The Psychology of Visual Art Eye, Brain and Art

Introduction

Humans are highly visual creatures. Evolution has honed the human brain into a supremely efficient tool for extracting information from visual images, which far exceeds the capabilities of the most powerful computer vision systems available today. The areas of the brain devoted to our visual sense are much larger than the areas devoted to all of our other faculties. Vision begins with an image cast onto the inside surface of the eyes. Large populations of brain cells analyse this image in terms of several essential visual characteristics, including shape, size, texture, colour and motion. These highly complex brain processes underlie all visual experience but they are largely hidden from conscious awareness. The detailed characteristics of brain function must have a profound role to play in our experience of visual art. The aim of this book is to put forward an approach to understanding visual art that is founded on our knowledge of how the eyes and brain function together to create visual experience.

Before we can embark on this task, it is important to define some fundamental terms of reference. Everyone agrees on what we mean by the brain, namely the 1.4 kg jelly-like mass of nerve cells and fibres cradled inside the human skull. The visual system of the brain includes the eyes, the neural pathways connecting the eyes to the brain and all the neurones in the brain that respond primarily to visual stimulation. On the other hand, it is much more difficult to agree on a definition of art. Philosophers continue to debate the virtues of alternative ways to define art; however, one point is clear: any attempt to define artworks in terms of a single characteristic such as their representational properties or their expressive qualities is bound to fail. Counter-examples to single characteristics such as these can always be found. Maps, for example, are representational because they represent the layout of the land but they are not usually considered to be art; human postures have expressive properties but are not usually considered as art unless adopted during an artistic performance such as ballet. On the other hand, it is difficult to consider the collection of Italian Renaissance paintings in London’s National Gallery as anything other than works of art. What about Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ (actually a manufactured urinal), or Carl Andre’s ‘Equivalent VIII’ (actually a rectangular arrangement of 120 firebricks)? Are these objects works of art?