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| Emilie Gehler Temple of Minerva Medica, Rome ca. 1800 gouache on paper Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden |
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| Domenico Montaigù Temple of Juno, Baiae ca. 1750 etching Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome |
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| Hubert Robert Temple of the Sibyl, Tivoli ca. 1785 oil on canvas National Museum, Warsaw |
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| Anonymous Photographer Temple of the Sibyl, Tivoli ca. 1855 albumen print Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Rudolf von Alt Temple of the Sibyl, Tivoli 1835 watercolor on paper Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Bartholomeus Breenbergh Temple of Sibylla Tiburtina, Tivoli ca. 1627 drawing Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden |
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| Antonio Labacco (publisher) Cutaway of Roman Temple 1552 engraving (book illustration) Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel |
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| Anonymous Printmaker after Andrea Palladio Entablature, Capital Base and Soffit from the Temple of Castor and Pollux, Rome 1581 woodcut (page from Palladio's Quattro Libri dell'Architettura) Hamburger Kunsthalle |
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| Thomas Ender Encounter outside a Temple in Pompei ca. 1830 watercolor on paper Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna |
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| Jean Barbault Ruined Temple with Statue of Aesculapius 1754 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Angers |
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| Giovanni Ghisolfi Capriccio of Ruins with the Temple of Vespasian before 1683 oil on canvas Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna |
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| Giovanni Battista Piranesi Temple of Janus, Rome ca. 1769-71 etching Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden |
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| Claude-Joseph Vernet Temple of Diana, Pozzuoli ca. 1750-55 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Alexandre Calame Temple Ruins at Paestum 1844 etching and drypoint Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève |
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| Isabelle van Berchem West Front of the Parthenon 1893 albumen print Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève |
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| Frédéric Boissonnas West Front of the Parthenon - Detail ca. 1903 gelatin silver print Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève |
No wonder the boldest of these experiments led to the conviction that the artist's vision is entirely subjective. With impressionism the popular notion of the painter became that of the man who paints blue trees and red lawns and who answers every criticism with a proud, "That is how I see it." This is one part of the story but not, I believe, the whole. This assertion of subjectivity can also be overdone. There is such a thing as real visual discovery, and there is a way of testing it despite the fact we may never know what the artist himself saw at a certain moment. Whatever the initial resistance to impressionist paintings, when the first shock had worn off, people learned to read them. And having learned this language, they went into the fields and woods, or looked out of their windows onto the Paris boulevards, and found to their delight that the visible world could after all be seen in terms of these bright patches and dabs of paint. The transposition worked. The impressionists had taught them, not, indeed, to see nature with an innocent eye, but to explore an unexpected alternative that turned out to fit certain experiences better than did any earlier paintings. The artists convinced art lovers so thoroughly that the bon mot "nature imitates art" became current.
Those who have experienced the thrill of such visual discoveries have generally expressed their gratitude in the words that only art has taught them to see. Even in classical antiquity Cicero had marveled at the many things painters saw in shade and light that we ordinary mortals do not see. No doubt this is true, and yet it is not the whole truth. Seeing in itself is so complex and miraculous a process of interaction and integration that not even art could teach us that. The current idea that we look lazily into the world only as far as our practical needs demand it while the artist removes this veil of habits scarcely does justice to the marvels of everyday vision. I believe that André Malraux here came much nearer to the truth when he stressed that all seeing is a purposeful activity, the artist's purpose being painting.
– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)