The interest of European philosophy in the sense of sight has mostly had an objectivist or a subjectivist bias. Both the seeing subject and the "objectively" visible are attributed too much and too little at the same time: the objectivist interpretation cannot explain the selectivity of vision, while the subjectivist conception leaves unclear how the relationship between perception and the world comes about. The present study, equipped with numerous illustrations, develops a new interpretative framework at the intersection of philosophy and art studies, guided by the assumption that seeing is a performative activity through which we epistemically, ethically, and aesthetically engage with the world.