Seeing the Unseen

The first mode of imagination—the visual—is shared by art and science. The chapter starts with an account of the history of visual perception, working though the ancient theory of ‘extramission’, because it sheds light on the role of the mind’s active projection of visual impressions on the world in the interpretation of incoming images. The commonality of scientific and artistic visual imagination is partially to be found in mappings between spaces of three to two dimensions, exemplified perfectly by astronomy, and the work of medieval painter Giotto. Comparisons of the creative process in a recent astrophysical discovery are made with a contemporary artist (Graeme Willson) and through a detailed study of a lesser-known work by Monet.