Beginning in the seventeenth century, many of Europe's greatest writers and artists became embroiled in a debate that centered on the priority of paintings or sculpture, touch or sight, colour or design, ancient or modern.The Blind Spot guides us through these historic quarrels, decoding the key terms of the heated discussions and revealing how the players were influenced by the concurrent explosions of scientific discoveries concerning the senses of sight and touch.Drawing on the works of Rene Descartes, Roger de Piles, Denis Diderot, Charles Baudelaire, and Emile Zola among others, this volume lets readers eavesdrop on an energetic and contentious topic that preoccupied European intellectuals for three hundred years.