PATRICK HUGHES AT THE INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY

Patrick Hughes, The Books of Venice, 2013

In a very fitting turn of events, Patrick Hughes has donated his work The Books of Venice to the bookish Institute of Philosophy. This grand and generous gesture marked the finale to the Institute's Pictorial Paradoxes symposium, which "brought together leading philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, artists and other experts in aesthetics and the arts to explore the way in which the brain resolves paradoxes and ambiguities in the normal retinal image and in visual art."

Patrick himself spoke at the symposium about the science behind his famed "reverspective" technique, and about his storied interest in both Surrealism and exercises in Renaissance perspective. Regarding his donation in particular, he says, "There is no better place to put a picture like The Books of Venice, which I think questions how we perceive space, how we see and fail to see, than at the Institute of Philosophy, devoted as it is to exposing poor thinking and delving into what is really there."

Find out more about Patrick's donation, and the Pictorial Paradoxes symposium, on the Institute of Philosophy's website.