The book was full of fascinating tidbits of information. For example, I had no idea there was a condition called achromotopsia, an inability to see color. It's different from colorblindness, which just affects a person's ability to se red and green. People with achromotopsia can't see any colors. They don't even understand the concept of color.

A book well worth your time If you're remotely interested. But I do wish I had read it with a book group or a class to thrash out some of the ideas in conversation.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was intrigued to find an art historian discussing the concept and implications of seeing. This book gave me lots to think about.

In the opening paragraph of his Introduction, Elkins proposes a generic assumption about using our eyes: "At first, it appears that nothing could be easier than seeing. We just point our eyes where we want them to go, and gather in whatever there is to see. Nothing could be less in need of explanation. The world is flooded with light, and everything is available to be seen. We can see people, pictures, landscapes, and whatever else we need to see, and with the help of science we can see galaxies and viruses and the insides of our own bodies. Seeing does not interfere with the world or take anything from it, and it does not hurt or damage anything. Seeing is detached and efficient and rational. Unlike the stomach or the heart, eyes are our own to command: they obey every desire and thought."

He then lays out the agenda for the rest of the book: "Each one of those ideas is completely wrong."

Among other things, I was intrigued by the discussion of the role of proprioception (the body’s internal sense of itself) in relation to seeing. It would have been interesting to see this question explore gendered seeing more in depth. I also found good insights in the discussion of what we can't see and the description of drawing as a manifestation of blindness (or partial blindness).

[Abner Rosenweig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elkins provides a sensitive, literate inquiry. By paying careful attention to language, he almost transcends the linear logic of prose to get at the complex, ambiguous nature of seeing. Sometimes he writes in a free, stream-of-consciousness way, and his musings can become oddly tangential, but he's always honest, humble, and sincere, and often he pierces through the obvious to capture the subtle ineffability of his subject.

Some of the most stimulating parts of the book for me were the discussion of the power of objects; the idea of the visual field as containing complex topographies that attract and repel a viewer's attention; the inextricable connection between seeing and blindness; and, the centrality of the body and the face in human vision.

Although the process of seeing is a mystery whose complexity will remain forever unfathomable, Elkins helps readers to enter into the mystery and to make us more aware of the vast beauty, subtlety, and complexity that we often fail to see in the world around us.

[Dave-O · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elkins' thoughts on sight and seeing is a multifaceted deconstruction on how we view and are viewed by objects we encounter. It's a subject that we take for granted and draw large assumptions about. Elkins proposes seeing as a metaphor for the life cycle: we awake groggy-eyed like a newborn, go through our day with vigor and energy observing and absorbing, and return to darkness in sleep like blindness and death.

Tied together with many personal anecdotes with flowing use of language, the book is an insight for those interested in post-structuralist analysis of idea, communication, and sight.

[Conor · Rating 2 out of 5]

This might be a good complementry text for a 200 level college course on a lot of things, but it wasen't the phenomenology of vision or the neurological study of it I was hoping for.

It definitly has those elements, but falls far short of being as challenging as some of the books and thinkers if refrences. Moreover, since neurology and neuropsycology are such fast moving fields now, the book could stand an update.

I might loan it to someone if they're curious about vision but don't know where to start, but I think it might be on its way back to the used bookstore.

[Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very thought-provoking book, that I promise will leave you wondering and thinking about what you see--and don't see--in your everyday environment. Part philosophy, part psychology, and part neuroscience, this book never ventures into territory too far beyond the author's expertise (art history and criticism) but opens up new vistas for those of us interested but not experts in those fields. I found it fascinating--and be patient: the difficult first chapter is by far the hardest part. Slog through that and you'll be deep in a book you'll be talking to your smartest friends about!

[Garette Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, just a bit meandering.

[Vin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly dry, philosophical look at the nature of "vision & seeing." There were some interesting parts, particularly the chapter on Faces. But to me this seemed like "seeing for pussies." I take a pretty unflinching look at the world (and death and genitals and the sun), so this seems like a lot of extra fluff. Also I'm one of those weirdos who is more "auditory" than "visual" so the two paragraphs about noise & hearing were quite interesting.

[Anda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked a few chapters a lot. Very philosophical and reminded me of my college days studying art history. But a bunch of this book was muddled junk and not worthy of more than skimming. Some chapters were 5 stars and others were 1 star, so I gave it an average rating. I might be a little harsh because I'm obsessed with good art history writing.

[Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first was reading this book I did not enjoy it and found it a little tedious. But now, even years later, I find myself remembering and sharing many of the things discussed in this book. It changed the way I thought about a lot of things. Every time I hear the phrase "Just looking" I think about this book.

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that questions the processes involved in seeing and understanding. Elkins' task is to problematize the supposed ease at which we see. Most fascinating is how Elkins argues that blindness is attendant to seeing. This is a highly interdisciplinary monograph of great use in not only Art History, but Media Studies, Cultural Studies and media literacy paradigms.

[Shawn Frey · Rating 4 out of 5]

An analysis on the impact and implications of seeing, the book is an incredibly interesting perspective on vision. Though he forms his ideas from medical and psychological facts as well as much philosophy, John Elkins is frequently loftily intellectual in his writing in an incredibly thoughtful way.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very heavy. It is difficult to understand. I have to re-read everything many times. there are many tough concepts that are difficult for me to wrap my mind around.
That said...
I love it!

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

had to stop for a while on this one - takes time to absorb and digest. Meditative in parts.
"Seeing alters the thing that is seen and transforms the seer."
I like to go back to this one from time to time and catch a little more...i want to be certain i really SEE it.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Fiona for this one! Another studio reference. I am endlessly facinated by how our physical senses acting as filters impact our deeper understanding of the world and our beliefs. This attempts to explore what we see when we see.