Seeing Teapots

Seeing Teapots

Russell asks us to imagine him sitting at a brown table on which there are sheets of paper. “Although I believe that the table is 'really' of the same colour all over,” he writes, “the parts that reflect the light look much brighter than the other parts, and some parts look white because of reflected light.” He then explains how different people viewing the table from different angles, or because they might be color blind or wearing tinted glasses, see the table quite differently, all because of the way they see the reflected light. Though that realization may be unimportant to most people—we tend not to notice the play of light unless we are looking for it—to an artist it is “all-important.” He continues: “the painter has to unlearn the habit of thinking that things seem to have the colour which common sense says they 'really' have, and to learn the habit of seeing things as they appear.”