Interaction between Objectivism and Subjectivism in Reading the Image from Visual Perception Perspective (Case Study: Two Pieces of Qajar Textiles)

Rudolf Arnheim and Ernst Gombrich tried to explain how to read an image based on visual perception almost contemporaneously in the second half of 20th century. Arnheim, given his attachment to Gestaltists, was more likely to admit psychic powers and modern art. Arnheim tended to utilize sensory organization to convert formal properties to significant generalities, and provide a basis for all representations; but Gombrich argued two division of perception, and insisted on process of proportioning the teachings reserved in mind and the current situation. Due to his commitment to making and matching, he spread the range of choices to the domain of distinctive properties, and believed that recognition of the mankind depends on conceptual thought. Now, the question is: How one can read an image from perspective of the contrast between Rudolf Arnheim’s subjectivism and Ernst Gombrich’s objectivism and practice it in studies of arts? The authors aim to define the process of perceiving an image through an adaptive-analytic method, utilizing documentary studies and apply the conclusion in study of two pices of Qajar textiles. The result shows that in the first approach, the viewer pays attention to what he desires, and ignores what he doesn’t wish for. Certainly, each image, being naturalistic or abstracted, is defined under a series of principals, in order to exhibit form of the object in a two-dimensional format. Therefore, all types of visualizations are products of mental abstraction defined on the canvas; and the viewer must rely on visual thought to perceive all types of images, and refer to his conjectures memory and earlier experiences of the object when necessary, in order to overcome the insufficiency resulted by inadequacy or excessive complexity, and choose or complete the general structure, position his desired details, and highlight them based on the complying conditions