Recognition

“The world is saturated with the Trinity, but we can only recognize this basic truth about the world, Aquinas argues, if we already believe in the Trinity (somewhat, for example, as we can only recognize a portrait as the likeness of a real person if we have some acquaintance with the individual who sat for it).”

-Bruce Marshall, “Putting Shadows to Flight,” in Reason and the Reasons of Faith, ed. Paul J. Griffiths (New York: T&T Clark, 2005), 65.

This is such a fruitful analogy that I just want to post some visual ids here so I can have them handy when I teach this topic.

You can provide your own example of a painting of someone you recognize. But here is a still from the 1941 Tex Avery cartoon “Hollywood Steps Out.” These six men are all likenesses of famous actors:

Viewers in 1941 could identify them on sight, and appreciate the caricatured exaggerations. But by a half-century later, most viewers might identify only one or two of them, but have only an unsteady sense that the other seem vaguely familiar. A common reaction from young viewers is, “Those guys are obviously based on specific people who I do not know.” (A fan site suggests this scene includes actors like Kay Kyser, William Powell, Spencer Tracy, Ronald Colman, Errol Flynn, Wallace Beery, and C. Aubrey Smith.)

A second example is Hieronymus Bosch’s 1510 painting of Christ mocked and crowned with thorns, now in the National Gallery in London:

At least two of the figures give the impression of being based on observation, as if Bosch hired models and painted their likenesses in portrait form. If you studied this painting closely for an extended time and then ran into one of these people on the street, you’d recognize them.

I could say more, but that’s what discussion is for.