Reading a painting and movement from left to right

[Timothy C. Tyler]

How do you feel about light moving across a painting. Does it flow most normally or naturally left to right. It has been presumed this happens to "Westerners" due to our manner of reading the written word in this fashion.

I think it does and I think I'm not alone. I'd like to see some examples especially famous ones of both versions. Here's a point I believe it so strongly that I place "stoppers" to slow the locomotion of the eye across a painting. Others do it and have done for centuries. There are hundreds of stoppers along the right edge of paintings.

Sargent was aware of this in El Jaleo and leaned the figure in the opposite direction to counter the effect. In "Boit Daughters.." he put the famous red screen as a stopper.