It has been argued that art does not reproduce the visible-it makes things visible-but thi
It has been argued that art does not reproduce the visible-it makes things
visible-but this does not go far enough. In fact, visual art explores and reveals
the brain's perceptual capabilities and the laws governing it, among which two
Line stand supreme: law of constancy and law of abstraction. According to the law of
(5) constancy, the visual brain's function is to seek knowledge of the constant
properties of objects and surfaces: the distance, the viewing point, and the
illumination conditions change continually, yet the brain is able to discard these
changes in categorizing an object. It was an unacknowledged attempt to mimic
the perceptual abilities of the brain that led the founders of Cubism, Picasso and
(10) Braque, to alter the point of view, the distance and the lighting conditions in
their early, analytic period.
The second law is that of abstraction, the process in which the particular is
subordinated to the general, so that the representation is applicable to many
particulars. This second law has strong affinities with the first, because without
(15) it, the brain would be enslaved to the particular; the capacity to abstract is also
probably imposed on the brain by the limitations of its memory system, because
it eliminates the need to recall every detail. Art, too, abstracts and thus
externalizes the inner workings of the brain, so that its primordial function is a
reflection of the function of the brain.
(20) Through a process that has yet to be physiologically charted, cells in the
brain seem to be able to recognize objects in a view-invariant manner after brief
exposure to several distinct views synthesized by them. The artist, too, forms
abstractions, through a process that may share similarities with the
physiological processes now being unraveled but certainly goes beyond them, in
(25) that the abstract idea itself mutates with the artist's development. But
abstraction, a key feature of an efficient knowledge-acquiring system, also
exacts a heavy price on the individual, for which art may be a refuge and the
abstract "ideal" can lead to a deep discontent, because the daily experience is
that of particulars. Michelangelo left three-fifths of his sculptures unfinished,
(30) but he had not abandoned them in haste: he often worked on them for years,
because time and again the sublimity of his ideas lay beyond the reach of his
hands, impressing on him the hopelessness of translating into a single work or a
series of sculptures the synthetic ideals formed in his brain. Critics have written
in emotional and lyrical terms about these unfinished works, perhaps because,
(35) being unfinished, the spectator can finish them and thus satisfy the ideals of his
or her brain. This is only qualitatively different from finished works with the
inestimable quality of ambiguity-a characteristic of all great art-that allows
the brain of the viewer to interpret the work in a number of ways, all of them
equally valid.
The author argues that aesthetic creation is useful to an understanding of the visual brain because it
A．allows abstract ideas to mutate into new and hitherto untested forms
B．helps scientists synthesize several distinct views of the operation of the brain
C．manifests in an observable form. the laws by which the brain functions
D．subordinates the particular to the general, streamlining the artistic process
E．establishes the constant and essential properties of objects and surfaces
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