Experiencing Art: in the Brain of the Beholder

EXPERIENCING ART This page intentionally left blank EXPERIENCING ART IN THE BRAIN OF THE BEHOLDER ARTHUR P. SHIMAMUR A OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With oﬃ ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Th ailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shimamura, Arthur P. Experiencing art : in the brain of the beholder / Arthur P. Shimamura. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–19–993693–9—ISBN 978–0–19–993694–6—ISBN 978–0–19–998238–7 1. Art and society. 2. Art—Psychology. 3. Visual perception. 4. Aesthetics—Psychological aspects. I. Title. N72.S6S463 2013 701′.15—dc23 2012034353 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To my family—Helen, Th omas, and Gregory—always my inspiration, compatriots, and provocateurs This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii 1 O v e r t u r e 1 Act I: THE ART OF SEEING 2 Th e Eye as Canvas, the Brain as Beholder 31 3 Th e Illusion of Form 53 4 Making a Scene 73 Act II: THE ART OF KNOWING 5 How Do You Know? 101 6 Remembrance of Past Th ings 131 7 You Are Cultured 155 viii CONTENTS Act III: THE ART OF FEELING 8 Arousing Emotions 183 9 Body Language 211 10 I Know How You Feel 233 11 Coda 255 Index 269 PREFACE pit straight up, learn something. I once heard Robert Haas, the former U. S. SPoet Laureate, recite this Vietnamese saying, which came to mind as I con- sidered seemingly straightforward questions about art and aesthetics: What happens when we experience a work of art? Can we agree on great art or is there no accounting for taste? What aspects of sensations, emotions, and knowledge infl uence our aesthetic experiences? Philosophers, historians, scientists, and artists have sought answers to these questions, with each perspective off ering important clues. My goal in writing this book was to explore these questions by considering what we do when we experience art. Part of my interest stems from my own explorations in photography. When I was a teenager my father bought me a Nikon camera and several lenses. I enrolled in a photography course in high school, and during my senior year I landed a job at a camera store. As might be expected, I put most of my earn- ings back into the cash register. I built a small darkroom in our spare bathroom and reveled in the art of black-and-white photography. Th is venture sparked an interest in art history, and in college I took an introductory course and even started a mail-order subscription to the Time-Life book series on artists (a few might remember those days before Amazon.com ). Every month or so, I would receive a book about a particular artist. Th e fi rst one featured Vincent van Gogh, and I remember savoring that book from cover to cover. I still have those books, though I don’t recall reading any of the others with such zeal. During the remainder of my college years, through graduate school, and, ultimately, as I entered an enveloping career as a scientist, my interest in photography and art diminished to snapshots during family vacations and the occasional visit to an art museum. Be it midlife crisis or otherwise, I renewed my interest in creative photography. I purchased a new camera (just prior to the digital revolution) and treated myself to photography workshops during sum- mer vacations. I also became interested in the history of photography, focusing x Preface especially on the works of Edward Weston and his son Brett. Indeed, I realized that my own photographic style was in many ways from the “school of Edward Weston.” During my career as a scientist, I have had the opportunity to explore the workings of the human brain with a wonderful group of students and col- leagues at the University of California, Berkeley, and previously at the Univer- sity of California, San Diego. My investigations of patients with brain injury, and more recently my foray into brain imaging, have led me to insights concerning the nature of perception, memory, and even emotion. My job also aff ords the opportunity to learn through teaching. At UC Berkeley, professors can teach “Freshman Seminars,” which are small courses covering a topic of the professor’s choosing. For the past twelve years, I have taught a seminar on the “Psychology of Art.” Th e course considers aesthetics from a psychological perspective. In preparation for the course, I was strongly infl uenced by Robert L. Solso’s extraordinary book Cognition and the Visual Arts . Bob was a friend and colleague, and his death in 2005 has prevented me from personally thanking him for his impact on my own explorations in the psychology of art. One serendipitous encounter led to a merging of my interests in brain, photography, and art history. While preparing for a family vacation to Yosemite National Park, I read a book about its history and encountered tales of nineteenth century photographers, such as Carleton Watkins and Eadweard Muybridge. Th ese pioneers in photography trekked to Yosemite Valley with bulky cameras and brought back stunning images of the Western landscape. As a melodramatic aside, the book mentioned Muybridge’s sordid biography, which included the murder of his wife’s lover aft er discovering that the baby his wife bore was likely not his. What interested me was that Muybridge entered a plea of innocence by reason of insanity, which his lawyers argued resulted from a severe head injury that he sustained aft er a stagecoach accident. When I read that passage, it reminded me of neurological patients who suff ered head injury from severe car accidents. Such injuries damage a part of the brain called the orbitofrontal cortex and the result is emotional instability. Muybridge’s disposition included inappropriate outbursts, social improprieties, and obsessive- compulsive behav- ior, all of which are consistent with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex. Th is intriguing link led me to investigate in greater detail Muybridge’s trial proceed- ings through court documents and newspaper articles. As Muybridge resided in San Francisco, I was able to explore the biography of a local and international celebrity. With this information in hand, I wrote an article that was published in the journal History of Photography, suggesting that orbitofrontal damage could have contributed in part to Muybridge’s life events. Th e link between art and brain has received considerable airplay in recent years. Since 2002, the noted neuroscientist Semir Zeki has organized an annual conference on “Neuroaesthetics,” which brings together scientists, artists, historians, and philosophers interested in art and brain. Other conferences and Preface xi books have appeared that consider the biological underpinnings of artistic expression and appreciation. In this intellectual atmosphere, I received a fel- lowship in 2008 from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to explore my own perspective on the links between art and the brain. Most of this book was written during my tenure as a Guggenheim fellow, and I am most grateful to the Foundation for providing resources for this exploration. What follows is a personal account of the ways we experience art. This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGMENTS would like to express my gratitude to the many students, friends, and col- Ileagues who have spent time chatting with me about art, mind, and brain. I have learned a great deal from these discussions and would especially like to thank Silvia Bunge, No ë l Carroll, Anjan Chatterjee, Eliot Deutsch, Helen Ettlinger, Blake Gopnik, Julian Hochberg, Rich Ivry, Jerry Levinson, Paul Locher, Jerry Mendelsohn, John Onians, Steve Palmer, Mary Petersen, Bill Prinzmetal, Michael Roush, John Shaw, Gregory Shimamura, Th omas Shima- mura, David Whitney, and Lesile Zemsky. Special thanks go to Helen Ettlinger, Gregory Shimamura, and the students of my Psychology of Art course who read and provided comments on earlier draft s, and to the John Simon Guggen- heim Foundation for providing fi nancial support. Finally, I would like to thank Catharine Carlin, Joan Bossert, and the production staff at Oxford University Press for helping this project along to its publication. This page intentionally left blank EXPERIENCING ART This page intentionally left blank 1. OVERTURE J “ Th at would look nice on my wall .

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