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When we say, “This is a face, and not mere
strokes”, we are, of course, distinguishing such a drawing
')) from such a
one ) .
And it is true: If you ask anyone: “What
is this?” (pointing to the first drawing) he will
certainly say: “It's a face”, and
he will be able straight away to reply to such questions as,
“Is it male or female?”,
“Smiling or sad?”, etc.
If on the other hand you ask him: “What is
this?” (pointing to the second drawing), he will
most likely say, “This is nothing at all”, or
“These are just das[k|h]es”.
Now think of looking for a man in a picture puzzle; there it often
happens that what at first sight appears as “mere
dashes” later appears as a face.
We say in such cases: “Now I see it is a
face.”
It must be quite clear to you that this doesn't mean that we
recognize it as the face of a friend or that we are under the delusion
of seeing a “real” face: rather, this
“seeing it as a face” must be compared with
seeing this drawing ) either as a cube or as
a plane figure consisting of a square and two rhombuses; or with seeing
this ) “as a square
with diagonals”, or “as a swastika”, that is, as a
limiting case of this ) ; or again with seeing
these four dots .... as two pairs of dots side by
side with
135.
each other, or as two
interlocking pairs, or as one pair inside the other,
etc. |