Eye Chart

What's an eye chart and how does it work? Desert nomads tested their vision by distinguishing a pair of stars, but we've created more anxiety-provoking ways to test the strength of our eyes. Encompassing a Spanish cleric's Renaissance guide to testing vision, a Dutch ophthalmologist's innovation in optical tech, and the witty subversion of the eye chart in advertising and popular culture, Eye Chart is an essay on the sharp, the fuzzy, and the invisible. It's about that familiar thing we read partially, and with difficulty. Reading the eye chart is an exercise in failure, since it only gets…