ART, VISION AND THE BRAIN: THE EXPERIENCE OF LOOKING

By Marianne Wardle, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programs

Bass Connections is a new university-wide initiative designed to foster collaboration among faculty and students across disciplines by responding to complex challenges through problem-focused educational pathways and project teams. One team, “Art, Vision, and the Brain: An Exploration of Color and Brightness,” made the Nasher Museum its home this past summer. This group defines interdisciplinarity, leveraging the resources of the Duke Medical Center, the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, and the Nasher Museum with four faculty co-leaders: an opthamologist, a neuroscientist, a biomedical engineer, and an art historian, me. Three undergraduate students were selected as our research partners and awarded summer stipends that allowed them to dedicate a significant portion of their summer to the project: Justin Yu (P’15, Biomedical Engineering), Emily Chen (T’17, Neuroscience), and Indrani Saha (T’17, Program II Major in Cognitive Aesthetics). Together we explored the science of vision, theories that philosophers and scientists have proposed to explain the way we see, and the ways artists have explored and challenged visual perception.

Bass Connections

Seated NudeWhat was perhaps unexpected was the summer’s primary focus on learning by experience. One of our major challenges as faculty co-leaders was thinking of ways to make the conceptual scientific principles solid and transform theory into concrete knowledge. Concepts we read were tested, tried and enacted by physical engagement. Reading about the color theories that influenced Impressionist painters led us to examine paintings in the collection where artists relied on the same visual effect. Indrani considered, “I never had a chance to experience the effect of optical mixing in-person. This all changed after viewing Seated Nude by Ilya Mashkov…. To actually see a work in-person that utilizes this technique of optical mixing is a completely different experience.” Similar closely shared experiences brought the research team together, and were foundational and essential for each member to develop the voice and confidence to question and contribute.

Above all, the act of looking at art is a physical experience, particularly in an art museum. The body moves side to side, back and forth, searching out the best view or something previously unseen. The eyes move around an image, guided by artists whose goal, generally speaking, is to keep the viewer with the work as long as possible—to capture attention within the frame long enough to communicate some essential idea. The formal technique of a work, how exactly the eye is drawn around and in, and what material and structural choices the artist has made, provoke the viewer to stop long enough for a conversation to develop, a question to arise, or an assumption to be challenged. After an intensive session looking at screenprints by Op artist Richard Anuszkiewicz, Indrani noted the extreme physicality of the experience: “When moving from print to print, I found myself caught up in a game. I examined each print, moving close to the table, and then backing away to capture the whole view. I still could not keep my eyes from darting from one geometric element to another. I squinted in an attempt to freeze the small, bright green hatch marks floating in a sea of red-orange. Even with the urge to keep staring at the mesmerizing juxtaposition of complementary colors, the intense hues were too much. I was forced to look down at the gray floors of the room, hoping to use it as a palate cleanser for the eyes before I began to take in the next print of vibrating lines. It became a pattern: Stare, squint, look away, repeat.”

Richard Anuszkiewicz

Over the course of the summer we repeated this experience, standing for hours looking, looking, looking at the museum’s collections in galleries, storage, and even President Brodhead’s office, among other locations. We mixed paints and pigments to better understand tint, shade, and tone, and followed the cut-paper lessons of artist and educator Joseph Albers to discover how colors interact and change each other. The students dissected eyes to explore the physical mechanisms of vision. They took spectroradiographic scans of artworks in the Nasher’s collection to compare and analyze colors, and designed preliminary perceptual tests.

Visiting scientist Professor Robert Shapley, from the NYU Center for Neural Science, explored visual physiology and perception with us for a week, alternating deeply scientific discussions with application through observation in trips to the Nasher and North Carolina Museum of Art. Visiting artist M.J. Sharp spent a week teaching us principles of photography (none of the students had any experience with old-school film!) and the differences in perception between the human visual system and photographic technologies, both film and digital. We learned and played with M.J. in an after-dark photoshoot in Duke Gardens followed by a day in the darkroom developing film and printing photos from negatives. Duke Visual Arts Professor Bill Noland met with us to talk about the paintings of his father, Kenneth Noland, as well as his own art practice in new digital formats. The conservators at the North Carolina Museum of Art talked with us about the science of art making and demonstrated the ways in which change over time affects the appearance of artworks. We also roamed the galleries of the Ackland Museum at UNC considering exhibition strategies.

One exercise compelled each student to choose an artwork and spend an hour with it and then analyze it for the group. Afterwards, Justin reflected, “With little formal art training in the past, one of my most challenging experiences was being asked to analyze a single piece of art for an entire hour…

In the end, perhaps an hour was not even enough time to finish analyzing this painting. Afterwards during our team discussion, other group members pointed out details that I had not yet noticed. I found that understanding the overall concept of a piece often involves the processes of examining every detail, considering many different perspectives, and initiating group discussions. And sometimes the process is just as rewarding as the final product.”

Portrait of an Artist

Over the coming academic year, we will continue to work together as each of the students design independent study courses that will allow them to follow their inquiries through the year. This phase of our collaboration will culminate in April 2015 with an exhibition curated by the students for the Nasher’s Academic Focus Gallery and a symposium on the topic of art and perception. At the end of the summer Emily recounted, “The word “interdisciplinary” is thrown around campus all the time, but I feel like this summer has been my first real taste of interdisciplinary learning. Luminance, alongside other discoveries ranging from the simple to the mind-boggling, has opened my eyes and colored (no pun intended) the way I see the fields of art and neuroscience. I can’t wait to see what else the school year brings!”

 

“Art, Vision, and the Brain: An Exploration of Color and Brightness” Research Team Participants: Elizabeth Johnson, Ph.D., Assistant Research Professor, Neurobiology, Eleanora Lad, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Ophthalmology, Sina Farsiu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering and Ophthalmology, Marianne Wardle, Ph.D, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programs, Nasher Museum, Charlie Hass, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Neurobiology, Emily Chen, Duke Undergraduate Neuroscience Major (’17), Indrani Saha, Duke Undergraduate Program II Major in Cognitive Aesthetics (’17) and Justin Yu, Duke Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Major (’15)

 

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Photos by Emily Chen
Images (in order of apperance)
Ilya Mashkov, Seated Nude, c. 1920. Oil on canvas, 26 x 21 inches (66 x 53.3 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Gift of Anatol and Maya Bekkerman, 2000.28.4. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.
Richard Anuszkiewicz, Untitled from the portfolio Inward Eye, 1970. Screenprint on paper, 25 9/16 x 19 9/16 inches (64.9 x 49.7 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Gift of Ramona Morgan, 1997.17.2.8. Art © Richard Anuszkiewicz / Licensed by VAGA, New York, New York.
Kerry James Marshall, Portrait of the Artist & a Vacuum, 1981. Acrylic on paper, 63 x 52 1/2 inches (160 x 133.4 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Museum purchase with additional funds provided by Nailya Alexander, Maya and Anatol Bekkerman, Jeff Bliumis, Dr. Robert E. Falcone, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Fromer, Alexandre Gertsman, Marilyn J. Holmes (T’72), INTART – International Foundation of Russian & Eastern-European Art, Inc., Vladimir Kanevsky, Virginia Kinzey, Jacques Leviant, Innessa Levkova-Lamm, Dr. Boris Lipovsky, Mina E. Litinsky, Fran and Robert Malina, Teresa and Joseph Masarich, Marjorie Pfeffer, Anthony T. Podesta, Maya and Michael Polsky, Estate of Alek Rapoport, Vladimir Rapoport, Mrs. W. A. Y. Sargent in memory of Dr. Winston Sargent, Natalia Sokov, Amelie McAlister Upshur in 1938 in honor of Duke University’s Centennial Celebration, Gibby and Buz Waitzkin, and Drs. Irene and Alex Valger, by exchange; 2011.23.1. © Kerry James Marshall. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

 

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