Running hard on the heels of a previous post on Neuroesthetics, I started looking around for more studies on the effect of art on the brain. Is the recognition of beauty inherent or is it learned. I always assumed that I picked up my sense of aesthetics from the environment that I grew up and was trained in. I’m slowly learning to think different.
Some new research data is coming in from the department of Neuroscience, University of Parma, Italy, where researchers are discovering human cognition of ancient rules of proportion like the golden ratio (1:0.618). Most design or art students come across the golden ratio somewhere in their studies, though how many consciously adopt this into their work is questionable. Researchers are now finding that there are perhaps rules that apply to our appreciation of art. There are proportions that we find naturally pleasing…
In a study to determine if the human brain can indeed distinguish between such factors, the researchers hooked up subjects to fMRI machines to map the brain areas that correspond to art appreciation. The subjects were picked from a group of ‘naive’ art critics, or people with no apparent history of art-appreciation and the images shown were those that correspond to the western concepts of aesthetics such as renaissance sculpture. The images themselves were doctored forming three different image types with only one of them remained unaltered. They were changed subtly so that the bodies were not deformed yet there was a perceptible difference. The parameter that they were pursuing was proportion, in respect to our appreciation of the Golden Ratio.
Subjects rated the original sculpture significantly more than they did the altered images…
Read and see the images here…
Categories: beauty · neuroesthetics · perception
Does appreciation of aesthetics come from upbringing or is it inherent? If it is then what are the corresponding neuronal connections? At what point is beauty perceived? Welcome to neuroesthetics, a study of aesthetics from a neurological point of view. New research indicates that artists have an inherent sense of the spatial schema and other measurable image statistics found in nature, and artists ‘apply these insights’ in their work!
Speaking from the artist’s point of view, we do learn certain spatial rules and applications such as the golden mean and the grid as a part of art study. But what is of interest is the softer learning. I mean this in the sense of conscious-tactile (I’m aware of my bodily sensation of pressure of pencil on paper and the immediate recognition of a line I prefer over one that I don’t when i’m ‘moulding’ the rough drawing.) Any artist will tell you that such learning occurs during those years of constant sketching and drawing. You pick up minuscule bits of information (as feedback from when you’re drawing) that no art school can teach although it’s difficult to verbalize these learnings.
In a charcoal life study for example there are the obvious perspective and foreshortening errors that we consciously correct. There are other decisions we make but there are split-second decisions and therefore go largely unnoticed when we re-tell or document the process later. An example may be how we choose lines when we scribble out a form. While the art teacher teaches line delineation, we are also learning a subtler skill. We are learning to introduce ‘character’ into the sketch. This occurs through not just recreating natural features of the subject’, but also the body language, facial expression and then something more. Often the more experienced artists are able to catch subtle nuances that beginners can never get.
There was an urban legend floating around Malleshwaram that the cinema hoarding painters near Malleshwaram, Bangalore never taught their chelas how to infuse life into the painting until he is completely initiated. The legend is that the guru then teaches the chela how to paint the iris and get the character to literally look into you.
The Institute of Neuroesthetics has some papers on the subject.
Categories: neuroesthetics
