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Interview of Semir Zeki: the art of studying how the brain processes beauty

4/23/2019

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PictureSemir Zeki
I met Semir Zeki to talk about neuroesthetics on a rainy Tuesday of March 2019, in his office at the University College London. As I was getting ready for the interview, I wondered what the working environment of a neuroestheticist looked like. Semir Zeki set the tone when he emailed me: "This is a secure area and the best is to go to the Anatomy Entrance (NOT the Darwin Building entrance)." That said it all! Neuroesthetics was about science and anatomy. Therefore, on my way there, I made sure to put my neurology hat on, and braced myself for a potentially dry discussion about how tiny gray matter areas in the frontal lobe process our perception of visual beauty. I was both relieved and delighted when the discussion took another turn, rapidly bridging out to Renaissance paintings, Mondrian or Agnes Martin, and how these art topics interface with neurobiology.

Semir Zeki defined the term neuroesthetics over two decades ago. He shared his approach in his book, "Inner Vision, an Exploration of Art and the Brain", published in 1999. In 2001, he summarized his conception of neuroesthetics: "Visual art obeys the laws of the visual brain, and thus reveals these laws to us" (Artistic creativity and the brain, Science 2001). I asked him how he defines neuroesthetics today, what his interactions with the art world are, and which future directions he envisions in the field. 
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Semir Zeki insisted that his work is primarily focused on the brain, more precisely on how the brain functions in "the common man" (as opposed to the artist's brain). He also confirmed that his scientific research, which remains question driven, is often derived from observations originally made by art historians or philosophers. "We aim at understanding the brain mechanisms underlying the perception of beauty, rather than asking what beauty is." he told me.

It was a pleasure and a real honor to discuss with Semir Zeki, father of contemporary neuroesthetics, and a true "Renaissance Man", in the most noble and inspiring way.

​
These are edited excerpts from our conversation.

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Anatomy entrance of University College London
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Inner Vision : An Exploration of Art and the Brain by Semir Zeki
How do you define neuroesthetics?
 
Neuroesthetics is a field designed to study the brain. For example: what are the brain systems engaged when you create a work of art, when you experience a work of art, when you experience beauty, or when you experience other emotions that are linked to beauty, such as love or desire?

By opposition, neuroesthetics does not address topics like beauty the way philosophers do. This notion is very important to me, even though there are a lot of art historians and philosophers specialized in esthetics who are resistant to my approach. 

Can you talk more about your neuroesthetic approach of beauty?
 
I believe that the fields of beauty, love and desire, are all linked. This morning I went to the exhibition "The Renaissance Nude", at the Royal Academy of Art in London (Figures 1 and 2). These beautiful paintings were all about desire, sexuality and love, combined. 

​​I am aware that philosophers and art historians have been debating these questions for a long time. I don't dismiss their work. I say they have something to contribute to us. Let's use what they have to contribute.
For example, I share with them an interest in beauty. My approach is to study the brain mechanisms that are engaged when you experience beauty. From a neuroesthetic standpoint, however, the topic is not only about beauty itself, it is larger than that. For example, the brain mechanisms engaged when you experience beauty are related to the ones engaged when you perceive color, faces, or movement. It is the same question.
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For that reason, I think that art is not necessarily equal to beauty. A lot of artists started distinguishing art from beauty after Marcel Duchamp's Urinal [Fountain, sculpture, by Marcel Duchamp (1917) is considered one of the most influential artwork of the 20th century, at the origin of conceptual art. Duchamp aimed at "de-deifying" the artist] (Figure 3). Some philosophers, however, would argue that one can't distinguish art from beauty.

​The question of beauty is related to the question of judgement: I think you can distinguish esthetic judgement from perceptual judgement. In esthetic judgement, you may ask: which shape is the most beautiful? While in perceptual judgement, the question could be: which shape is the largest? My question is: do these two types of judgements follow the same, or different pathways?


Please note that most of the questions I am interested in, arise from the thought of philosophers in esthetics: what are the distinct brain mechanisms involved when you experience something you find sublime, versus something you find "just beautiful"? What are the brain mechanisms involved when you make a decision with regard to beauty or desire? This shows you that the scope of the field is very wide. It is not limited to just studying beauty. It includes everything that is allied to beauty.
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Figure 1: Adam and Eve, by Albrecht Dürer, 1504
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Figure 2: Bathsheba Bathing, Hours of Louis XII, by Jean Bourdichon,1498/99
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Figure 3: Fountain, sculpture, by Marcel Duchamp, 1917

​Can you tell us about the creation of the field of neuroesthetics?
 
Neuroesthetics embodies the notion of interdisciplinarity. The field arose organically from the 1980s onwards. I created the term "Neuroesthetics" in December of 1995. I was giving The Woodhull Lecture at the Royal Institution in London. I talked about specialized functions of the brain (color vision, form vision, motion vision), and about brain and beauty in art. This is how the term was created (see "Inner Vision, an Exploration of Art and the Brain").
 
How big is the neuroesthetics community?
 
There are two categories of people specialized in neuroesthetics. The ones that are officially "out of the closet", who say they work in the field. And the ones who contribute to neuroesthetics without calling themselves "neuroestheticists". For example, researchers studying decision making, or sexual desire, contribute to the field of neuroesthetics, even though that was not their original intention. The field of neuroesthetics is continuously expanding.
 
The art scene and the history of art are very different in the UK compared with America. How do you think this influences your work?
 
Art may be more sophisticated here in the UK, but America is more hospitable to new ideas.  So in a way, I would love to combine the two. I have a fond memory of the International Neuroesthetics Conference held by the Minerva Foundation in Berkeley, that I co-created with my friend Elvin Marg. I am sorry that this project is on hold.

Do you often derive your research questions from artists?
 
Yes, I have plenty of examples.

The English art critique Clive Bell (Figure 4) suggested that certain visual elements trigger our experience of beauty, and we all share this [In his book Art  (1914), Bell [1881-1964] claims that certain forms, lines and colors trigger esthetic emotions that are common across cultures and unrelated to object identity. He was therefore a defender of abstract art.]

From Bell's philosophy, we derived our neuroesthetic study about the common brain pathways engaged when we experience something as beautiful (Figure 5, , see this article). We extended our analysis to both visual and musical stimuli. The perception of visual or musical beauty starts with specific sensory inputs [visual or auditory], but shares a common pathway associated with the feeling of beauty itself, located in the medial orbito frontal cortex.
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We later extended our analysis even further, to another kind of beauty: the beauty of mathematics. This was based in the evocation of mathematical beauty by Bertrand Russel and Herman Weyl. [Russel [1872-1970] was a British mathematician, philosopher and Nobel laureate. In The Study of Mathematics, published in 1919, he wrote: "Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture". Weyl [1885-1955] was an influential German mathematician and philosopher. He viewed the field of mathematics as an organic whole rather than a series of individual subjects. He said : “My work always tried to unite the truth with the beautiful, but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.”] In this study, we found that the brain mechanisms underlying the appreciation of mathematical beauty are similar to the ones involved when visual stimuli are perceived as beautiful [The study shows that the experience of mathematical beauty, like the experience of musical or visual beauty, correlates with a similar activity the medial orbito frontal cortex of the brain]. This paper about mathematical beauty ended up being of huge general interest since, as of today, its online version has been viewed over 160,000 times! Interestingly, despite the eventual general interest, the manuscript was rejected a few times by other journals before its final publication. 
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Figure 4: Clive Bell, by Roger Fry (1924 c.)
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Figure 5: Distinct brain activation pathways during the experience of beauty versus the sublime

​Do you think this is because editors were unsure how to categorize it?
 
Well, this is exactly the problem. Still, the publication of this paper allowed some closeted mathematicians to talk more openly about the beauty of mathematics. Beauty is a very important component of mathematics.
 
Do you have other examples of questions derived from the field of art or philosophy?
 
Another example of a question derived from philosophers is the question of the brain mechanisms engaged in the appreciation of beauty versus the sublime: this study was derived from the writings of Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer about the notion of sublime versus beauty. [The sublime may be described as the quality of ultimate greatness (Figure 6). Edmund Burke [1729-1787] was an Irish statesman and philosopher. In A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), Burke says that sublimity and beauty are mutually exclusive, both able to trigger pleasure, even though sublimity may be associated with horror. Kant [1724-1804] was a German philosopher. In Critique of Judgment (1790), Kant writes that beauty "is connected with the form of the object", having "boundaries", and relates to "Understanding", while the sublime "is to be found in a formless object", represented by a "boundlessness", and belongs to "Reason". Schopenhauer [1788-1860] was a German philosopher. In The World as Will and Representation (1818), he proposes a gradient of transition from the "Feeling of Beauty" (pleasure from the mere perception of an object) to the "Fullest Feeling of Sublime" (pleasure from knowledge of the observer's nothingness and oneness with Nature).]

Our neuroesthetic analysis confirmed that, indeed, the perception of sublimity is associated with a brain activation pattern distinct from the one associated with the perception of beauty (Figure 5).
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Figure 6: Rendition of St. Peter's Square, Rome, by Viviano Codazzi, 1630. Kant referred to St. Peter's as "splendid", a term he used for objects producing feeling for both the beautiful and the sublime. (wikipedia)

​The topic of beauty versus sublimity is related to the notion that 
beauty can be derived equally from sorrow and from joy. Interestingly, even though these are two opposite emotions, both sorrow and joy are associated with the activation of the brain region involved in the perception of beauty (the medial orbito frontal cortex) (Figure 7,  see this article).
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Figure 7: Activation within the medial orbitofrontal cortex correlating with the experience of joyful and sorrowful beauty.
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You are saying that opposite emotions may be associated with a common brain pathway (in this case the one involved in the perception of beauty). On the other hand, we know that some emotional manifestations that seem identical may engage distinct brain mechanisms. For example, uncontrollable laughter can be triggered by the stimulation of a specific part of the subthalamic area in cases of deep brain stimulation, or by activation of totally distinct temporal, frontal or hypothalamic areas in gelastic epileptic seizures.
 
Yes. Similarly, visual stimuli associated with beauty can be diverse. Philosophers of esthetics, and art critics have asked for a long time what is common to all the things we experience as beautiful. Clive Bell wondered what were the commonalities between the windows of the Chartres cathedral [1220], a masterpiece by Nicolas Poussin [1594-1665] or Piero della Francesca [1416-1492]. But he never gave an answer.
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Neuroesthetics can give an answer, and it is a neurobiological answer: ultimately, everything that you experience as beautiful [but not sublime] correlates with activity in the medial orbito frontal cortex (Figure 5). The correlation has been demonstrated. What remains to be demonstrated, though, is how you get there. This is a good example for the future directions in neuroesthetics.
 
What do you want to tell art critics, art historians or philosophers that you perceive as "neurophobic"?
 
The group of neurophobics is a small group, but it has been remarkably vocal. I would reciprocate by telling them: "you may hate us, but we love you!" As a neuroestheticist, I am inspired by questions asked by art historians, or art critics. I am also extremely interested in artists and the interest has been reciprocal. I regularly discuss at length with artists about topics of common interest. I learn a lot from collaborating with artists and art institutions (schools, museums).
 
You described the term "neurophobia". I am curious to know if you ever observed the reverse phenomenon, that I would call "artphobia", among scientists?
 
Not at all! The scientific community I know has been very hospitable to neuroesthetics. For scientists, the question is what is important. I have always had a lot of support from the scientific community to address scientific questions related to neuroesthetics.
 
Do you have artists in your lab?
 
Absolutely! I have students from the arts faculty, and a PhD student studying philosophy.

We are really very open, as long as one understands that my laboratory is a scientific one.  All collaborations are welcome, as long as they help us understand the brain: we aim at understanding the brain mechanisms underlying the perception of beauty, rather than asking what beauty is.
 
What would you expect from an ideal neuroesthetics conference?
 
My current topics of interest are questions related to desire, beauty and love. I would invite presenters with various backgrounds, as long as their knowledge contribute to answering these questions. For example, in 2015, I organized a meeting called "The Science of Beauty" at the Royal Society in Edinburgh. Sir Roger Penrose gave a beautiful talk on the role of Art in Mathematics and Sir David Attenborough spoke about the sense of beauty in pufferfish (see BBC documentary). Did you know that these pufferfish create fantastic visual patterns in the sand on the sea floor to attract females? They create these patterns in a carefully balanced way, coordinated with the tide. We debated about what appears to these animals to be a desirable experience, and the fact that, still, we aren't able to comment about their perception of beauty.
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Sand designs by pufferfish (BBC documentary).

​I am interested in the subject of object identity. This is a relevant topic for artists (ex: representational versus abstract paintings) and art historians (ex: understanding the birth of cubism, minimalism). Could you comment on the brain mechanisms that are engaged when looking at highly representational images, versus images with less identifiable subject matter?

 
This is a very interesting question. As I wrote in my book, in 1999 [Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain, by Semir Zeki], Picasso and Braque faced the question of how to maintain object identity in spite of the variations in the distance, multiple points of view etc..  In neurobiology, we call this the problem of form constancy.
Piet Mondrian, who was very much seduced by both early analytical and late cubism, said that cubists failed at determining the common constituents of all forms, because it was technically difficult for them to represent different points of view on a single canvas. Instead, he suggested that vertical and horizontal lines were the common constituents of all shapes (Figure 8A).
As a neuroestheticist, I think that Mondrian was wrong, too, and here is why: at some point, as Mondrian felt it instinctively, neurobiologists came to believe that we construct all forms from orientation selective cells [Orientation selective cells belong to our neuro-ophthalmologic system and were discovered by Hubel and Wiesel in 1959 (laureates of the 1981 Nobel Prize). These are cells that perceive lines oriented in a specific direction. The majority of orientation selective cells perceive vertical lines only, or horizontal lines only (Figure 9, as explained in this article).] I find this neurobiologist approach as reductionist as Mondrian's approach. Instead, I think there are other pathways that coexist and sometimes precede the perception of our visual environment by orientation selective cells. For example, the brain has got a template for recognizing faces. This pathway of face recognition is essential, and exists independently on line or orientation selective perception: babies who are 3-4 hours old already orient preferably toward faces. So, the reality of how we perceive a face is more complex than through lines oriented in a certain way.
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Figure 8A: Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow, by Piet Mondrian, 1930
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Figure 8B: I Love the Whole World, by Agnes Martin, 1999
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Figure 9: Orientation selective cells perceive light bars oriented in a specific direction

​Talking about lines, Agnes Martin, who spent years painting horizontal and vertical lines only, felt that they were the essence of beauty: "Take beauty: it's a very mysterious thing, isn't it? (...) My paintings are (...) just horizontal lines. There's not any hint of nature. And still everybody responds, I think." (interview by Joan Simon, in Taos, 1995). As if these lines, whether they satisfied the over-representation of the corresponding orientation selective cells, or they were related to some kind of geometric perfection, activated the same common pathway associated with beauty as perceived from visual stimuli or mathematics. What does this inspire you?
 
It seems that Mondrian perceived vertical and horizontal lines as pure beauty, in a way similar to Agnes Martin's (Figure 8B).
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That being said, we are now talking about the perception of beauty through the eyes of painters. I would like to emphasize again that neuroesthetics is not interested in the artist, composer, or painter; it is not interested in the art historian. Neuroesthetics is interested in "the common man". Neuroesthetics assumes that all humans have the capacity to experience beauty, but what each one experiences as beautiful is different [beauty is subjective]. We are so much interested in the common mechanisms of the perception of beauty, that, in our studies, we exclude painters, artists and "knowledgeable people". This idea also comes from Clive Bell: he said that if you want to know about esthetic emotion, don't ask an artist for he knows too much! Ask the "savages", the infants! 

I would like to switch to the topic of future directions in neuroesthetics. Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930-2002), Dutch early pioneer in computing science, once said: “The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.”. Would you like to comment on this, and, in general, on the question of whether a computer can produce or appreciate art?
 
I go along with this quote! I think a computer may be able to produce art, I don t think it can appreciate art. However, I am very hesitant to talk about computers in general. I am very suspicious of these deep learning programs, artificial intelligence etc... They can certainly do a lot of things but I am not sure they can appreciate beauty; and if they do, what I know is: this won't happen in my life time! And there is something that will always be challenging to model: "the soul".

[In itallic]: notes and references added by me
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​The art of seeing with the brain (about Sargy Mann and other blind painters)

4/9/2019

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PictureFigure 1: Sargy Mann in his studio

Pablo Picasso once said: "Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen." On March 5, 2019, I attended a debate at the Royal Drawing School in London, about the late work of the blind British painter Sargy Mann (1937-2015) (Figure 1). Blind painters such as Sargy Mann teach us about perception. The debate reminded me that perception connects all our senses -including the visual, that there are multiple ways to perceive visually and therefore, multiple ways to produce and appreciate visual art.
 

Sargy Mann developed cataracts from the age of 35. At the age of 42, he got retinal detachment, in one, then both eyes, causing progressive degradation of vision. He eventually lost his sight in 2005, acutely, by his 68th birthday. He continued to paint for 10 years until his death.
As a painter, Sargy observed some changes in the process of losing his vision, that pertained to subject matter, color, details and authenticity (Figures 2A and 2B)
. Originally a landscape painter, as he became blind, figures became increasingly important. He explained: "Because I couldn't see people anymore it became more important to paint them." His wife Frances became his favorite model: " I suppose you always paint the things you most want to see." He carefully documented the other changes he observed in his writings (Perceptual systems, an inexhaustible reservoir of information and the importance of art). For example, he noticed that he "started using color in a much more intuitive and decorative way." He also noted that "the extraordinary paradox is that going blind has taught (him) to see more and differently". Finally, he talked about how blindness led him to more authenticity: "When I started going seriously blind that option of going out and finding Monet’s subject wasn’t there, and because I was so thrown back on my own limitations, curiously, I think this led me into a much more personal world, a world that was more my experience and my way of responding to it."

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Figure 1: Near Figure by the Hidden Garden. Oil on canvas. 40"*45". By Sargy Mann. Pre 2015
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Figure 2B: Infiniti Pool No. 1, Oil on canvas. 57"*80". By Sargy Mann. Post 2015
Sargy's son Michael and wife Frances, present at the conference, gave details about Sargy's painting process as he was becoming blind, based on geometry, wood sticks, strings, touch, Blu-Tack and limited feedback from friends and family (Figures 3). He would typically use his wife as a model, figuring out the proportions of her body and its position in space thanks to a sophisticated system of sticks with which he would make measurements that he would project onto the canvas: "I had by this time devised a more sophisticated system of measuring at greater distances, using longer sticks and then, for very long distances, taut pieces of string (...) I had trained as an engineer before I went to art school and done a lot of mathematics, and this scientific side of my personality is unquestionably a part of who I am, and I think it has played a much bigger part in the paintings I have made since being totally blind." He would then draw by sticking Blu-Tack pieces of various sizes on the canvas, mix colors from tubes disposed in a specific order on his palette, and, eventually, apply the paint on the canvas, guided by the Blu-Tack pieces he would follow with his fingers. Once he was done, he would ask for general visual feedback, from his friends and family. His questions were reportedly not specific; instead, he would ask about the impression, or the mood of the painting. For example, he would inquire whether the painting evoked sunset rather than sunrise as he intended. He would then correct the painting accordingly, to fit his objective. Once the painting was finished, he would remove the Blu-Tack.
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Figure 3: Sargy Mann's painting process. TOP LEFT: Sagry Mann exploring his environment with his wood stick. TOP RIGHT: Sargy Mann painting in his studio, 2015. LOWER LEFT: Paint tubes in Sargy's studio, 2015. LOWER RIGHT: Pieces on Blu-Tack on the canvas. https://www.cadogancontemporary.com/artist/sargy-mann/?section=video
The discussion panel at the Royal Drawing School in London was diverse (Figure 4A). The neuroestheticist Semir Zeki (University College London), primarily interested in how the brain works, pointed out that Sargy's experience was a nice demonstration that one can see while being blind. Indeed, the perceived image is fed by diverse inputs. The visual pathway constitutes one of these inputs, but there are cortical connections that also feed the reconstruction of the image in one's mind. Sargy described the process in his own words: "I get tactile information which my brain is able to translate into visual information. So my subject, what is in my head, is a visual experience, even though there is no optical input".
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Figure 4A: Discussion Panel at the Royal Academy of Art around the work of Sargy Mann on March 5, March 2019. From left to right: Sargy's son (Michael), Robert Pepperell, Jonathan Watkins and Semir Zeki
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Figure 4B: James J. Gibson
​When Sargy wrote about his experience of visual perception as a blind painter, he often referred to James J. Gibson  (Figure 4B). James Gibson (1904-1979) was an American psychologist and major contributor to the field of visual perception. From The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (1966), Sargy quotes Gibson writing: “The environment provides an inexhaustible reservoir of information. Some men spend most of their lives looking, others listening, and a few connoisseurs spend their time in smelling, tasting or touching, (...) Looking and listening continue to improve with experience. (...) Getting information to the receptors becomes troublesome when the lens of the eye or the bones of the ear lose their useful flexibility but higher order variables in light and sound can still be discovered by the artist and musician.”

​Semir Zeki emphasizes that he is interested in how the brain works in "the common man", not specifically in artists or art historians with highly trained brains. We can still learn a lot from Sargy's experience as a blind, experienced painter. He learned for years how to paint not only what he was seeing, but what he was experiencing. "If your subject is your own experience, as long as you have an experience, you have a subject. That has turned out to be true, even in total blindness." he said. Sargy described in great details his experience as a blind painter. For example, he explained how he could see colors right after he became totally blind: "I put ultramarine on a brush and painted the top right hand corner of the canvas and I had one of the most extraordinary sensations of my life. I saw the canvas go blue. It wasn’t a projection, it wasn’t me remembering what it was like, it was a percept for sure, but a percept clearly created somewhere in my visual cortex." Clearly, Sargy could access his inner visual perception, while being blind. He could see with his brain, not with his eyes.
 
People can even start painting after becoming blind. This is the case of John Bramblitt (Texan artist, born 1971), who became blind because of a problem in his brain, not in his eyes (Figures 5). He developed cortical blindness between his teenage years and the age of 30. This condition affects his occipital cortex, and therefore his processing of visual information and rendering of perceived image in his mind - his actual eyes are normal. He can't see colors or shapes and when he perceives light, it triggers an uncomfortable, non-visual, impression. He was a draftsman before becoming blind, had taken classes in drawing and illustration, which probably trained his visual system: " I did not start painting until after I lost my eyesight -- drawing and illustration though were incredibly important to me."
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Figure 5: John Bramblitt in his studio. https://bramblitt.com
As Sargy, John eventually found a way to paint his inner vision of the world (Figures 6A and 6B). "Art has opened up the world to me, in a whole new way (...) Painting is the way I know the world today, it's my connection to it. (...) I wanted to tell people that I was still in here, hey I am still here!" As Sargy, he noticed that his way of seeing or drawing the world evolved as he became blind, in his case in a more detailed and emotional way. His perception became more detailed: "I see less, but when I do see I see with a lot more details". He also finds himself more able to perceive and convey people's emotions on the canvas: "Many of the most interesting parts of a person are invisible and hidden from view anyway; I think my blindness might be just the lens that is needed to see into that world."
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Figure 6A: Movement No 9, by John Bramblitt. https://bramblitt.com
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Figure 6B: Leicester Square Robot, by John Bramblitt. https://bramblitt.com
John's drawing process is based on touch, too (Figure 7A and 7B). He taught himself how to draw elevated lines with paint that dries very fast. "I started to learn orientation mobility (...) using a guide dog (...). I started laying the lines on the canvas the same way that I would travel in the street (...) It's like a map in my mind (on the canvas), I know exactly where I am", he says. Regarding colors, he marks his paint bottles in braille, and dilutes the colors with media of various thicknesses, so that he recognizes colors by touching their texture. When he mixes two colors of different thicknesses, he knows when he got the right mix of hues when he feels the right intermediate texture of paint. "You don't need eye sight to create or appreciate art. Art is something that's in your mind, it's in your heart, it's something that's internal, that has nothing to do with your eyesight". John nicely summarized his experience as a blind painter: " While we think of the eyes whenever we think of vision; it is in fact the brain where vision takes place (...) It's like when you start feeling the music instead of hearing it".
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Figure 7A: John Bramblitt drawing and touching elevated lines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrXCYJRZ0Kk
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Figure 7B: John Bramblitt feeling the texture of mixed paint to find the right mixed hue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrXCYJRZ0Kk
There are also artists who are able to paint the real world, without ever seeing it with their eyes. Eşref Armağan (born 1953) is a Turkish artist born blind (Figure 8). He has produced multiple landscape paintings, where the use of color and perspective is remarkably true to the world as perceived by sighted people.
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Figure 8: Eşref Armağan. http://esrefarmagan.com
Similarly to Sargy and John, Eşref's painting process is based on touch. It is also informed by descriptions of the visual world by sighted people (Figures 9A and 9B). He has the capacity of finely exploring objects by touching them, then drawing them within minutes on a piece of paper, from various perspectives. He can perceive buildings by following their contours with his hands. He can explore a picture as well, if indented from the back, or a painting painted with thick paint, and copy it accurately. He is reportedly highly gifted at orienting himself and navigating through physical space (he just needs to feel it once), and at remembering places or shapes. He also learned about color and perspective "not from any formal teachers, but from friends and casual acquaintances". For example, since he was not able to see it with his own eyes, he had to be told that things in the distance look smaller than the ones near you, that the shadow of an object has not the same color as the object itself, or that some colors are more flashy than other. Thanks to these felt and learned inputs, Eşref has developed a vast and quite accurate mental visual representation of the world that surrounds him.
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Figure 9A: #18 August 17, 2013, by Eşref Armağan. Note the conventional perspective, the shadows (bridge), the untouchable (clouds), the strong object identity. http://esrefarmagan.com
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Figure 9B: #26 August 17, 2013, by Eşref Armağan Note the color harmony, the recognizable object, the happy feeling. http://esrefarmagan.com
When he creates a painting, Eşref first conceives and "sees" a complete picture in his head, that he mentally fills with colors. He then draws lines and shapes with a sharp pencil on a "Sewell raised line drawing kit", and feels the indentation of the mark of the pencil on the paper with his other hand, as he draws. He then "uses only 5 colors plus black and white and mixes them to represent the image he has in mind. From then on it is a case of careful concentration to complete a picture to his satisfaction."
 
Eşref's tactile, spatial and visual giftedness drew the attention of neuroscientists who analyzed his brain activity while drawing an object he just felt with his hands, versus scribbling randomly, in an MRI machine (Figures 10 and 11). They found that the activation pattern in Eşref's brain while drawing shared similarities with sighted painters: the activity in fronto-parietal regions "may correspond to transformations from perception to two-dimensional image production and to the complex sensory-motor coordination needed for drawing". Most remarkably, areas specifically involved in visual perception, such as the primary and secondary visual areas in the occipital cortex (corresponding to mid and peripheral visual field perception) were also activated in this blind painter (Neural and behavioral correlates of drawing in an early blind painter: A case study, Amedi et al,  Brain Res. 2008 Nov 25; 1242: 252–262) (Figures 10 and 11). While this brain activation pattern may be engaged in proficient braille readers when they "read with their hands", Eşref is not one of them. These regions are also engaged during tasks of verbal memory, but in Eşref's case, they were barely activated during the recollection of the object, only during the drawing phase. This suggested that drawing, informed by touching, was able to engage typical early visual circuits while shortcutting optical input in Eşref's brain: the artist's brain was able to see with his touch. It is unclear how Eşref was able to acquire this remarkable ability. But this study demonstrates that the brain has the ability to learn from scratch how to see based on tactile and verbal inputs only (not optical). These findings reinforce the notion of transmodal brain plasticity (sensory inputs are interrelated ), very robust in Eşref's case. As Alvaro Pascual-Leone, one of the authors of the study, put it: reversibly, "when we see a cup, we are also feeling with our mind's hand. Seeing is as much touching as it is seeing (...) but we may be more unaware of (seeing with our touch)."
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Figure 10: Overview of the neurological substrate of visual perception. The visual cortex (areas starting with the letter V) is located in the occipital lobe, at the back of the brain. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmopen-psychology/chapter/outcome-vision/
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https://slideplayer.com/slide/1349302/
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Figure 11: Brain activation pattern of Eşref Armağan while drawing. The green areas indicate regions activated when drawing (versus scribbling). The area located at the back of the brain (near the midline of the figure in the 4 brain scans) is the occipital lobe. From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4518845/
The influence of the history of art on Eşref's paintings is remarkable, given the limited visual access to his environment. The painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) suggested that the artist depends not only on himself, but also on the contemporary context he lives in and on the history of painting. In parallel, the psychologist James J Gibson (1904-1979) suggested that perception is the compilation of the environment and the interaction of the person with this environment ("Ecological Psychology"). Eşref has accessed his environment and the history of painting by touching and by learning from friends and acquaintances, so that his paintings are influenced by them: his use of classical perspective, or his choice of colors reflects this influence. Sargy, on the other hand, made progresses when he progressively distantiated himself from his visual environment and from the history of painting. This was hard for him at the beginning because he had been very much inspired by painters like Pierre Bonnard or Paul Cezanne (see his writings about these painters here and here). However, becoming blind eventually freed him from the history of painting and allowed him to focus more on his own inner vision, towards more authenticity. In fact, he described it as a liberating experience: "When my sight was relatively normal (...) I think probably I was always a bit on the timid side. I think I was too influenced by the masters I revered (...) when I started going seriously blind that option of going out and finding Monet’s subject wasn’t there, and because I was so thrown back on my own limitations, curiously, I think this led me into a much more personal world, a world that was more my experience and my way of responding to it."
 
If we look at art history, Monet went through a similar process of visual loss when he painted the waterlilies at the end of his life, with bilateral cataracts that modified color perception. He, too, used oil paint by memory (memory of the way colors looked like in nature and memory of the way colors were positioned on his palette). However, to my knowledge, he never used tactile input. Instead, since he was still able to perceive light, colors and shapes, but in a less detailed way, he enlarged his canvas to accommodate his visual needs, and finished his paintings in the studio, working from his perceived memory rather than directly from nature. As Sargy would have put it, Monet painted his visual experience (would I dare calling this his visual impression?!). This may explain why the waterlilies canvases are so large, a bit fuzzy and very blue.
 
In general, painters with no visual impairment often paint their visual "experience", too. Salvador Dali, for example, was particularly aware that his subject matter was a mix of his personal visual and psychological perception of reality. He even gave it a name: "paranoiac knowledge". His paintings may provide a realistic first impression (ex: perspective, everyday objects), but they are mostly the illustration of his inner world -his experience.
 
The question of differentiating the "real" world, from the "perceived/inner world" and the rendering of the world through art, has been unresolved for centuries. In the Allegory of the Cave (in Republic (514a–520a)), Plato suggested that only philosophers are able to perceive the "true" reality (the objects passing in front of the cave), while the prisoners (aka: the rest of us), chained to the wall of the cave, in front of the fire, only see a projection on the wall of the shadows of the objects passing by (Figure 12). In Plato's cave, would blind artist's paintings be categorized as a representation of the real objects or the projected shadows?
Plato suggested that the human condition is limited by the way our senses perceive reality (shadows of the objects), hiding the world of pure form, pure fact from us (the actual objects). He implied that the world of pure form is different and more valuable than the world of perceived reality. In the case of blind painters, I would argue that, on the contrary, the artists' senses enabled them to see reality in a more accurate, pure way.  Sargy said he saw "more" and in a more authentic way. John says he sees things in more details and in a more felt way. Eşref also thrives at rendering his drawing quite representative of the reality, despite the absence of exposure to centuries of visual art.
Plato also suggested that if philosophers are able to escape the cave and see real objects under the real sun, major artists will continue to project the shadows of puppets with the fire light (aka the human made light) on the wall in front of the rest of us, bound to the cave forever. I don't think that Sargy, John or Eşref apply any filters between the reality and the viewer, as do artists in Plato's cave, since they don't have access to visual reality at the first place. Instead, they project their reality on the canvas, and this reality is as absolute and real as Plato's one: "In the 25 years of worsening sight before total blindness, because of the continual deterioration of the anatomical part of my visual system, I had to make enormous demands on the brain part, the visual cortex, in order that I should go on accessing some of the more — the infinitely more — of reality, that was still available to my depleted eye." said Sargy.
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Figure 12. Plato's Allegory of the Cave by Jan Saenredam, according to Cornelis van Haarlem, 1604, Albertina, Vienna. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave Right: https://www.google.com/search?q=plato+cave&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjg-_Di3cHhAhXnGTQIHe4qBbcQ_AUIDigB&biw=1186&bih=774#imgrc=RULNTlOWVvaMbM:
Neuroesthetics can inform some of the most fundamental questions raised by artists and philosophers in a way that was not available at the time of Plato. Neurobiology is now able to reconciliate both "real" and "perceived" worlds: they are both grounded in neurotransmitters and synapses, and they all happen in the brain. Now that we better understand how the brain works, we know that the dichotomic difference between true reality and perceived reality does not exist in the biological world. Both of them coexist on a continuum, that varies in time and from one person to the other. The visual perception of images in blind painters such as Sargy is grounded in the reality of a neurological substrate which is as valid (and real) as the one of sighted painters like Monet or Dali, or the one Plato is talking about. Sargy, for example, described in great details his search for "the real", challenging Plato's conception of artists: "(I am interested) in paintings that open the eyes of the viewer, and therefore, in a way, bring the viewer closer to the truth: (The kind of painting I am interested in) can give the viewer what he would not see were he in the place of the artist. It can give him something essentially and qualitatively different from that, something he could never experience except through the medium of that particular painting. It can give him what the artist saw or imagined.” (Shared Experience, 1996) (Figure 13)
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Figure 13: Sargy Mann in nature and Sargy Mann's painting https://www.cadogancontemporary.com/artist/sargy-mann/?section=video\
"Over the next year, or eighteen months (after becoming blind),", Sargy noticed that "(he) largely forgot that (he) was painting blind — this was simply once again what (he) did." I find remarkable that he was able to switch from the visual perception by his eyes to the visual perception by his brain in a way that was barely noticeable on his canvases. His subject matter and his process may have changed, but his drawing and colors did not significantly, and his paintings were recognizable has his, at least from my viewer's perspective. His eyes' and his brain's visual universes were well integrated. "I have been thrilled to discover that I can make paintings without sight, and that this activity is far more like a continuation of my previous painting experience than I could possibly have imagined." This coherence between the actual world and the perceptual experience of Sargy may be what made him a truly great visual artist. 
 
References regarding Sargy Mann
http://sargymannarchive.com/
https://www.cadogancontemporary.com/artist/sargy-mann/?section=video
Article in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/nov/21/sargy-mann-blind-painter-tim-adams
 
References regarding John Bramblitt
https://bramblitt.com
https://www.boredpanda.com/blind-painter-john-bramblitt/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic
Documentary:
https://vimeo.com/87906998
Interview "Art if transcendence":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrEFcp6A5Ig
 
References regarding Eşref Armağan
http://esrefarmagan.com/
https://vimeo.com/33488357
Scientific article:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4518845/
Article in the New Scientist:
https://esrefarmagan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/New-Scientist.pdf

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Visual harmony by Iwo Zaniewski

10/11/2018

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PictureIwo Zaniewski


​Visual harmony is a very real thing for Polish artist ​Iwo Zaniewski. It is not a hallucination, or a mystical concept. It is an assertive, experienced appreciation of beauty. It relates to the visual equilibrium reached by the juxtaposition of visual elements in relation to each other (ex: shapes and colors), that eventually make a beautiful painting. Per Iwo, "each change causes a deterioration of the visual assessment of the whole".

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Mess in the studio, by Iwo Zaniewski
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Architect's night, by Iwo Zaniewski
Iwo has a highly trained, brilliant and curious visual mind who has tried to figure out how to share his perceived notion of harmony, by reaching out to other disciplines. He came up with a mathematical formula, that intended to capture the complexity of harmony in one single expression. 
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He consulted the theoretical physicist Krzysztof Meissner (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics), specialized in elemental particules and gravity, to review the coherence of his theory on visual "equal dispersion" of elements.

He collaborated with Piotr Francuz, Head of the Department of Experimental Psychology and Director of the Institute of Psychology (Faculty of Social Sciences, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin). Using an eye-tracking technique, they compared how other like-minded brains recognized harmony in painting they picked in the world repertoire, versus the same paintings Iwo altered using photoshop.

Iwo was also asked by American computer scientists for help in creating a software that would capture his way of determining harmony in a painting- the task appeared too daunting in the end.

Recently, he reached out to Stepan Ivanyk, Polish philosopher specialized in esthetics (Warsaw University). They are now writing an article about harmony in the context of the history of esthetics.

Finally, Iwo tried to establish parallels between harmony as observed in paintings versus in real world. Last, he reached out to me, to determine how neuroesthetics overlaps with his theory of visual harmony.

What I find most interesting when talking with Iwo, is his conviction, based on personal experience, that harmony does exist as an entity bigger than himself, and his obsessive quest to figure out what it is. His question is based on his experience as an artist. But he expands his search beyond the world of art, to science and the humanities.

I am also fascinated by how hard he tries to figure out how to reach the state of visual harmony during the creative process. He explained to me how, when he starts a project, his creative brain comes up with visual ideas, as a succession of dazzling, flashing images that end up, with time, coming together and forming a cohesive and effective object of art. He is always puzzled by where these images come from and how the final project takes shape. This applies to his painting, but also to his work as writer and director of over 2000 commercials he has produced over the past 26 years.

To me, these questions are grounded in neuroesthetics, even though Iwo sees them as a personal quest. Creativity, as harmony, or beauty, indeed exists as an entity bigger than ourselves. But, as Agnes Martin said it, "the beauty is in the mind, not in the flower." Harmony must be engraved somewhere in our brain, as one of the ultimate results of complex visual brain processes. It must be stored in some flexible, both personal and universal manner. It must be linked to a subtle and hard to describe equilibrium in our brain, somewhere at the interface between perception, cognition, memory and emotion processing. Only visible by ourselves. Hidden from analysis. Extremely hard to model. Harmony is not encoded in magics. It is, indeed, a real thing. One engraved in Iwo's brain, in mine, and in many other artists' or art lovers'.
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I can't wait to collaborate with Iwo. His approach really represents what I miss from my home continent: raising more questions than giving answers, persisting, using both our perception and our brain, crossing discipline boundaries, and incorporating the history of knowledge in the history of painting.
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I can't wait to join Iwo in his Search for the real, as Hans Hofmann called it.
In the meantime, I encourage you to take some time to reflect on why composition matters in the process of creating harmony, to understand what Iwo means with his "universal mathematical formula", and to experience harmony yourself in Iwo's videos. If you take the time, you will see that the artist Iwo has a lot to share about visual art... and about neuroesthetics.
 
 (Hans Hofman was a German-born American painter and considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstract Expressionism; I highly recommend his essays)
Click here to experience harmony changes according to Iwo
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**My interview about the art of aestetic judgments is live** by @StateoftheArt

8/1/2018

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07/19/2018
​
I discussed the art of aestetic judgments with Andrew Herman.

Listen to 
episode 44.
​
State of the Art is a podcast looking at technology's role in the art world, because tech is bringing radical change in the way all of us interact with art.

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Art and tech intertwining... in the middle of the jungle!

6/1/2018

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PictureMay 3, 2018 at the Academy of Science, San Francisco
May 3, 2018

I debated about how artificial intelligence and art intertwine with Josette Melchor, Gray Area Founder (San Francisco), Alicia Sabuncuoglu, Strategic Partner Development Manager for Social Impact at Google, and Juliette Bibasse, digital art curator and producer at the Academy of Science in San Francisco.

You can read about the event in this article by Anna Volpicelli.
 


PictureEdsger W. Dijkstra
I agree with Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930-2002), Dutch early pioneer in computing science, when he said: “The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.” Submarines look like they are swimming (they move forward, up and down) but they actually don't swim like fish. I like the analogy: computers can create and analyze visual data, like the submarine can move in water. Is this authentic art? At the same time, technology like google art palette can be an extension of the artist, a new medium, or a new tool, enhancing his/her artistic power.

Another question that remains open is: who can legitimize art? Pierre Bourdieu approached the question with a sociological eye (The Field of Cultural Production (1993) and The Rules of Art (1996)): he categorized the legitimacy of various types of art production depending on who defines it, from academia to "non legitimate" authorities such as advertising (see picture below).
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Finally, Artists and Robots, the exhibition that took place in Paris at the Grand Palais April 5-July 9, 2018, was an ideal opportunity to reflect on whether robots can make art... or not. I hope the exhibition will be brought to San Francisco soon.
This event was presented by:
AFTER TOMORROW 2018, a season by the French Consulate in San Francisco, the Cultural and Scientific Services of the French Embassy in the United States, French Tech San Francisco, Institut Français and the French American Cultural Society.
 MUTEK, renowned for its artistic and cultural projects, promoting innovation and digital cultures through live experiences. ​
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The Art of Vision, Part II: The Art of Cognition

6/13/2017

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To see my slides, click here
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The Art of Vision, part I: The art of perception

4/1/2017

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To see my slides, click here
Sorry, I don't have a video.
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The biography of Nicolas de Staël: what makes semi-abstract painting beautiful and relevant?

9/16/2016

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PictureLe prince fourdroyé = the prince struck by lightning
Navigating the spectrum between abstraction and representation is challenging. Semi-abstract paintings often feel nice, but also botched, incomplete, or irrelevant (see the zebra picture at the bottom of this post); but not the ones by my favorite painter Nicolas De Staël. Here is what I learned from De Staël's biography by Laurent Greilsamer (2003): making relevant semi-abstract paintings requires 3 artistic qualities: authenticity, idealism and ambition. De Staël’s artistic quest genuinely went beyond the classification of abstraction versus representation. Semi-abstraction happened without him categorizing it as such.
 
The authenticity of De Staël is palpable throughout his writings and his life. He was in remote contact with contemporary artists who were leaders in abstraction (ex: Kandinsky, Picasso) and criticized the very notion of categorizing abstraction versus figuration (see here). Originally influenced by Alberto Magnelli, pioneer in abstraction who went himself back and forth between figuration and abstraction, De Staël explored abstraction and then refused to aim specifically for it, exasperating his peers by his resistance to fully embrace the movement, and growing isolated: “You are stopping halfway, harshly reproached Jean Dewasne, who was resolutely turning towards geometrical abstraction” (p237). De Staël persisted his idealistic quest towards the “truth’, dedicating his entire self to it, neglecting his comfort and the one of his family “He is starving, and his family along him, but covers his canvas with the most sumptuous pastes” writes Greilsamer (P199).  De Staël’s ambition for himself included high expectations for the art of painting in general. When Jean Dewasme, offended by the resistance of De Staël to embrace the notion of abstraction, asked him: ”One need to move forward, steam ahead, invent, invent everything, find new forms, not repeat the past!” De Staël answered: “What do you think I am doing? What matters is the painting, only the painting, the tension that happens there, between inorganic order and organic disorder! Voilà! One need to struggle with the canvas, make it go off!" (p237). As Greilsamer put it: “Staël followed deep reasons that were related to his pride, his confidence of being unique, his refusal of schools of thought. He preferred being the only contemporary artist in a “small” gallery, over being a pawn in a prestigious racing stable”. I think these were the driving forces that made De Staël mastering semi-abstract art, without naming it. The paintings below are the living proof of his mastery, in the 3 main genres of paintings.

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Still life: Fleurs dans un vase bleu, 1953
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Live model: Portrait d'Anne, 1953
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Landscape: Agrigente, 1953
As an illustration, the 2014 Ikea catalog proposes ready-to-hang pictures that range from abstract (left) to representative (right). In the abstract picture (left), the design is nice but meaningless -to "look trendy". In the representative picture (right), the overwhelming subject matter (=the Eiffel tower) prevents you from appreciating any abstract qualities. In the semi-abstract picture (middle), the subject matter is quickly recognizable (a zebra) but the zooming, framing and black and white stripes add some abstract visual qualities that make the picture more interesting than a plain zebra. However, is it a relevant semi-abstract photo? I don't think so. It lacks authenticity, idealism and ambition (other than commercial).
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PJÄTTERYD by Ikea (online catalog, Oct 2014)
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PJÄTTERYD by Ikea (online catalog Oct 2014)
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VILSHULT by Ikea (online catalog, Oct 2014)
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Take a look at my latest exhibition at the Alliance Française, San Francisco (July 23 - August 25 2016)

9/15/2016

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Alliance française
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Was Salvador Dali a bad painter?

10/16/2014

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PictureDali’s Mustache, photo by Philip Halsman, 1954
Some painters, as Salvador Dali, trick us. When we look at Dali's paintings (see picture below), we think we are looking at visual arts, while in fact, we are spying on Dali's mental world, highly loaded with thoughts and verbal concepts, not with visual concepts. 
Salvador Dali used the visual language, not for the sake of it, but to illustrate his psyche, his favorite subject matter. When I visited the Dali exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2013, I could see how people were hooked as they accessed Dali's very unusual mind through his numerous art pieces. They were fascinated by Dali's exceptional mental giftedness, his overflowing delusional paranoia, and the fair amount of death and pornography included in his work. I was myself almost under the spell. 

Dali is undeniably an amazing painter, at least technically. In fact, his technical virtuosity is so overwhelming that, at first sight, one may think it is what his paintings are about. The technical qualities of his paintings (smooth finish, pseudo realistic rendering) and the unusual subject matter (projection of the mind, melting watches, organic forms of unclear origin, surrealistic world) are what makes us believe that this is great visual art. But it is masking the reality, which is that Dali’s paintings are actually about the verbal concept of “paranoiac knowledge”, as he called it, or "the ability of the brain to perceive links between things which rationally are not linked", and not about the painting itself.  Dali described his work as a "spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the critical and systematic objectivity of the associations and interpretations of delirious phenomena." His subject matter is his psyche. His process is based on psychological introspection. One could almost say Dali paints from imagination (as opposed to nature). The painting is just a support to deliver his concepts. 

For example, in The persistence of Memory (see picture below, on the left), the notion of hard versus soft, the symbol of the time that passes, and the oniric or delusional imagery refer to verbal concepts issued from Dali's mind. The soft central piece may even be seen as a symbolic representation of the artist's tortured mind, half sleeping or delusional. In that sense, Dali's painting virtuosity takes us where he wants us to go, which is inside his complex mind. For that reason, one could consider him a brilliant, efficient painter.

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The Persistence of Memory, by Salvador Dali, 1931
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Old Woman Frying Eggs, by Diego Velazquez, 1618
However, I would argue with that. The fascination comes primarily from the character of Dali himself (and therefore his subject matter), more than from the painting qualities per se. In a way,  I wish Dali used his technical talents to make amazing paintings, meaningful in a plastic way, instead of limiting himself to illustrations of his mind. In his smartness, and untreated madness, Dali was in fact very aware of that: in a famous interview, he claimed he was a very bad painter and attempted to explain why (see video below). 
Coming from a person with an oversized ego, this statement meant a lot. In the video, Dali was paradoxically humble (or realistic) about his work as a painter, and confessed he was mostly interested in the mind (being intelligent), while he felt paint should be restricted to dummies. This is where he really missed the point. Great art work as by Velasquez (that he quotes, see picture above on the right) are not necessarily made by dummies. In fact there are innumerable examples of great artists with a brain at least as gifted as Dali, but probably more psychologically balanced.
As a brain specialist, I don't grow tired of watching Dali's interviews and paintings: what an amazing window into the brain of a true paranoiac (or a person faking it very well), who fully embraced his delusions and made something remarkable out of it! Unfortunately, I think Dali teaches us more about paranoia than about painting. He had a great painting potential, but did not develop it. In a way he wasted his talent as a painter, because he was so focused on putting it at the service of illustrating his delusions.
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