Visual perception is a three part operation: (1) Orientation, the alignment of visual attention with a stimulus; (2) Detection, the point at which the stimulus reaches a reportable level; and (3) Identification, the point at which the report on the stimulus recognizes what it is. There is a gap (which Bonnard manipulated) between orientation and detection, owing to what Bonnard called the mobility of vision, the fact that detection occurs through optical scanning in space and over time. And there is a gap between detection and identification insofar as vision can deliver an internal description of shape even when an object is not recognized in the conventional sense of understanding its use and purpose. (Vision must do this; otherwise it would not be able to deliver a description of an unfamiliar object.) Bonnard manipulated this gap, too, by increasing the difficulty of identification in selected parts of a painting.
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