the inconsistency of memory
In the pursuit of defining the foundation of consciousness, Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes in his 1945 book La Phénoménologie de la Perception that the foundation of conscious knowledge, of defining reality, is upheld by perception - by how one experiences the world through sensations and correlates one’s apprehensions against those of others. In observing a landscape and attempting to render my understanding of how I perceived it through personal recollection of various mental images, I was caused many times to ask myself if the sky ought to be in the background or the foreground, if the mountains ought to be carved in detail or blurred, and if one single impression, one depth perception, could do justice to the complexity of nature. Does the sky not extend before and behind the mountains, and if so, why only render it explicitly visible in gaps framed by the mountain? Do we not infer the presence of detail in obscured areas simply from projecting our visual apprehension of it onto clarity? If what the mind’s eye sees upon memory recall largely differs from what is perceived in real-time can the mind be trusted with it’s apprehension of sight, of depth? This bas-relief is a personal take on the knowledge that I gained from my experience of being outdoors while contemplating a mountainous landscape. I filtered my execution through aesthetic consideration of multiple linear perspectives as employed in traditional Asian panoramic paintings.