Hi. I feel silly. I made this on a computer painting program.

-T

Color Contrast

Here are two images that I photographed.

I took the first image on my analog SLR. This particular roll of film became, during processing, extremely saturated (I did not process the film or develop the photos). I think that this photo displays color contrast because the darkness of the unlit parts of the room became a dense purple color. This, coupled with the yellowness of the light falling on the table and other light surfaces, creates a kind of otherworldly feel.

The second was taken in New York City. The colors here are extremely saturated- this photo was taken with a simple point-and-shoot digital camera. I turned up the saturation and added a bit of a warmer temperature to bring out the power of the red against the green. In this case, I think the color contrast has caused the leaves, especially where they are directly surrounded by the red of the flowers, take on a slightly artificial look.

simulatneous color contrast

Ingrid with hat by Andy Warhol




Squares with Concentric Circles by Wassily Kandinsky

Perceptual Priors and Artistic Conventions

Writing on iPhone as they have shut down the library. Forgive spelling errors, so sorry.

It may be the mood that comes at the end of a lousy valentines day, but I'd like to voice my extreme dislike of Solso''s prose style, and his affinity for goofy acronyms and statements of sweeping gushing generality about how each of us views the world through our own unique etc.

Yes, of course we do. And our perceptions are bound up in culture and in the conventions imposed on us by society. I don't see the same connotations in a square that you see, or that someone in Africa sees. Analysis of those differences in connotation is surely a worthy and fascinating study for those involved. Never mind all of that, however, because there ARE perceptual phenomena that transcend culture and individuality in all but the mentally impaired, and those phenomena deserve our attention. For example you might see a square this way, and I might see a square that way, but neither of us would mistake a square for a circle. In any culture, at any time, by any functioning human being, a square will be perceived as inherently different from a circle. The nature of that difference may be cultural, but the fact of it is not.

Why do certain visual differentiations transcend culture? There are biological reasons, as we have begun to see in Livingstone (at the risk of sounding like a broken record: red may mean love, red may mean hate, red may mean a lot if things, but no matter what it means, red will always be complementary to green.) We have had hints of certain cells which only trigger when stimulated by vertical lines, or horizontal lines, or some special type of line. Here we have biology informing our perception of difference, of certain visual phenomena deriving their meaning not from culture but from an objective relation to other geometrically different stimuli.

Once certain basic terms are in place. we can begin to reincorporate the influence of society, as Winnie is correct: just as it is impossible to make a statement free of inflection, it is impossible to create or interpret anything without the influence of society somehow encroaching upon it. In this regard, Mamassian makes a perfect segue with his discussion of perceptual priors vs sylistic conventions. The former have been experimentally proven to precede or predate the influence of culture, while the latter are inextricably bound up in it. Good good. The distinction becomes even more useful when we note that perceptual priors and stylistic conventions are both there to help us resolve ambiguities in the retinal projection. We can then say that while a perceptual prior would resolve ambiguity for all members of our species, a stylistic convention would not necessarily resolve ambiguity for a viewer unfamiliar with the cultural context in which that convention arose.

I'm not sure how to develop that point, plus I'm typing on a goddamn iPhone so I'll move on to the other thing I wanted to discuss, which is the whole question of archetypes. Whether you think of archetypes as being generated by culture or by some inborn set of human ideals, the concept is interpretable in a gestalt context. A "type" of any kind, archetype, stereotype, personality type, is just a gestalt. A way of organizing information into a simple structure. If we want to talk about Meyerhold and gesture, we could say, just as we did when comparing a circle to a square, that a gesture which is soft and light is fundamentally different from a gesture which is hard and strong. Once we've established that opponance, we can begin to categorize whatever other gestures we see as belonging to one of two "types." Of course, some gestures will not be so straightforward, some might be intricate and complex, but any gesture will land on some portion of this spectrum of opponance, and in our tendency to resolve things into the simplest possible whole, we will end up placing the gesture in the category to which it is closest. The same mechanism operates in the whole notion of character archetypes, or even in such things as astrology or those silly enneagram charts.

Artistic License

Earlier in the semester in my painting class we had a guest artist come in. As a Sarah Lawrence alumna, she showed us her portfolio from her undergraduate at S.L.C. and graduate years at Yale. In her course of study, her interests shifted from perspective landscapes, to photographic adaptation, to a more present theme of femme-fatale characters based on herself and her friends. It is in this series of “fem-bots” that her paintings seem pertinent to the readings. She showed us pictures of the process of her large-scale oil paintings. Upon first glance, these images show nothing out of the ordinary; she grids the image that she has constructed onto the canvas and proceeds to paint layer by layer to completion. However, as you see the painting develop, you see that somewhere along the way the flesh toned humanoids are green! When she explained why she painted a green under layer, the artist claimed that it gave the figure more depth.

After these first few readings in the course I think that I might have an explanation why the green gives such depth to the flesh. It has been mentioned along the way that the balance of three primaries is often included in esteemed paintings. So, it seems that the compliments of green and red would neutralize one another and the natural blue-ish tone of skin (thanks to our circulatory system) would come forward. Granted the ratio of green to red is unbalanced enough so as not to create corpse-like, gray tones, but it seems that there must be some relationship between including all of the trichromatic wavelengths that the eye detects included in such a important part of the artist’s work.

Aside from my color theory, the Mamassian article made several things come to mind. First, people approach art with a willing suspension of disbelief (common to many art media, but obviously I am focusing on visual art.) It is art, an image to be viewed from reality and therefore is, at least in some ways, separate from reality. Art follows its own rules, as Mamassian acknowledged, and I thought it interesting that he sought to find connections between the conventions of art and the applications of prior knowledge to everyday perception. Both work to make sense of inconsistencies but they do so in different ways. The phrase “artistic license” comes to mind. In his section on illumination and color, Mamassian discussed shadows as they have been used throughout history in art. From non-existent to the manipulation of the dark spaces it creates to maintain ambiguity in a piece, shadows can be used in visual arts in physically impossible ways to serve the purpose of the piece.

Second, the people are able to ignore “deformations of [a] scene” and comprehend the visual image. La Gournerie’s paradox reminds be of the phenomenon that people are able to read words that are jumbled so long as the first and last letters are correct.

A quote from Solso, “Art shows us what every human from Adam to the newest baby has locked up in his eternal view of the world,” (p. 97) reminds me of Carl Jung’s archetypes, the idea that there is some set of images or concepts that resonates with each human being based on the belief in a collective unconscious. The path of each human being is to ultimately express all of the archetypes, which can be imagined in a mandala as a balance of opposites. Imagine the typical idea of a midlife crisis, Hung would justify a splurge on a little, red convertible might be the archetypal expression of a frugal responsible individual as a spontaneous, carefree spirit. Art allows us to transcend language barriers and communicate in a biologically shared way, through visual perception.

Something Winnie mentioned in her post as well reminded me of the archetypes – Meyerhold theatre. Being able to outwardly express commonly recognizable emotions.

It can be said that art and science are both relied on for truth. Science is held to a different standard, and exactness is necessary for science to be held true. On the other hand, art can exaggerate or down play… anything for the purpose of the piece and can be praised (or scrutinized) for its exacting portrayal. Jung believed that it was the job of the artist to portray those aspects of life, which were being ignored by society. Artists have toyed with the eye and what they show to it for centuries. It seems to me that artists have showed the world what the scientist would want to explain years later.

Art, Science, and Society

I really agree with Elizabeth’s earlier post, this longer posting is also partially a response to Theo’s post on “Emotion and Color.”

There seems to be a tension within the readings between the social and scientific I find important to open for discussion.

Theo, in your response to “Color and Emotion” you had suggested that Gestalt psychology “saves visual perceptions from cultural and social associations.” If I understood you correctly, I am guessing you mean that Gestalt psychology when applied to art creates a sort of access point--getting at it on a more physical and visual level, focusing on the shapes, forms, and the colors and isolating the manner in which we visually process information as piecemeal. Under the Gestalt analysis, we focus on how the artist directs visual attention through contrast, familiarity in forms, and color so to guide the eye in receiving either more or less important information, i.e. The man in Shiskin’s The Forest. Livingstone and Solso provides extended and informative explanations on these very principles of perceptual organization (the What and Where systems).

However, the scientific discoveries that explain how colors and shape occur in the external world and hit our eye and mind doesn’t suddenly free entities from their embeddedness in society and how we relate to them. I think I will run the risk of repeating myself, but colors, shapes, and forms are heavily steeped in cultural and social conventions. We understand them on these levels before any scientific intervention. Science if reconsidered within the argument actually serves to reinforce the primacy of social and cultural conditions, which have shaped and are currently still reshaping our visual perception.

Gestalt psychology and of course science itself, I believe arise from cultural and social needs and wants. I am not sure if the purported message in Arheim, Livingstone, Solso, and the rest of the readings is to use Gestalt as a means of taking art outside of social or cultural associations, for he certainly cites a fair amount of social and art historians in making his case. Perhaps, someone who has had more previous experience with Arnheim can point me in the right direction. But from what I had gathered, as Arnheim cites Renaissance art and the triangular compositions of these paintings at the time he seems to reassert their social and cultural significance. To me the prevalence of the equilateral triangular form in Renaissance was utilized as much for its possible social and cultural connotations (the holy trinity, equality, the balance of church, state, and public) as well as for prompting visual acuity--And my interpretation again speaks to the mutability of visual perception relying on " the acculturation" of experience, information, and most definitely social and cultural connotations.

Solso writes about the evolution of the conscious brain and it is not a coincidence that artmaking coincided with the consolidation of a modern thinking brain, a brain imbued with AWAREness attributes of consciousness. This brain evolved though a change of environment and most importantly a change in social infrastructure. From means of survival to intellect. He goes further with this idea, into words, citing the fact that it was not until the advent of language, “a system of communication” --a system created for society that artistic creation became a concern for man. (Solso, 53) Art is analogous to language it is a visual form of communication.

If we look at ancient art, we do not look at it with the same standards. Primitive art sought to be legible, to merely illustrate what was seen in the external environment for humans at that period had just begun experimenting with image-making. There is a difference aptly pointed out by Mamassian that art and our experience of it greatly differ across periods, cultures and human development. He talks about Egyptian art and how the body is rendered in manners that are unnatural to emphasize “each body part in its most informative pose.” (Mamassian, 2144) The purpose at the time was to create a visual language to coincide with one’s culture and verbal language. It was the beginning of symbol and sign building or rather convention-building--that is the basis of all art. Mamassian prefaces with Gombrich, “No Art is ever free of convention.” Indeed, as these signs become a part of our environment, they enter into our mental bric-a-brac. In modern times, verbal, phonetic, and visual language reaches a nexus and art becomes more complicated, ridden with concepts. A jumbling of symbols and a mixing of different creative mediums. The fluidity between forms and forms of art is what accounts for the obscurity of modern and contemporary art. For me, I think this is where the split between “everyday perception” and “visual art perception” is most potent.

Gestalt psychology when applied to artmaking is actually activating the social and cultural connotations that are inherent within colors and forms to elicit emotional response. I will use an example of the role of the actor in Meyerhold’s school of theater. (Theo, as a theater student, please correct me if I am wrong about any of this). Meyerhold school of theatre used common connotations of certain physical gestures to strike a mass audience at an emotional core. Specifically this form of theatre is built by stock characters, essentially common symbols that form a sequence of physical positions and situations to arise points of excitation which are informed with some particular emotion. This is Gestalt. It is scientific. It is artistic. It is also sociopolitilcal. Meyerhold actors use commonplace forms--social and cultural constructs on the physiological level, actors playing the aristocrat, the worker, take on physical attributes commonly associated with these societal figures. The actor must utilize correctly his body’s means of expression to create pathos and ethos. It is clear, psychology isn’t saving anything from cultural or social connotation because it itself, being a form of analysis on our human behavior and perception, is necessarily inextricable to the society and culture from which we reside in.

I guess the main topic that I would like to open up for criticism and discussion in this long winded and certainly somewhat obnoxiously digressive post is the line between art, science, and society and particularly how science has become a generator of visual forms that are then weighed with social and cultural connotations? Let’s say Rorschach his inkblots and the ripple effects of these inkblots reappearing constantly in various visual and intellectual forms--(The Watchmen both film and graphic novel). Also how did the notion of “scientific fact” perpetuated by culture affected artmaking such as the case of Meyerhold whose entire theatrical program seemed to be based on the scientific innovations of biomechanics?

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.