“You can’t take in the whole thing at once (among other things, your vision is only sharp at the fovea), so you focus on one part, and then another part, etc.”
That is, in a sense, not entirely true. Paintings can be like eyesight on purpose. Impressionism (or some “schools” of Impressionism) is “about” that, really. The idea of having a whole scenario unfold in front of you, all things at once, and because of the retinal limitations of focus, think about what is a “pusher” in a painting, and paint it according what you want your leading effects to be, what you have identified as such. Precisely to not noodle up a collage of single items and render them generically (detailed). You are interpreting the rest of the painting anyway, but you have leading effects.
A little painting-sidenote:
“You can’t take in the whole thing at once (among other things, your vision is only sharp at the fovea), so you focus on one part, and then another part, etc.”
That is, in a sense, not entirely true. Paintings can be like eyesight on purpose. Impressionism (or some “schools” of Impressionism) is “about” that, really. The idea of having a whole scenario unfold in front of you, all things at once, and because of the retinal limitations of focus, think about what is a “pusher” in a painting, and paint it according what you want your leading effects to be, what you have identified as such. Precisely to not noodle up a collage of single items and render them generically (detailed). You are interpreting the rest of the painting anyway, but you have leading effects.