How do we see?

Bishop Tom Wright concludes his book “The Challenge of Jesus” with an anecdote about a visit to the Louvre in Paris ... to view the ‘Mona Lisa’ ... among other paintings. Their expectation was to see the painting. However, because of damage and the need to protect the painting with a glass casing what they saw were reflections of themselves, of others. ...... Even though the painting was there ...... Post modernism says that all that one can see is mere reflection of ourselves. The bishop challenges -
There is such a thing as a love, a knowing, a hermeneutic of trust rather than suspicion, which is what we most surely need in the twenty-first century:
A Paris newcomer, I’d never been
Followed by those dark eyes, bewitched by that
Half-smile, Meaning, like beauty, teases, dancing
In the soft spaces between portrait, artist,
And the beholder’s eye. But now, twice shy,
She hides behind a veil of wood and glass:
Suspicion, fear, mistrust - projections of
Our own anxieties. Is all our knowing
Only reflection? let me trust, and see,
And let love’s eyes pursue, and set me free.