Learning to see

The living perspective

In a manner similar to Baptiste Morizot’s application of philosophy and the natural sciences to daily life, so Estelle Zhong Mengual gathers together contemporary theories of art history and naturalism to discover fresh perspectives on the living. Her current research looks at the relationship that art, the past and present, have with the living world. She has set out to elaborate an environmental history of art which offers a new take on the representation of the living in art, which traditionally deprives life of meaning – nature as décor – or projects narrow human interpretations – nature as symbol.

Constantly toing and froing between the swarming outside world and silent museum galleries, Apprendre à voir offers a surprisingly fruitful way of viewing some of art history’s most emblematic works which will revolutionize our perspective of the all-too- often ignored living world around us. Apprendre à voir generates new ways of writing art history and our being in the world, based on living among the living.