As it pertains to art and design do you think people who wear glasses tend to appreciate clarity and cleanliness?

I don’t think it has anything to do with vision.

They want to look smarter than they are, or taken more seriously maybe. I would love to not need glasses because they are a drain on my life. Careful what you wish for.

I also don’t think wearing glasses has any bearing on a person’s taste and appreciation of ‘clarity and cleanliness’.

I agree that the strength of your vision is irrelevant. I don’t believe my artistic tastes changed at all when I got my first glasses at about the age of 39.

Hm maybe I meant the question to be for practicing artists. But I believe you’re all mainly right probably just irrelevant.

I think if you’re used to having your vision corrected you might see things differently. I don’t think it means you have different taste or a desire for clarity. I have heard of artists painting with their glasses off so they can paint without being obsessed with the sharpness.

It’s a different topic but I have always had corrected vision. When I had eye surgery a few years ago now my eyesight was improved dramatically. I can now drive and see without glasses. I only really need them for reading. However, I’m so used to the sharpness glasses provide that I feel I need the sharpness I get when I wear specs. I went to see my specialist recently and I could read to the bottom of the eye test thing and the nurse said I could read better than many people who don’t wear specs, but I feel more secure wearing them to drive. So perhaps this is related to your question about ‘clarity’?

I wear glasses and I have an extraordinary, messy and disorganised approach to life it’s got nothing to do with the specs it’s all about my acute ability to procrastinate and live on the edge.

I do appreciate clarity and cleanliness in my glasses…

The question doesn’t make sense to me (and i wear glasses.)

I have often pondered whether impressionists were near-sighted like me, because without my glasses, I see the light through the leaves in the trees and everything else differently – like an impressionist painting.

Still, I don’t think my visual acuity, nor my visual processing skills (which are rather weak) have much influence on my preferences for visual arts.

I wear glasses, and I love Impressionism, which tends to have parts of the painting out of focus.

@hearkat I actually saw a great PBS program once on Impressionists and their vision. Apparently, Monet had cataracts toward the end of his life and that is why there is a yellowish cast on many of his later paintings. And Van Gogh’s auras – as in “Starry Night” – might have been influenced by epilepsy or migraines. Fascinating, although I hate to trivialize great art that way.

@pleiades When looked at through the lens, as it were, of the artist’s vision, I think the question is more compelling.

I can only speak for me but I’m legally blind without glasses or contacts. I enjoy all art but prefer order and focus.

This seems a strange correlation to draw. Maybe they just don’t care for contacts…

Even with my glasses, I have no idea what “thrashy” means.

I don’t think your taste has anything to do with whether or not your vision is corrected. I suppose if it got to a point where your vision couldn’t be corrected that might affect your taste simply because it would alter how you perceived visual data.

Don’t see why that would have anything to do with musical preference though.

I started wearing glasses at age 10 and absolutely hated how I looked in them (cried for days), but wore them because I loved all of the detail they allowed me to see. Now I need reading glasses and because of vanity, tried not wearing them, but could not do it because I hated not having everything crystal clear and not being sure that I was reading something correctly or not. I would say that this correlates with my personality fairly well (I’m not an artist). I like to be in the know and have everything be clear and unambiguous.

There are plenty of other people I know who will admit to not being able to read what’s on a white board, on a sign or on a menu and it doesn’t bother them at all. They are fine with missing out. (I guess that is my bias coming through – they probably do not feel as if they are missing out!!)