Looking at Art by Alice Elizabeth Chase is a novel about the way artists view the world and artwork itself. It discusses how art is ever-changing, varying between different cultures over time. In addition, Chase explains the different techniques of artists to represent space and human action.

In Chapter 3, Chase comments on the difference between a non-artist’s view and the artist’s view of the world. Ordinary people, he says simply look at a landscape and conclude that “objects nearby are big and clear, their colors bright, while those farther away seem smaller, fainter, and more blurred.” This is because they are only looking at the surface, not really grasping the energy/feelings that nature sends. Artists, on the other hand, observe the world in a very different way. Instead of just glancing at nature and believing what their eyes are seeing, they provide a new take to the picture. They express what they see through their artwork. Chase exemplifies this idea by delineating the contrastive ways that artists have viewed the world over the years. For example, the Egyptians painted landscapes as a map, recreating each detail to inform the viewers of where everything is. The Greeks used nature to just provide a setting for human figures. For the Romans, nature was used as a means of escape; their paintings of nature were created to provide an illusion of stepping into another world. On the other hand, the Chinese and the medieval artists looked at landscape as closely related to God. “One seems to be looking at something very precious: the serene perfection of God’s world.” As time passed, the landscape became the center of the painting, while the humans were just merely incidents. “Man with his myriad activities was merely an incident in a great and beautiful world where his daily routine, his joys and griefs, were relatively unimportant.” Landscape, however was not always important. In the United States, many artists disregarded the potent of landscape and just used it as a background. However, after the United States gained its independence from Britain, settlers became proud and desired to display their beautiful country. Artists also began to realize that their artwork was more than what they saw; it was a way to release their thoughts and feelings to the world. Instead of just recreating what they saw, great artists began to alter their paintings in order to present their ideas. One great example of this was Paul Cezanne’s “Mont Sainte-Victoire.” His painting differed from a photograph taken of the very same scene. His painting evoked feelings of domination that the mountain possesses. Conversely, the photograph showed an unimpressive view of the mountain. By presenting their own perspectives, artists have shared with viewers a new way of visualizing art, whereby they, the viewers, can sense the deeper aspects of nature.

In Chapter 4, Chase informs her readers about the many different ways that artists represent space. For example, many artists used the profile system and overlapping to represent people in action. These techniques were practiced by ancient Egyptians and the Mesopotamians. The Greeks were more advanced, including the use of shadows to emphasize depth in space. Through their accurate foreshortening and shadowing, the Greeks were able to provide artwork that showed people in the third dimension. Another technique that was used to delineate the way how things look is the vanishing-point perspective. With this technique, artists were able to portray scenes how they actually look to the eye and not how they are actually supposed to be. For example, a railroad’s tracks appear to come together in a distance. By using the vanishing-point perspective, the artist is able to show the railroad how a person would look at it.  The Chinese and the Japanese use the isometric perspective, also known as the Oriental method. In this perspective, parallel lines do not meet at a vanishing point but continues parallel. This method is very useful to architects, since they would be able to see the inside and outside of a building. “It becomes clear that there is no “right” way to represent space. Each of the systems we have looked at has points in its favor. Vanishing-point perspective is what we are used to…but there are things that can be shown more truly by another system.” While there are many techniques on how to represent space, there is no actual “right way” to do it.

Overall, Alice Elizabeth Chase explains the evolution of art and the different techniques of representing space. Although there are varying techniques adapted by different artists, each method has its own advantages.