BOOKS & ARTS NATURE|Vol 453|1 May 2008

EXHIBITION Changing expressions

Laura Spinney a kind of printmaking, and his style became ZURICH KUNSTHAUS, From his early forties, the German artist Lovis more sensitive and expressive. Corinth developed a habit of painting a self- One theme throughout his work is a fascina- portrait every year, just before his birthday. tion for flesh and the body. His interest in the In 1911, at the age of 52, he painted himself visceral took him to places other painters feared in classical style, as a knight in armour. A year to go, such as the slaughterhouse. But whereas later, he portrayed himself as Samson blinded, his early paintings celebrated nudity in biblical a picture of agony in chains and a loincloth. In scenes, his later ones dwelt on more morbid between, the artist had suffered a stroke in the aspects, including the skeleton and death. The right hemisphere of his brain. earlier works were subversive takes on the old Corinth’s style evolved so dramatically over masters, but still naturalistic; the later ones, with his career, from naturalism to impressionism to their violent brushstrokes and free use of pri- expressionism, that he defies classification and mary colours, were much more expressive. is often considered an outsider. Art historians To resolve the issue of his evolving style, some and neurologists debate whether the neuro- scholars have turned to the unbroken record of logical damage he sustained drove him to be the self-portraits. Corinth’s stroke left him with unconventional, or whether it was incidental the inability to process visuospatial information to his artistic development. in the left side of his visual field, but how long Lovis Corinth’s Last Self-portrait may reflect Once the most fashionable portrait painter this deficiency lasted is itself a matter of dispute. stroke damage to his brain’s right side. in Berlin, Corinth tired of the city after expe- It is striking that in the earlier self-portraits he riencing his stroke and turned to rural land- tends to be turned towards the left; in the later Laura Spinney is a science writer based in London scapes. Like the impressionists, he revisited ones, towards the right. In an oil painting from and Paris, and author of the novel The Quick. the same spot — his beloved Walchensee in 1925, he is also turned rightwards, but a mirror southern Germany — and painted it at differ- reflects his gaze back towards the left. Perhaps Lovis Corinth (1858–1925): Between Impressionism ent times of the day and year. In the last decade that was a final attempt at compensation — he and Expressionism is at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, of his life, his preferred medium was drypoint, didn’t live to see his next birthday. ■ until 22 June.

EXHIBITION The surfaces of 20 etched plates, displayed as a wall-mounted grid, simultaneously absorb and reflect light, alternately evoking dull and Etching the artist’s mind scintillating thoughts. In two kaleidoscopic films, images of Aldworth’s brain obtained Colin Martin surfaces of the etchings, printed from the blue- during a functional magnetic resonance imag- Artist Susan Aldworth’s interest in neuro- inked plates. Her fast etching process is a meta- ing scan are incorporated as a sequence of science was triggered during an emergency phor for rapidly firing cerebral neurons, and rapidly changing frames. cerebral angiogram in 1999, while observing the resulting cognitive ‘blueprints’ capture the Aldworth’s latest series of etchings, The Self her brain’s structure on a monitor. “You are nanoseconds when “flesh thinks”. is a Shadow Puppet, dramatizes the convoluted looking inside your head while think- topography of the brain, its neural net- ing, seeing, feeling; your brain is work- work and blood vessels. In one, a pair ing while you are looking inside it,” she of ghostly hands reaches out of the dark marvelled. background towards a disembodied In 2005, as artist-in-residence at the brain, straining to touch its intangible, S. ALDWORTH Royal London Hospital, UK, Aldworth mysterious consciousness. sketched works on location in hospital In his introduction to the exhibition, clinics and collaborated with consultant Broks makes the argument that our neuroradiologist Paul Butler and neuro- understanding of consciousness bene- psychologist Paul Broks. fits from artists and scientists look- Scribing the Soul is her personal explo- ing at it collaboratively. “The self is a ration of how matter becomes mind. shadow puppet shaped by the firings Now on display in Oxford, UK, the exhi- of a hundred billion brain cells,” he bition will move to galleries across the writes. “These are conceptual conun- United Kingdom next month. drums. Intractable to current science, In a series of prints entitled Brainscape, they call for an artistic response.” ■ Aldworth chose etching as a medium for Colin Martin is a writer based in London. exploring cognition because, like neuro- transmission, it uses chemical reactions. Scribing the Soul runs at Science Oxford, Delicate surface effects were created by Oxford, UK, until 23 May; at Peninsula Arts drawing on metal plates with marker in Plymouth, UK, from 7 June to 18 July; and pens and then dipping the plates quickly at the Transition Gallery in London from 26 in acid. Ghostly lines flicker across the Cerebral art: Susan Aldworth’s Between a Thing and a Thought. July to 17 August.

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