The Renaissance art connoisseur whose phrase — "the tactile aspects of retinal impressions" — Bob half-remembers and Cameron confirms, placing it at the end of one of Berenson's essays and noting that McLuhan quotes it somewhere. He is the third figure in the art-criticism cluster of the tactility chain, alongside Hildebrand and Wölfflin, and his function in dialogue 70 is evidentiary: his formulation is the one that states outright what the others' method implies, that seeing was already being read as touching. New to it — start with dialogue 70.
Across the dialogues
Enters as the third art critic in the tactility group, the one whose phrase makes the period's discovery quotable rather than merely inferred
The phrase Bob can produce only as a question — the tactile reading of vision stated so directly that it needs no interpretation, only sourcing.
"Berenson says something back then. He says, looking for the what? The tactile aspects of retinal impressions?"
The sourcing Bob needed, and the detail that matters most for the chain — the line did not merely exist, it passed through McLuhan's hands.
"Right at the end of one of his essays. And McLuhan quotes it somewhere."
The session's reconstruction has an immediate use — Bob withholds a point from his Lewis reading group until the attribution is secure, making the dialogue itself the fact-checking apparatus.
"so now I'll next time present it because I got it clarified with your help here."
Connections
Cameron confirms Berenson's "tactile aspects of retinal impressions" comes at the end of one of his essays and that McLuhan quotes it somewhere.
Bob places Berenson third in the art-criticism group — Berenson, Wölfflin, Hildebrand — before the chain extends past art history.