La Danse by Marc Chagall
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Color Contrast/Culture Contrast
I'm really interested in the debate that's been going on here, particularly involving Theo and Winnie, which is trying to parcel out aspects of seeing that relate to our involvement in art and, more basically, the development of mental structures of the world. Solso breaks this down into two related processes, that of visual processing (which can be affected by physiological differences) and the brain's high-order interpretation of those sensory signals through mental representations of the world (which is affected by socio-cultural context). I'm inclined to place a great deal of emphasis on the cultural component, as one's experiences of sensory perception are shaped by conscious awareness steeped in social structures. When it comes to art, as Mamassian explores, artists use "everyday visual expectations" to define (and/or break) conventions. This step thus blends the aspects of cultural and visual expectations to create artistic statements.
Also, here is a slightly manipulated image showing simultaneous color contrast. The red bulbs on the green tree provide a strong, glowing contrast, and also highlight the red shirt.
contrast found in odd places
This is a picture I took at the New Zealand premiere of The Lovely Bones. I think it's an incredibly surreal, just bizarre photo, but it has a strong green/red contrast illustrated by the red carpet and the lime green garden gnome that was thrust in front of my camera at the last minute (yes, that's what that is). In addition to that major contrast there is a smaller meta-contrast of the red reflection on the gnome. The stark flatness of the carpet juxtaposed with the texture of the gnome makes a fascinating contrast as well.
Simultaneous Color Contrast
Below is my sister. I've manipulated the photograph a bit to emphasize the contrasting green and red but what is interesting is that the in "real life" the background is not green at all. The presence of my sister's red hair colored it so. When enhanced the complementary colors are emphasized even more.
Comment on Sara L's post
I was also interested in the discussion of Mona Lisa, and I thought it was a brilliant way of illustrating Livingstone's points about periphery vision and fovea vision. It was fascinating to read about how the eye takes in bits of a painting at a time, and this exercise demonstrated that concept. Sometimes I notice this when I have my head leaning on my hands and my hand makes momentary contact with my eyelid. You can feel the eye moving quickly and frequently. I think it is surprising how jerky these movements are because our vision does not that jerky feeling. Any eye movements look smooth and fluid from the perspective of the eye. I wonder why exactly that is.
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