International Seminar on 

Vidya Bhawan Society, Udaipur

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When we talk about science, reason, rationality, mechanics etc as an offshoot of European Renaissance, we also knowingly or unknowingly buy the foundation of visual logic associated with those notions, i.e. Renaissance Perspective, a space of two dimensional representation of three dimensional ‘real’ world, governed by Newtonian cause and effect principles. But, the question is, whether this perception can be considered as a universal cognitive truth? Interestingly most of the visual aids for children or juvenile education are based on this principle solely. So for a child attending basic primary education in Indian context is bound to learn the code of this mode of visual representation as soon as she comes in contact with ‘A for Apple’. She has to learn to identify the picture as a representation of the fruit, if she comes up with any other kind of idea, she is corrected with precision.

   In this way since childhood we are taught to see every picture, painting, sketch, sculpture through a specific visual code. We are controlled to have a specific visual perception. However, the ways to approach the visual world might be more than that.

   It would be interesting to see the various kinds of visual responses to figures, sketches etc. There have been experiments in the western world where geometric pictures and objects were shown to students and then they were asked to draw the same. Students from American and Afro-American households showed marked difference which had to do with their cultural practices of the visual world. These finding challenge the task of the teacher, and to draw every student to the same fold of visual culture, is but a mistake. In fact, such findings encourages us to acknowledge the difference and if possible to disseminate that spectrum of variation to all other students.

   Often exposure to different kinds of visual materials shakes the students from their comfort zone of visual perception and forces them to come to terms with an altered sense of visual perception – which might be a learning process both for the student and the teacher.