John Singleton Copley, A Boy with a Flying Squirrel, 1765

What this exercise shows students is that just because you have looked at something doesn’t mean that you have seen it. Just because something is available instantly to vision does not mean that it is available instantly to consciousness. Or, in slightly more general terms: access is not synonymous with learning. What turns access into learning is time and strategic patience. (via)

Jennifer L. Roberts, a Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, talks in detail about how she uses slow looking in and outside of her classroom. To read more, especially about her three hour slow looking exercise in front of Copley’s painting, click here.

– Karen