Oscar Wilde - Genius of Britain: The Scientists Who Changed the World TV - Andy Warhol - Michael Mosley TV - Horizon - James Whistler - Paul Klee - Derren Brown TV - Peter Ackroyd -
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. Oscar Wilde
He [Newton] wondered what light might be made of and wanted to know how vision worked. (Science & Isaac Newton & Light & Vision) Genius of Britain: The Scientists Who Changed the World, Channel 4 2012
I always think about what it means to wear eyeglasses. When you get used to glasses you don’t know how far you could really see. I think about all the people before eyeglasses were invented. It must have been weird because everyone was seeing in different ways according to how bad their eyes were. Now, eyeglasses standardize everyone’s vision to 20-20. That’s an example of everyone becoming more alike. Everyone could be seeing at different levels if it weren’t for glasses. Andy Warhol
Colour-blind island [Pingelap] ... A painful burnt-out image ... 10% of the population of Pingelap are condemned to live in a totally black and white world. Michael Mosley, Countdown to Life: The Extraordinary Making of You III: The Final Push, BBC 2015
Some programmes aren’t much fun in black and white. Colour makes the world a much more enjoyable place. But why do we see in colour? Surely not for simple aesthetic reasons. Colour vision may have evolved because it serves some practical purpose. This evolutionary process is reflected in a quite remarkable new set of ideas that completely overturn our old theories of how we see colours. Horizon: Colourful Notions, BBC 1985
But the theory still can’t explain these coloured shadows: how green light produces a red shadow or blue light produces a yellow one. ibid.
Dr Edwin Land astonished the world with the Polaroid instant camera in 1948. ibid.
There must indeed be some relation between the colour of an object and the amount of long, middle or short-wave light it reflects. ibid.
Professor Gregory Holmes, one of the world’s leading experts in paediatric neurology, believes the fact that Ellen White’s visions followed a head injury is no coincidence. Horizon: God on the Brain, BBC 2003
We live in a world made of a kaleidoscope of colours ... Are these colours really what they seem? Is the sky really blue? Are the leaves really green? Horizon: Do You See What I See? BBC 2011
It’s an unsettling idea that colours may not really exist ... Do you see red in the same way that I do? ibid.
Wearing red seemed to help people win in a sporting situation. ibid.
Colour can speed up time. But it’s not the colour red that does it ... Blue seems to be able to speed up time. ibid.
For us as a species the way we see colour has a history. ibid.
Red and green are colours we have had to learn. ibid.
Colour is created in your brain. It’s made from the language you speak, the memories you carry, even the moods you feel. It is one of Nature’s great illusions. ibid.
There’s even a difference between men and women. ibid.
An artist is not paid for his labour but for his vision. James Whistler
Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible. Paul Klee, Inward Vision, 1958
Few claims come as large as those of the Bronnikov method – a psychic programme that has its eyes set on world domination. Derren Brown Investigates: The Men With X Ray Eyes, Channel 4 2010
Amongst their most intriguing claims is that they can teach the blind to see. ibid.
I have always been attracted to the Gothic and spiritual imagination, and I’ve always been interested in visionaries. Peter Ackroyd