Paintings are seen as objects in the world. Medieval paintings through the use of hierarchal perspective/scaling attempted to depict what we see, but since the paintings are themselves objects in the world we instead see, (in the example painting) -- tiny people sitting around a giant.
The way to depict in a painting the experience we're after is to use - composition, contrast, edges, color, detail, etc. to "direct the eye'" to the subject of the painting. Once the eye "knows" where to focus it will process the scene with the appropriate hierarchal scaling. In other words, we can show the eye where to look, but we can't show it what to see.