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The Body, the Brain and Modern Art

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The Body, the Brain and Modern Art University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and Publications Sheldon Museum of Art 2001 Making Sense of the Senses: The Body, the Brain and Modern Art Will South Curator of Collections, Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Greensboro Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sheldonpubs Part of the Art and Design Commons South, Will, "Making Sense of the Senses: The Body, the Brain and Modern Art" (2001). Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and Publications. 43. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sheldonpubs/43 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Sheldon Museum of Art at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Making Sense of the Senses: The BoCiYL the Brain and Modern Art The barking of dogs Is deepening the yellow Of the sunflowers. -Richard Wright (1908-1960)1 magine, as so many artists, musicians, writers, as none of us actually ever sees a collapsed lung. I poets and dreamers have tried to do so many Yet, all of us, including the most reasonable among times in so many ways, a universal Ian - us, use metaphor constantly. guage-one that could be understood by anyone And, apparently for good, unavoidable and in any place at any time. However implausible such wholly natural reasons. What both contemporary a language may seem, however romantic, naIve, or linguists and cognitive neuroscientists are now flatly impossible, its creation in visual terms was a telling us about the brain is that metaphors are not common pursuit of early modern painters, those dispensable decorations. They are central to the working in the first decades of the 20th century. At process of perception, and thus to how the mind the beginning of this new millennium, we may ask makes sense of what we call reality. The mind is afresh if all these past imaginings and pursuits were nothing like the computers it designs we are told by but elegant and finely wrought pipe dreams, or if certain neuroscientists, despite the fact that compu­ in some way modern art actually did and still does tational terminology is used all the time to describe communicate to the human mind-any human the workings of the brain. Instead, in the words of mind anywhere-fundamental stimuli that may be scientist John J. Ratey, the brain "works by anal­ commonly understood. Recent thinking in studies ogy and metaphor. It relates whole concepts to one of the mind suggest that perhaps at least some of it another and looks for similarities, differences or does, and that those images that achieve universal­ relationships between them."2 Seconding the cen­ ity do so by way of an elemental, physiologically­ trality of metaphor to brain function are linguist based phenomenon of the human mind: natural George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson with metaphor. their conclusion that "metaphor is as much a part of A metaphor is commonly understood to be a our functioning as our sense of touch."3 figure of speech in which a word or phrase that A "natural metaphor" is a metaphor derived from literally denotes one thing is used to denote and our having the bodies we have and interacting with describe another; for example, "time is a jet plane." the environment as we encounter it. That is, we Time, the comparison tells us, moves away from have bodies that allow us to experience "up" versus us quickly. A common way to think of metaphor is "down" within the context of our physical world. that it merely decorates speech-that it makes lan­ How we as a culture have come to speak routinely guage, whether written or oral, more interesting or of goodness as being "up" and of badness or evil be­ even entertaining. Consider Raymond Chandler's ing "down"(she does high-quality work; his attitude colorful use of metaphor in his novel, The Long was beneath contempt) is explained by scientist Goodbye, wherein Chandler describes a character Richard Cytowic, author of the in-depth study on as having "a face like a collapsed lung." Now, that synesthesia, The Man Who Tasted Shapes: is vivid. But perhaps a reasonable person could do The physical bases for these metaphors without metaphor altogether in thought and speech are that most mammals sleep lying down and give a more accurate description of that same and stand up when awake. Well-being, character's face: As opposed to looking like a col­ control, and things characterized as good lapsed lung, the face in question could be described are all up. Since we control our physical as misshapen, deeply wrinkled and pervasively environment, animals, and sometimes splotched. This might be more accurate, especially even other people, and since our ability 2 to reason is what gives us this control, A common example of natural metaphor and one control is up implies human is up and germane to the present essay is that up-tempo mu­ therefore rational is up .... sic in major scales may equal bright color and hap­ Spatial orientations like up-down, piness; slow music in a minor scale may equal dark front-back, and center-periphery are the colors and sadness. What could form the physical most common ones in our system of basis of this phenomenon? In our experience of concepts, but given the variety of ways we life, we slow down when ill, and we see others as interact with the world, there are others.4 completely still when they are dead. Slow equals Yale University Professor Lawrence E. Marks is unhealthy, which equals sadness. By contrast, fast another who tells us that these metaphorical rela­ equals healthy, happy, control and ultimately "up." tionships may be inherent to perception and that In old models of the mind, information derived "In this regard, intersensory and physiognomic from the senses (sight, sound, hearing, smell and metaphors reflect 'natural' rather than 'conven­ touch) came in and went to one place where it was tional' symbols or signs."5 Thus, such perceptions, then processed and understood: sight was one place inherent to the body and physiologically based, are and hearing another.? Likewise, language had its not culturally learned-they are natural, derived own location in the brain, so did memory. In new from the nature of our own bodies existing in a models of the mind, information of all kinds is physical world. The brain itself, not just language shared in varying degrees and locations throughout or our use of it, is a metaphorical entity. The per­ the brain-it is scattered-thus visual informa­ vasiveness of natural metaphor in our thinking is tion is shared to some degree with other sensory cited by Marks: modes-hearing, taste, touch, smell. This sharing That dark and saturated colors are among sensory modes is called "cross-modality," physiognomically stronger than light, and cross-modality is basic to brain function. pale colors is also evident in results So, when Susie walks into the party in a yellow obtained by D'Andrade and Egan (1974) dress spotted with red roses and it is perceived by and Valdez and Mehrabian (1994) using the guests as "loud," their understanding is not simpler color stimuli. D'Andrade and wholly a cultural convention, that is, a matter of Egan presented to two groups of partici­ shared tastes based on communal definition, but pants-one native speakers of English rather it stems in part from the brain seeing bright and the other native speaker of Tzeltal (a color and associating it with loud sounds. Loud­ language of Mexico) -a series of words ness is more sound, thus lots of color is the visual (in their native language) denoting vari­ equivalent of more sound. The brain will add to ous emotions, the task being to select for that perception an emotional qualityB (for many each emotion word the most appropriate the emotional experience will be happy because in color chip from a large array. Multidi­ the mind 'more is Up')9 and mix it in with per­ mensional scaling revealed striking simi­ sonal memories, current hopes and desires, and, in larities in the responses obtained from extremely complicated ways, layers of cultural data the two groups, especially with regard to (loud is "rude") and language (where metaphor is the colors associated with "good," "bad," manifest in abundance-her dress is "brassy"). " strong,"d" an wea. k"'T' .10 spea k ers 0 f In short, even the seemingly most insignificant or both English and Tzeltal, dark and high­ casual perception connects in the brain with many ly saturated colors were good and strong, other associations and/or perceptions. and light and palely saturated colors were Interest among early American modern art- weak. Negative emotions such as "sad­ ists in visually representing sensory perceptions, ness" and "fright," tended to be connect­ including time as a dimension of experience, was ed with purplish and yellow-red colors, pervasive though the sound/color analogy aroused and positive emotions such as "happy" the greatest interest and generated the most hope were connected with blue-greens.6 for new forms of expression. Robert Henri (1865- 3 1929), one of 20th century America's most formi­ the canvas is respected as a flat, inher­ dable exponents of independence and individual­ ently decorative entity, the result of being ity in art, nonetheless became fascinated with the divided by horizontals and verticals idea of a fixed system for finding color harmonies rather than by space-creating diagonals; that evoked sound.
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