" The painter lives in fascination. The actions most proper to him—those gestures, those paths which he alone can trace and which will be revelations to others (because the others do not lack what he
lacks or in the same way)—to him they seem to emanate from the things themselves, like the patterns of the constellations. Inevitably the roles between him and the visible are reversed. That
is why so many painters have said that things look at them...It becomes impossible to distinguish between
what sees and what is seen, what paints and what is painted. "

― Maurice Merleau-Ponty , L'Œil et l'Esprit