Medieval perspective and reality

Medieval perspective presents us with what we may regard as a quaint "flat" view of objects. Yet this may be a better representation of spatiality than our modern three-dimensional perspective which makes objects appear from an arbitrary, privileged, single point or viewer. Even so, there is a yet more real way of representing objects. That is to privilege NO viewing point over another, and to view objects from all points.


Viewing objects from all points - pan perspective- would be fairer, or at least not position-biased. It's representation of spatiality and objects is a point. This point, in contradistinction to material objects generally, cannot be hidden. Hence, if we suppose that material objects can be defined and distinguished in that way from secondary properties, the material world is viewer dependent, not viewer independent.

The material world is an invention forced on us by the viewing limits we place on objects. This would not trouble Kant, though I don't pursue this here. This restriction on perspective by science and modern artists of realist schools creates a distorted world. The pan-perspective point - the object - is real and unlike material objects, cannot be hidden. And this is no more than what we, and the medievalists, would expect.