gathatoulie live

... some of the mental equipment a man orders his visual experience
with is variable, and much of this variable equipment is culturally
relative, in the sense of being determined by the society which has
influenced his experience. Among these variables are categories with
which he classifies his visual stimuli, the knowledge he will use to
supplement what his immediate vision gives him, and the attitude he
will adopt to the kind of artificial object seen. The beholder must
use on the painting such visual skills as he has, very few of which
are normally special to painting, and he is likely to use those skills
his society esteems highly. The painter responds to this; his
public's visual capacity must be his medium. Whatever his own
specialized professional skills, he is himself a member of the society
he works for and shares its visual experience and habit. - "Painting
and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy", by M. Baxandall, quoted by
Clifford Geertz in "Art as a Cultural System"