John Berger. The art of seeing (№ 396036)

Today we see the art of the past as nobody had never seen. We even perceive it differently. This difference can be illustrated by the example of how at different times understood the term. The term - conditional, inherent only in the European art and as first developed in the Early Renaissance, centers everything in the eye of the viewer. It's like a lighthouse beam, only the spot of light coming out, take up images, going inside. The images of these used to be called reality. Perspective makes the eye the centre of the visible world. It all fits in the eye as the vanishing point of infinity. The visible world is arranged for the spectator as the universe was thought to be arranged for God.
According to the conventions of perspective visuality is not mutual. God doesn't need to put himself in any relationship with others: it's everywhere. The prospect has an internal contradiction: it structures all the images of reality so that they were addressed to only one viewer, but this viewer, unlike God, can only be in one place at a given point in time.