[Enlarged Movie Still with Image of Eye Closing and Opening]
its potential to reveal startling new perceptions of the visible world. In the 1920s, film was celebrated by avant-garde artists as a means of reintroducing viewers to everyday sights already so well known that they no longer merited attention, such as blinking. The disembodied eye was a particularly useful image for artists and filmmakers associated with the international art movement called the New Vision, both because the eye symbolized pure sight and because a blink is a phenomenon that happens so quickly that the mechanical operations involved are hard to describe without the use of a camera. This effort to make viewers see anew had strong ideological connotations and was closely linked with the New Vision's leftist politics.
Artwork Details
- Title: [Enlarged Movie Still with Image of Eye Closing and Opening]
- Artist: Unknown
- Date: 1920s–30s
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: 24.1 x 6.7 cm (9 1/2 x 2 5/8 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
- Object Number: 1987.1100.351
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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