The notion of the surface plane is explored by examining Donatello's relief sculpture and the viewers orientation by reference to Rembrandt. Podro explains that Rembrandt's way of disallowing a dominant plane provides multiple orientations -- different paths of access -- to the subject, including different ways in which the viewer interacts with depicted figures. He then shows how, in the case of portrayal, the roles of sitter, artist, and viewer interconnect and, in the case of the self-portrait, converge. Podro, examining the contrasting responses of Hogarth and Chardin to a predominantly literary culture in which they establish their autonomy as visual artists, explains how for Hogarth, painting is conceived as part of social behavior, whereas for Chardin, it appears as a mode of inward reflective life (a theme taken up by Proust and t@ recent psychoanalytic thinkers).