Month: May 2025

Observations

Rembrandt van Rijn: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp

In Leisure, the Basis of Culture (first published in 1948), Josef Pieper notes the difference between looking as contemplation and looking as observation. With the first kind of looking – as when we look at a rose – we are ‘passive and receptive’, and ‘our attention is not strained’. We are simply looking, open ‘to …