Working in Movement

You don't usually think of Rembrandt and Babe Ruth as having anything in common. But it turns out they were both (probably) stereoblind, a kind of disorder of seeing with two eyes that produces depth perception. In other words, they both used one eye to perceive depth, whereas most of us use two in something called stereopsis.

Harvard Neurobiology Professor Margaret S. Livingstone puts forth the idea that the Babe and Rembrandt were stereoblind, according to Study Probes Artist Vision. Livingstone couldn't examine the two, of course, but came to her conclusion by looking at photos of Ruth and examining the Dutch master's paintings. Far from a handicap, these guys literally used their brains to not only compensate, but represent depth in ways that served their talents famously.

Livingstone demonstrated the kind of hyper-acuity stereoblind people experience. Forced to perceive depth with one eye, “they are actually better at using depth cues.”

“Artists have figured out empirically aspects of the neurophysiology of vision,” Livingstone said, such as the fact that the brain interprets color and luminosity separately. Stereoblind artists are particularly adept at creating realistic images, she said, since they are extremely sensitive to depth cues that most artists train to discover.

Photos of Ruth show a left eye that wandered a bit from center, suggesting that he was stereoblind. Given that the Babe batted lefty, his right eye was the eye closer to the pitcher and the one that picked up the ball first. According to Livingstone,

The repression of depth perception in the “wall eye” leads a person to develop “hyperacuity” in the other so that “Babe’s stereoblindness may have been an asset,” Livingstone said.

During my Feldenkrais training I had an experience related to these ideas. I wrote a short article about it. Basically, I began to notice 3-d vision in vivid ways I hadn't experienced before. And I realized that seeing depth in photographic images was something learned, not an innate way of seeing. How interesting, then, that one of the most famous image-makers relied on one eye for his depth perception. He didn't have to adapt his images for two eyes; he already possessed sharper depth perception in one eye than most of us can get with two.

But even with more vivid depth perception, I never did learn to hit those hanging curve balls. Wonder whether Rembrandt would have made a good clean up hitter.