The Psychology of Visual Art Eye, Brain and Art

The central thesis of this book has been to argue that a full appreciation of visual art requires a detailed consideration of the visual system’s structure, function and evolution. Even before light reaches the retina, the changes brought about by its passage through the cornea and lens can have visible effects on visual art. Once light energy is converted into neural activity in the visual system, the huge complexity of the central nervous system is brought to bear on the problem of making sense of the retinal image. Visual art is intimately linked with the human capacity to sense light and inextricably bounded by its predispositions and limitations, many of which have firm evolutionary origins. There are manifold ways in which the characteristics of neural processes find expression in the spatial, chromatic and dynamic properties of visual art.

Evolution provides an over-arching theoretical framework for understanding all of human behaviour and offers a reasoned account of the capacity to create and appreciate art. Selection pressure has ensured that the visual system is supremely well adapted to the task of extracting meaning from natural visual images. The demands of optimal tuning and energy conservation have profound consequences for our ability to perceive, retain and appreciate certain spatial details, chromatic variations and dynamic changes in all visual images, including artistic images. Evolution has also equipped humans with a deep interest in nature, in landscape and in biological forms, and this interest finds expression in the enduring preoccupations of visual artists. The impulse to create art may be driven, at least in part, by a desire to advertise genetic quality to potential mates.