Why We All Like Picasso
Chris
interesting article on this in Friday's National Post:
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20010706/610887.html
(If the link is broken, go to http://www.nationalpost.com, and either
scroll down the page to the article link, or use the 60 day search on
"Picasso")
Personally, I think the scientist in question missed the boat; but I
would be curious to hear what others think of the article.
Cheers;
Chris
Marilyn
There is no way a person hooked up to electrodes looking at what the scientist deems to be beautiful, can have an honest personal aesthetic response, in my opinion.
As Don DeLillo writes in "White Noise"
"she was in a position to be tricked by her own apparatus of suggestibility"
In the case of the scientist doing a study on people looking at art, the viewers would be also tricked by the scientists' apparatus of suggestibility, (not to mention physical apparatus.) Also, I think that there are too many assumptions at the basis of the experiments.
Assumptions:
1. art (the scientists' aesthetic)
2. beauty (the scientists' definition)
3. genres of art (art history is not the scientists' expertise)
4. styles of art expression (not the scientists' expertise)
5. scientists' assumption that most people like Picasso's work.
(All the artists I know love Picasso but they are not representative
of
the general population.)
So, I decided not to read the article.
Peter H.M. Brooks
Marilyn <mwe...@nospamislandnet.com> wrote in message news:3B460021...@nospamislandnet.com...
Just going over the article to see if I wanted to get really into it. Then I thought that if artists Michael Snow and Jack Shadbolt wrote an article on nuclear physics, cold fusion whatever, would it be interesting? I think not.There is no way a person hooked up to electrodes looking at what the scientist deems to be beautiful, can have an honest personal aesthetic response, in my opinion.
As Don DeLillo writes in "White Noise"
"she was in a position to be tricked by her own apparatus of suggestibility"
In the case of the scientist doing a study on people looking at art, the viewers would be also tricked by the scientists' apparatus of suggestibility, (not to mention physical apparatus.) Also, I think that there are too many assumptions at the basis of the experiments.
Assumptions:
1. art (the scientists' aesthetic)
2. beauty (the scientists' definition)
3. genres of art (art history is not the scientists' expertise)
4. styles of art expression (not the scientists' expertise)
5. scientists' assumption that most people like Picasso's work.
(All the artists I know love Picasso but they are not representative of
the general population.)
You seem to be rather hard on 'scientists'! Do you really think that they are such different animals that they have no aesthetic appreciation? Don't you think that some scientists may have an interest, or even a degree, in art history and paint?
I am all for stereotypes in their place, but, I don't feel that this is an accurate one.
For one thing, learning mathematics is an aesthetic experience - the beauty of some mathematics is awe inspiring, but sadly only reachable by those prepared to take the hard road to understand enough to see it.
I would recommend the book 'Godel, Escher, Bach - an eternal golden braid' that discusses the interplay between music, art and mathematics.
I am not just talking about mathematicians either as mathematics is the language of science.
--
Si latet ars, prodest - Ovid
Art is a lie that makes us see the
truth - Picasso
Sharon Barcone
required to respond to all that is stated there.
But on first read I feel the guy has gone around the block three times and
still didn't make it across the street where he should have been heading. I
agree he missed the boat by assuming things that may not have a basis in
fact.
"They missed the point of art," Ramachandran says. "It's not about
representing reality, it's about hyperbole, exaggeration, and idealization."
For me personally in my own art it is indeed about reality... and new ways
in which to perceive reality. In that respect I even see abstract art as
based in reality; that is the reality of color, design and texture. That
aside my point is his generalization of the "point of art" may not be valid.
And many artists in today's world will argue about whether "beauty" is a
valid requirement for art in the 21st. century. And without beauty his
neural pathway argument are pretty shallow. You might also get the
impression that women could have no appreciation of the nude in art. I
disagree.
There is much about the creation of art that may be explained by science at
some point. But many more facts and areas of study will required to begin to
get a real understanding of the human mind and it's relation to the creation
and appreciation of art.
Chris wrote in message <3B45A5AA...@ns.sympatico.ca>...
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RolandKoch
the brain.
But what about the heart?
Science is based on existing facts, whether known or undiscovered.
Art, in my opinion, is an outward expression of the of the human spirit.
Contemporary science barely tolerates the notion of spirituality. Not yet,
anyway.
Is Art a science? Is Science an art?
Art and Science are so diametrically in opposition
that neither can exist without the other!
'An frasti cundo'.
Roland Koch
www.xlab.co.za
Sharon Barcone <sha...@usadatanet.net> wrote in message
news:3b464...@corp.newsgroups.com...
Peter H.M. Brooks
> There is much about the creation of art that may be explained by
science at
> some point. But many more facts and areas of study will required to
begin to
> get a real understanding of the human mind and it's relation to the
creation
> and appreciation of art.
>
This is true. I think that the study is important, though, for two
reasons. Firstly understanding anything to do with humanity is important
in helping us understand ourselves and secondly that understanding our
aesthetic sense should help us in understanding many things about our
brain (and senses) that are related to it.
Some people would argue that understanding something takes away the
'magic' of it. This may be true, if you think it 'magical' to consider
that the moon is made of green cheese. In my experience, though, the
more you understand of things the more exciting they appear, not the
less.
Chris
I really appreciate the compliment, thanks! But when I do come across
something I usually just post it to r.a.f. and a couple of mailing lists
I'm on, and mostly because I appreciate it when others do the same.
Forums like r.a.f., being internationally distributed and freely
available, have a great potential for disseminating thought (as versus
simple information, proselytizing, or ill-informed polemics), if we
encourage it.
Now here's an article that you in particular, as a resident of Ontario,
might find interesting, it's by Robert Fulford, in today's (July 7)
National Post:
http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/columnists/story.html?f=/stories/20010710/614261.html
(Note, the link may be broken by line wrapping. If so be sure to paste
the the broken part into your address header. Otherwise, go to
http://www.nationalpost.com , click on the "Arts and Life" section in
the yellow box on the left, and then scroll down to the Robert Fulford
link on Mike Harris).
Fulford is a humane and generous thinker on the arts. In this article he
opens opens up a rather interesting can of worms with respect to the
role of government intervention and funding, a perenial point of
contention in artistic circles. FWIW, there's an interesting parallel
between his thoughts and those expressed in a book book I am currently
reading, F.A. Hayek's "Fatal Conceit". Though I imagine most posters to
r.a.f. don't want to go there :)
Take care;
Chris
jan de smet
like the artical.
some critical reflexions!
1 How can anybody explain to a frog, living in a very deep well, how
vast the firmament is? (tao)
2 Thought spontaneously to MM Ponty. He believed strongly a scientist
should learn to observe the way a painter (like Cezanne) does.
A scientist can only find what is already within his model, within the
setup of his experiments and even within his measuring tools. An
ampere meter can only measure electrical current...Applying now the
scientific method on
observation, is maybe not the best lesson to be learned from MMP and
from the way an artist or spectator perceives?
3 "A" Picasso is like "a" house ,"a" book...It is not enough specific
to mean something in this context.
4 Cant make directly the step from "recognizing a symbol for the
mother seagull’s beak" to "appreciating abstract
art." But it is maybe a good point for further discussion within
this newsgroup. Can an animal observe and think in an abstract way?
Appreciate art. Can use some help on this
5 Scientist that try to unveil art and beauty need to be encouraged
and I am on the skeptical but positive side regarding this evolution
jan de smet
my e mail address : jan_d...@yahoo.co.uk
Hilde's e mail address : hilde...@planetinternet.be
my site on portraits : http://home.planetinternet.be/~hsoens1/
Rufus
from Chris <bro...@ns.sympatico.ca> contains these words:
> http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20010706/610887.html
> Cheers;
> Chris
Chris - The article deals with an interesting area, and I'd like to
see discussion of scientific research on, say, perception in
relation to visual art within the NG.
However, I don't see it arising from this article. It's too superficial.
I know it's just a piece of popular journalism, but I still shudder
at some of the statements attributed to scientists. I think we can
expect something a bit better than, say, that 'seagulls appreciate
abstract art', or that some brain cells ignore perspective 'which is
what Picasso did', or that computers cannot make a pattern 'prettier
(sic) than a Da Vinci. At least not yet'. Whether the author or the
scientists or both are guilty, I don't know, but this loose sort of
stuff seems to me liable to encourage a glib, dumbed-down discussion,
or possibly to convince visual arts people that scientists have
nothing intelligent to say to them.
If anyone is interested in the area, and new to it, then as a starter
I'd recommend Richard Gregory's 'Eye and Brain: The Psychology of
Seeing', which has been going strong for 25 years. (He thinks highly
of Ramachandran, by the way.) Also the seagull research, which dates
from before WW2, is charmingly described in The Herring Gull's World
by Niko Tinbergen - another scientist who really could write.
lauri levanto
Thanks for the interesting article. Some people turned it down here,
but I think it deserves a couple of comments.
It is easy to agree with the author that whatever happens in our minds,
is neural activity. The understanding of neural processes has varied
and is far forom complete, even now. In the positivistic era,
was it Skinner, claimed that the human brain is tabula rasa, and anybody
can learn anything. All is a matter of training. The Joseph Brean article
takes the opposite view that all in our brains is preprogrammed,
hardwired. The truth must lie somewhere in between.
Brian's first "proofs" are from birds. Apparently bird brains have a
lot of preprogramming - in a sense they are instinct creatures,
robots that react in a predictable way.
> ...seagulls appreciate abstract art
refers to this. In the example the stick with red dot is a signal of
food time. It is a huge jump to say that a seagull can differentiate it
as an abstract presentation of the real thing.
We all know how difficult it is to look abstract art, without seeing
gestalt - some human or animal figure - in it. That is because the purpose
of our vision is to establish meaning in all we see. Perfect abstract
composition has no built-in meaning.
The neural process that abstracts a meaning in all we see, is complicated.
I do not doubt that certain cells deal with facial images in one particular
perspective, and other operate to recognise the people we know.
It is a hierarchical structure as the article claims, but I do not
believe Picasso worked out shortcuts. His mixed perspective was a
deliberate construct of the left - logical hemisphere. For me
the liking of Picasso is more a logical than emotional response.
There seems to be a link between emotion and perception, however A scetch
of a nude may be more powerful than a pinup photo. Not because
it evokes stronger sexual response, but because the play of
lines and rythm have a value in itself. That is what we appreciate
in folk art - weawing patterns, ceramics.
-lauri