MOBILE VISION The impact of illusionism was manifold: it defined the tangible (or palpable) as 'real5 and with the introduction of this new materiality, turned all properties of pictorial form—more significantly colour— subservient to tactuality.5 Now it became a condition for the painter and the viewer to fixate their gaze, to behold the world in an arrested glimpse. Not only did this make the relationship between the image vis-a-vis the viewer specific and determined, the immobility of vision so enforced was, as we shall remember, in the context of a 'reality' made more material—an object for exclusive appraisal. Illusionism thus changed an age-old world view and henceforth reigned imperial over other modes of perception. In many respects this may be regarded as the outcome of the great empirical enlightenment of the Renaissance in art. (It may be argued here that modern art countered the inviolability of illusionistic form which indeed it did. It must however be noted that modren art gained its strength from seeking a counterpoint of illusionism, hence it remained within the orbit of its influence through negation The crucial terms of 'distortion5 and 'abstraction5, 'surreal5 and 'superreal5, suggest an implicit yet deep-rooted obsession with the tangible and the 'real5 Only in rare cases, and then only partially, did modern artists extricate themselves from the polarity illusionism established.) Jan Van Eyck Arnolfim's Wedding Portrait c 1434 AD Annunciation From Rhenish P\alter German Romanis que