Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn - Optical Theory

Optical Theory

A letter published in 2004 by Margaret S. Livingstone and Bevil R. Conway, of Harvard Medical School, suggests that Rembrandt's eyes failed to align correctly, and that consequently he suffered from stereo blindness. This conclusion was made after studying 36 of Rembrandt's self-portraits. Because he could not achieve normal binocular vision, his brain automatically switched to one eye for many visual tasks. This disability could have helped him to flatten images he saw, and then put it onto the two-dimensional canvas. Livingstone theorized that this was an advantage for the painter: "Art teachers often instruct students to close one eye in order to flatten what they see. Therefore, stereo blindness might not be a handicap—and might even be an asset—for some artists."