Twee ogen die kijken naar een bal 1679

"Twee ogen die kijken naar een bal," or "Two Eyes Looking at a Ball," is an undated engraving by Sébastien Leclerc I, housed here at the Rijksmuseum. Leclerc was active during a period in France defined by the reign of Louis XIV, an era of significant cultural and scientific advancement. This image seems to offer us a glimpse into the 17th-century fascination with optics and visual perception. The diagrammatic approach, typical of scientific illustrations of the time, reduces the human experience of sight to a series of lines and angles. The two eyes gaze up towards a sphere, the gaze mediated by a complex interplay of lines. This evokes a sense of how vision was understood through the lens of early scientific inquiry. The emotional resonance here lies in the reduction of human experience to mere geometry, raising questions about the relationship between observation, knowledge, and the self.