The article we read for this week really got me thinking more about the ideas brought up in the Solso and Livingstone chapters we read last week. Specifically, I'd like to expand on what I posted in my comment on Ernest's post. There, I focused mainly on the idea of parallel processing and its relationship to the ways we respond to art. I quoted Solso, who said "people react to visual stimuli (and other stimuli as well) with innumerable implicit associates, which attests to the richness of experience as well as the depth of cognition we all enjoy" (121). This attests to the multifacted nature of the emotional and intellectual responses people have to art. Not only to artists create work that has a variety of intended meanings, but the observer also provides further associations and interpretations, leading to the fulfilling experience of viewing a work.

The Mamassian article took this idea to another level for me. One of the most interesting points in the article, a questions I had not thought to raise before, was: why do we respond to an artwork with such emotional and intellectual interpretations, while we view the everyday objects around us with such relative apathy? Mamassian's point that "One important difference between the perception of visual arts and what could be called "everyday perception" is the task of the observer" (2143), reveals to me the importance of the observer. While it could be argued that an artwork is still meaningful even if it is not observed (because of the artist's process and impetus for creating the work), Mamassian's point, to me, is reminiscent of Solso's thoughts on light: as the eye and brain's interpretive functions give life to light, they also do so for an artwork. The task of the observer is to make sense of the artwork, and in doing so, to imbibe it with meaning, to give it life. We do this for art because of the power of parallel processing.

Of course, the artist also has a task: to create a work in which it is possible to find a deeper meaning. As Mamassian points out, the "rules" for artists have changed drastically with each passing generation. Each set of rules and formulas for creating great artwork we formulated by social conditions. Society's tastes and desires inform the parameters within the artist performs his task; and in turn, the results of that task inform the collective observer's understanding. As I ponder this notion, I am reminded of an Art History class I took during my semester abroad in Sweden. In that class, we studied the art and architecture of Sweden. One of the main points we focused on at the beginning of the course was portraiture done in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. During that time, there were no professional art schools in Sweden, and therefore no Swedish artists existed who could produce paintings on par with those being made in countries such as Italy and France, where art was a much more studied and practiced discipline. So, the Swedish monarchy imported artists from those countries, who could paint portraits in the accepted style of the time. These portraits were extremely formulaic, each detail meant to convey a specific idea. The posture of the subject told the observer the subject's status. An open crown meant the King had been alive at the time the portrait was completed. If his pale, white hands were in view, that told the observer that he was privileged and had not spent time working the fields. The Swedes imported artists who understood these rules, in order to appear on par politically with the rest of Europe. Thus, the artist completed his task of portraying the subject according to the social rules and expectations, and in turn the population completed their task by interpreting the paintings in the correct fashion.