When we look, do we really know what we are seeing?

Standing on the balcony sipping a coffee, I could hear

cheerful chirping from down below. 

I looked down and on a very small piece of lawn I saw

all these beautiful little blue birds jumping about, chirping,

and tipping their tail feathers.

There was something so ''happy'' and carefree about those birds, 

well, at least so it seemed to me, a person who knows very

little about birds.

I decided to try and paint one of those birds, 

and the above image is the result.

Interestingly, many of the people who has seen this

painting has made this comment: ''Oh, how beautiful, but

why is there blood dripping from the bird's claw?''

For this I have a number of answers: 

1. I felt the painting needed a bit of red.

           2. The bird is sitting on a barbwire and one of 

the barbs injured the bird.

      3. Beauty and ''pain'' often go hand in hand.

4. The barbwire represents mankind and

    how its needs and wants often seem to

    unwittingly disturb and or cause ''pain''

   to other living things sharing this planet.

5. The little drops of red makes the painting

''more'' than an ''photo'', aka more than a

realistic depiction of a subject.

''The relationship between what we see and what

we know, is never really settled.''

(John Berger)

Is it possible to really ''see'' something if we don't

''know'' what we are seeing?

Ex: what do you think this is?

or this?

If you think the first one is a close-up of a bottle brush flower,

then well done! you are right. 

If you think the second one is a close-up of a leaf, 

then well done again, you are right.

When we look at something we are using one of our senses, (seeing)

when we know what we are looking at, we are adding experience,

a mental function, to our seeing/looking.

So I am going to suggest that seeing we do with our eyes, 

knowing we do with our minds.

Which for me goes a long way when it comes to

better understand why us humans so often misunderstand 

each other.

I may see a forest, you may see timber,

I may see an ocean, you may see food,

I may see a bird, you may see a nuisance,

I may see a man down on his luck, you may see a lazy bum.

I may see an over-tired child, you may see a spoiled kid.

Vice versa and so on.

In my view,

what we see depends a lot on what we are looking for, 

what we have seen in the past, what we are willing

to see now and in the future. 

It also depends on our experiences, and our

interpretations of those experiences.

''The real voyage of discovery consists not of seeking

it in new landscapes but in having new eyes.''

(Marcel Proust)