1 Perceptual organization in visual art Jan

Perceptual organization in visual art
Jan Koenderink
To appear in:
Oxford Handbook of Perceptual Organization
Oxford University Press
Edited by Johan Wagemans
1. Introduction
1.1. Definition of “visual art”
“Art” is not necessarily defined by an aesthetic dimension. A sunset may evoke aesthetic experiences, so may
flowers, or butterflies, but natural phenomena are not art. One might suppose that art is necessarily of human
manufacture. But if someone points out a sunset to you, what is the difference with pointing at a urinal, as
Duchamp famously did [1]? The sunset was certainly not manufactured, but merely pointed out. So was the
urinal. If the urinal is appreciated as an objet trouvé [2] admitted as an objet d’art), then why not the sunset,
the flower, or the butterfly? The single common factor appears to be that art is intentional [3], it implies an
“artist” who may, but need not be a manufacturer. This is indeed a necessary requirement, but it is not
sufficient (see below). I first introduce a few important distinctions.
“Visual art” is art that is meant to be looked at, instead of being heard, felt, etc. But consider that a copy of
The Brothers Karamazov is meant to be looked at too (you are supposed to read it), but is generally not
reckoned “visual art”. Yet Fyodor Dostoyevsky *4+ was certainly an artist, and his novel is ART. Likewise the
famous Fountain (Figure 1: actually a “found” urinal) displayed by Marcel Duchamp in 1917, is art, but not
“visual art”. It appeals to cognition and reflective thought, rather than immediate visual awareness. Today,
conceptual art [5] holds the floor. This is indeed the politically correct thing to do in a democracy, because
most people “see with their ears” as my artist friends say. However, this chapter is focused singularly on visual
art, ignoring conceptual art.
Note: Square brackets like “*123+” refer to supplementary notes. These notes contain useful additional material and explanation. They
are available on the Internet.
1
Figure 1.
Left: Marcel Duchamp in front of his Fountain. The fountain dates from 1917 submitted to the
exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists. It is an intentionally scandalous “work”, signed
“R.Mutt” (German: Armut, meaning “poverty”).
The “original” has been lost, but it can easily be “replaced” (some “copies” authorized by the
artist) as the numerous museum copies show. The work has been hailed as a summit of
twentieth century art.
Right: Picasso's Tete de taureau from 1943. According to Picasso:
Guess how I made the bull's head? One day, in a pile of objects all jumbled up together, I
found an old bicycle seat right next to a rusty set of handlebars. In a flash, they joined
together in my head. The idea of the Bull's Head came to me before I had a chance to think.
All I did was weld them together … [but] if you were only to see the bull's head and not the
bicycle seat and handlebars that form it, the sculpture would lose some of its impact.
(Brassai, George (1999). Conversations with Picasso. University of Chicago (from original
published 1964), page 61.)
The bull's head was displayed at the 1944 Salon d'Automne (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_d%27Automne) in Paris, catalogued as “Bicycle Seat”. It
was removed because of negative reactions of visitors.
Although one should not fail to distinguish sharply between “visual art” and “conceptual art”, this may not
always be easy, because many paintings from Western art are both. Raphael’s Sistine Madonna (*6+ (Figure 2:
La Madonna di San Sisto, 1513/4) is meant to be looked at, and manages to strike an immediate visual
impression. Yet it was commissioned as an altarpiece, and has obvious religious connotations. It is art, both
visual and conceptual. To someone coming from a non-Western culture the conceptual part may be
nonexistent, to such an observer the painting is pure visual art. The same applies to the Western appreciation
for African tribal art as visual art, whereas it was intended as conceptual.
Figure 2. La Madonna di San Sisto, or the Sistine Madonna by Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da
Urbino 1483-1520). It was finished only a few years before his death, ca. 1513-1514, as a
commissioned altarpiece. It was his last painting.
A good way to obtain an understanding of the difference between conceptual and visual art is to mindfully
consider Duchamp’s Fountain, as compared to Picasso’s Bull [7](Figure 1). Consider the nature of the intention
of the artist, and the impact on the observer. These instances are as far apart as can be, although both consist
of pieces of junk, with hardly any workmanship on the part of the artist. Yet a more evident contrast is hardly
possible: the artist’s intentions were categorically different.
2
As everyone knows from the newspapers, art has an important economic dimension, and indeed one
pragmatic definition of art is that it has a value on the art market. When a tin of shit (Piero Manzoni’s Merda
d’artista [8](Figure 3, 1961) sold for £97,250 at Sotheby’s in October 2008 (tin #83 of 90; the cans were
originally to be valued according to their weight in gold - $37 each in 1961) this thus marked it as a piece of
Art. The value on the art market is important for both visual and conceptual art. It is often considered a metric
on artistic value, comparable to the citation count in the case of scientific contributions, and making similar
sense. This definition places works of art in a single category with rare coins and postage stamps, evidently
unfortunate. What is lacking here is an “observer”. The investor is not an observer, in fact, is likely to store the
artwork in a vault. Here we identify another necessary condition for designating some objects “art”.
Figure 3. Piero Manzoni (1933-1963; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero_Manzoni), Merda
d'artista, N4, 1961, Diameter 6,5 cm.
This is perhaps best explained with an example, I use the case of pictures. What exactly is a “picture”, a
painting say? It was famously discovered by Maurice Denis [9] that a painting is (among more) a physical
object:
“It is well to remember that a picture before being a battle horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote, is
essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order.”
However, used as a tea tray, such an object is certainly not a picture. In order to be a picture, there should
exist a double-sided intentionality, namely
– the picture was intended by an artist to be looked at as a picture;
– the picture is looked at as a picture, by an “observer”.
“Looked at as a picture” implies looking “into”, and entering a “pictorial world” *10+. Consider some examples.
An ancient stained wall is not a picture, even though it might beat a Jackson Pollock [11] in attracting visual
interest. It is not, since the artist is lacking. No work of art comes into existence as a cosmic accident.
Designating the wall an objet trouvé [2](Figure 4) might provide an artist's intention [3], although this in no
way changes the wall as a physical object. People have discovered striking renderings of the face of Jesus in
trees, old rags, cookies, and the wood grain of toilet doors [12](Figure 4). These are not to be counted as
works of art, since the artist’s intention is lacking.
3
Figure 4.
Left: Mold on an old wall.
Right: “Jesus's face” spotted on the toilet door in Ikea Glasgow. The Face of Jesus has been
spotted in the most unlikely places. These portraits are evidently “painted in the mind”,
although they often give rise to rumors (media attention, by newspaper, radio, TV, …) of
miraculous events.
The observer's intention is just as necessary. In a hilarious painting by Mark Tansey [13], a cow is forced to
look at a painting by Paulus Potter by several earnest looking men (Figure 5). The cow remains apparently
unaware of the explicit erotic overtones of this work, thus one concludes that in the bovine universe the
painting is just another object, despite its lifelike size and color. The observer is lacking, because the cow is
looking “at” instead of “into” the painting. In this setting Potter’s work is just an object.
Figure 5.
Left: Mark Tansey’s (born 1949) The Innocent Eye Test, 1981. The cow is looking at Paulus
Potter's (1625-1654)
Right: The Young Bull, 1647 The cow remains apparently unaware of the explicit erotic
overtones of this work. One concludes that in the bovine universe the painting is just another
irrelevant object, despite its life size and lifelike color. (Keep in mind that this figure
reproduces a painting, rather than a “documentary photograph”!)
Depending on the art-form, the physical object matters. Although no mere physical object is a “work of art”, it
may provide “a link” to it. Examples are roman marble copies (mere pieces of stone handiwork) of original
Greek bronzes [14]. Without such a link, the work of art (in the intention of the Greek authors) doesn't exist
anymore. Without the double-intentional significance [15], the physical object is just junk.
The double-sided intentional nature thus explains the ontological status of “pictures”. The value on the
market is irrelevant. There is much that might well be considered “art” that is either not marketable, or would
4
bring merely some value typical of used goods. Examples are tattoos, ornaments on teacups or weapons,
facial makeup, and so forth.
In this chapter I take a broad view and consider “art” (used as short for visual art) to be any object, change
applied to an object, happening or expression, when it has the double-sided intentionality [15]. Art is
designed to affect immediate visual awareness in some specific way.
A work of art presupposes a certain “visual literacy” in order to be “read”. It is a hermeneutical task *16+, in
George Steiner’s *17+ terms “not a science, but an exact art”. Steiner’s “four movements” indeed apply to art
appreciation: First there is the blind trust to find something there, a step into the dark, for better or for worse.
To find nothing is experienced as a painful breach of trust. Then there is an act of aggression, as the observer
“conquers” the work, followed by incorporation, as the observer makes the work its own. Finally, there is
retribution, wherein the observer (as indeed with the initial trust) honors the artist’s intentions. The work is
recreated in the observer, albeit in novel form, for “to understand is to decipher; to see [orig.: hear]
significance is to translate”. Exact recreation is impossible, the artist’s meaning is always lost. Each observer
sees only itself.
My central interest will be modern Western art (which involves the art of Western Europe of the late middle
ages till the present, the art of the U.S. since the sixteenth century, etc.), especially painting, sculpture, and
architecture. I will also occasionally touch on non-Western art, and other fields of endeavor such as
photography, cinema, fashion, graphics design, and so forth. Of course, the interest is merely visual
organization, I ignore the conceptual, magical, religious, and so forth, connotations, even though these are
often the very reason for the being of the art.
I focus on Gestalt properties, that is on the nature of the organization of the work, to the extent that it may be
considered “visual” *18+. Although there are certainly works of art whose organization is almost completely
visual, in many cases there exists organization on many simultaneous levels. I start with making some
(minimal) distinctions.
1.2. The stratified structure of works of art
I again use the case of pictures as an example. Pictures sometimes carry ideal meanings, not unlike poems,
although this is not necessarily the case. Here I am mainly concerned with an “anatomical” analysis. Pictures
may be analyzed as composed of mutually heterogeneous levels of “being” *19+, of which I identify four major
(from the perspective of visual organization) ones (Figure 6).
Figure 6. Three drawings by Salvador Dali (1904-1989), all representing human figures. These
drawings have significant structure on all four ontic strata.
At level 1. Smallest relevant constituents we find a mixture of short strokes and blobs in the
left, flowing, curved strokes on the center, and blobs in the right drawing.
5
At level 2. Simple meaningful units we find outlined, convex, “shaded” figures, volleys of
vertical hatching, and a pencil of concurrent straight lines in the left, repeated curved “trial”
outlines, and oblique hatching in the center, related blobs and horizontal hatched shading in
the right image.
At level 3. Salient Gestalts we encounter mutually aligned “stones”, and a deep floor in the
left, ovoid, related volumes in the center, and parts of human figures (torsos, heads) and floor
in the right drawing.
At level 4. Represented entities we find human figures in all three drawings, the left and right
one evidently located on a groundplane. The left figure has a complicated spatiotemporal
“story”, the center drawing is striking because of the dynamic pose of the figure, the right one
represent a “mother and child” scene, with a clear emphatic relation between the two.
Level #1. Smallest relevant constituents
These are the strokes of a drawing, the touches of a painting, and so forth, as they are visually evident.
These are essential infima, the structure of the paper or canvas often being noticeable, but seen as part of
the physical object, rather than the double-intentional picture. If the maker intentionally chooses a
physical texture (rough paper, film grain) such that it becomes part of the work, it is considered an objet
trouvé.
Level #2. Simple meaningful units
Here one thinks of mutually dependent pairs of strokes, sets of touches making up an edge, and so forth.
“Meaningful” involves a spontaneously felt relation in immediate awareness. A single stroke may well be
a meaningful unit, but sometimes the simplest units contain many strokes.
Level #3. Salient Gestalts
Any number of simple meaningful units may cohere in Gestalts. These do not necessarily stand for
nameable parts. If they do, the naming comes afterwards, as cognition kicks in. They appear in awareness
as significant geometrical configurations, or even volumetric entities. These Gestalts often fluctuate on
prolonged observation, as microgenesis organizes the presentations. The work may actually prevent
microgenesis from ever reaching a “fixed point”.
Level #4. Represented entities
These are perceived objects, events, states of affairs, in some cases plots or stories. The spectrum is huge,
this merges into the domain of reflective thought.
None of these strata is necessarily present in any given instance, although they may all be simultaneously
relevant. The profile of weights that might be placed on the strata is a useful indicator of style. It varies widely,
as one notices in mutually comparing works by Mondrian [20], Pollock [11], Malevich [21], Rubens [22], and
Botticelli [23], for instance.
One may associate different aesthetic values, either positive or negative, with the strata. But what is more
important, is that the strata are never seen in isolation, except for special cases, like art restoration work – but
then the work is not a “picture” in the sense used by me. Pictures are organic wholes, implying that the strata
are mutually interdependent [24] (Figure 7). There appears to be a two-way causal flow [25]. A superstratum
contributes context to objects or processes in a substratum, whereas a substratum contributes substantial
qualities to objects of the superstratum. In this way, paintings may be comparable to polyphonic harmonies.
Notice that there is room for both harmony and disharmony, a crucial point in aesthetic appreciation. Of
course, this may be more easily noticeable in a Rubens painting than in a work by Malevich, simply because of
their very different structural complexities.
6
Figure 7. Paul Klee (1879-1940) Brother and sister, 1930. Notice that the siblings hold a single
heart in common! The drawing has a very tight structure, only a supersurgeon might separate
these Siamese twins successfully. This drawing is an amazing example of an organic whole with
the various ontic strata intimately interconnected. It will repay close study.
2. Some illustrative instances
2.1. Ornamental patterns
Perhaps the purest examples of visual art are ornamental patterns [26]. These range from very simple, like an
intentional scar, tattoo, or war paint, to extremely complicated, like the ornamental tessellations of the
Alhambra [27].
The simplest ornamental patterns are found in all cultures worldwide. They almost invariably include spirals,
used in scarification, tattoos, amulets, and ornamentation. In the West they are perhaps best known as the
Celtic symbols [28], found on many Dolmans and grave sites. The Celtic spirals mostly rotate clockwise. One
finds both dense (Archimedean) and open (logarithmic) varieties [29]. They also occur in connected pairs and
triples (triskele). In modern Western culture one finds these designs in church windows, mosaic floors,
emblems, jewelry, and so forth [30]. Very similar designs occur in facial tattoos of the Maori [31] (Figure 8),
African scarifications [32] (Figure 9) and jewelry (earrings), Navaho sand paintings [33], Australian aboriginal
art [34], and Japanese family emblems [35].
7
Figure 8. A Maori man by Parkinson, Sydney (1745-1771). Parkinson was the artist on Captain
Cook's 1st voyage to New Zealand in 1769. From: Parkinson, Sydney. A journal of a voyage to
the
South
Seas.
London,
1784,
plate
16,
opposite
page
90.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MaoriChief1784.jpg.
Figure 9. Example of traditional African scarification. See
http://www.ezakwantu.com/Gallery\%20Scarification.htm. Although this example only shows
the face, scarifications often cover the whole body.
The spiral has a very simple organization, not much more complicated than a line. However, it manages to
cover an arbitrarily large area in a manner that is immediately visually evident. One might say spirals render an
area visible. Other ways to render areas is by (usually regular) stippling, or (usually regular) hatching, also
common, and visually evident patterns.
The double and triple spirals are composite patterns, yet immediately recognized as unified designs. They
cannot be arbitrarily extended, like the single spiral. Thus, they naturally fit within a circular outline.
Concentric circles, ornamental knots, mazes and labyrinths fit into the same overall family of visual
organization. They are found as ornamentation on bodies, weapons, pottery, jewelry, floors and walls. They
serve as family emblems, powerful symbols (the swastika of the Third Reich falls in this class), and so forth.
Another important class of ornamentation that often has strong perceptual organization is that of the band
patterns. It occurs in Europe from the stone age on [36], and is found worldwide in virtually all cultures. It
naturally occurs at the boundaries of disks, and as “bracelets” on rotationally symmetric objects like arms,
pots, and sticks. In the simplest cases one finds parallel lines, often zig-zag, or wavy. In more complicated
cases one finds repeated localized configurations. The repetition is often “with variations”, usually regular
ones. Most typical are simple alternations, like in the “egg and dart” pattern *37+ already found at the
Erechtheion (ca. 421 BCE [38]).
Formally, the organization is defined by the “frieze groups” *39+, which is the class of infinite discrete
symmetry groups for patterns on a strip. There are seven different frieze groups. The groups are built on
translations and glide reflections, one may find additional reflections along the translation axis, and half-turns.
These basic organizations are found in ornamental borders of the most diverse origin (painted, or scratched in
pottery, in basketry, in “barbed wire” tattoos, in tile borders, and so forth), all over the world, in the most
diverse cultures. Although the repetition with variation is indeed visually salient, there is little indication that
the taxonomy of the frieze groups plays an important role in visual organization [40]. It is apparently not part
of a “visual grammar”.
The patterns that are being repeated are necessarily “local”. They are often abstract geometrical forms, like
circles or crosses, that may also be used for their own sake. Indeed, starburst patterns, circles (concentric, or
8
intertwined pairs or triples), and especially crosses, are found in all cultures. Crosses are especially common,
even in non-Christian (due to distance in space or time) civilizations. These simple configurations have
frequently been given meaningful interpretations (circles and starbursts standing for the sun, crosses for
human copulation, and so forth), but it would seem that the visual salience preceded such meanings (which
indeed can vary). The basic forms are also found in the colorations of animals and plants, think of the “eyes”
found on butterfly wings. The “releasers” that evoke standard action patterns in birds and fishes are often
based on similar patterns. In more advanced cultures one often encounters stylized images of floral motives,
animals and man. Such stylizations are frequently based upon one of the basic forms though, that appears to
give them their impact.
It would seem that these forms are indeed part of the “visual grammar”. Their common property appears to
be simplicity (minimal structural information content), combined with high non-accidentalness (see also van
der Helm on simplicity, this volume, chapter 57).
In two dimensions one obtains the “wallpaper patterns” *41+. Again, their organization can be fully formalized
through the symmetry groups in the plane. There are seventeen distinct groups, as has been known since
1891 [42]. All were already used by the ancient Egyptian craftsmen! Indeed, these groups have been invented
by many cultures, worldwide. Fabulous examples are found in the tilings of the Islam. The Alhambra is the
paradigmatic example (Figure 10). I know of no comprehensive accounts on the visual perception of these
patterns. It seems unlikely that naive observers would spontaneously differentiate between the various types.
As with the frieze groups, there is little indication that the taxonomy of the wallpaper groups plays an
important role in visual organization. It is not a part of “visual grammar”.
Figure 10. Example of a sophisticated tiling pattern from the Alhambra.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/. The Alhambra is a treasure trove of such tesselations of the
plane. The reason is, no doubt, that the Islam forbids the depiction of reality. Thus the artists
either design all kinds of abstractions of Koran writings, or they move towards ornamental
patterns. Of course, mural tile work is perfectly suited for that.
A particularly simple manner to induce perceptually salient organization is by bilateral symmetry about a
vertical axis [43] (see also van der Helm on symmetry, this volume chapter 17). This works with virtually any
pattern, witness the Rorschach inkblot figures [44] (Figure 11). Such patterns are localized and are easily fitted
into various bilaterally symmetrical regions (coins, round emblems, square tiles, heraldic patterns, vases, …).
Although heraldic symmetry is often very strict, e.g., spread eagles getting two heads, one looking left, one
looking right, heraldic trees are often not quite bilaterally symmetric. They don’t need to be, because they
“simply look it” anyway (Figure 11). With some degree of scrutiny you can make out the difference, but this
has no relevance to the Gestalt. “Just looking” reveals a “visual symmetry”, even if it (strictly speaking) isn’t
there.
9
Figure 11.
Left: Card 2 of the Rorschach test. Some popular responses are “two humans”, “four-legged
animal”, “animal: dog, elephant, bear”. The website adds: “The red details of card II are often
seen as blood, and are the most distinctive features. Responses to them can provide indications
about how a subject is likely to manage feelings of anger or physical harm. This card can induce
a variety of sexual responses”. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test.
Right: A drawing by Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939). Notice the apparent symmetry. This
“symmetry” does not survive scrutiny, or even a good look. Yet the symmetry is obvious at first
glance! Perhaps unfortunately, we don’t have much of a “psychophysics of the cursory glance”
today.
Bilateral symmetry about a vertical axis again combines minimization of structural information content (a
mere “etcetera” suffices) with remarkable non-accidentalness.
Faces (as seen en face) are the most important instances of bilateral symmetry from a (human) biological
perspective. Given almost any bilaterally symmetric blob, human observers are likely to “see” a face in it *45+.
This fact (though rarely acknowledged explicitly) is of the utmost importance to the visual arts. Especially the
female gender of Homo Sapiens specializes in optimizing the ideal “face” configuration (see also Behrmann et
al., this volume, chapter 30). Ideal faces are perfectly bilaterally symmetric of course, whereas no actual face
really is. Bilateral symmetry is a visual organization that readily arises in vision, even when the actual patterns
are far from “ideal”. Apparently it has a marked template character (see also Koenderink on Gestalts as
ecological templates, this volume, chapter 59).
Humbert de Superville *46+, in his “Essai sur les signes inconditionnels dans l'art” (Leiden, 1827) lists the most
important visual organizations of the generic face. This is perhaps one of the more interesting treatises from
the perspective of experimental phenomenology.
2.2. Fashion
Human figures are easily the most important objects for the human observer. Virtually all humans are “artists”
in that they intentionally shape and decorate their bodies such as to evoke certain gut level visual responses in
others. Methods may aim at eternity (witness mummified Maori heads), a lifetime (scarification, tattoo, skull
deformation, …), a short period (seasonal fashion), a mere occasion (makeup), or just a fleeting moment
(intentional smile, slightly bending the arm in order to de-emphasize the elbow joint by Victorian ladies,
articulating the finger pattern, …). Most of these methods immediately address the momentary visual
awareness of others. Both faces and bodies yield strong Gestalts. Paintings and sculptures can be seen as
10
carrying on body display “by other means”.
Most facial “make up” is aimed at evoking emotional responses, often of a sexual nature, in others. This
generally implies the accentuation of desirable “releaser” patterns *47] (Figure 12), that is to say,
accentuations of the natural countenance. Comparatively rare exceptions include the make-up used by the
military to visually merge in the environment (camouflage *48+), and tribal “war paints” that are supposed to
induce fear in opponents, or, perhaps, promote courage, or recklessness, in the wearer. The camouflage
techniques reverse the usual make-up techniques, by deemphasizing eye and mouth, and even optically
defragment the face. The dark eye-stripes [49] encountered with many prey animals similarly deemphasize
the eyes, which are otherwise salient indicators of animal presence. Apparently the laws of visual organization
rule throughout the animal kingdom (see also Cuthill & Osorio, this volume, chapter 45).
Figure 12. Make up scheme (Yauheniya Piatkevich-Hauss #11865306). Such “face charts” (for
various complexes) can be found all over the web. This one is at
http://depositphotos.com/11865306/stock-photo-Make-up-scheme.html. Such charts clearly
reveal the releaser function of make up. Niko Tinbergen (the ethologist) made similar schemes
for various bird heads.
A steady component of female make up is the accentuation of the eyes, usually by darkening, or coloring the
eye sockets, evidently with the intention to draw attention to them. It is known from ancient Egyptian, Greek
and Roman remains. This sometimes includes taking drugs (Atropa Belladonna [50]) in order to dilate the
pupils. Another steady component is overall face color (white in the Japanese geisha, brownish in modern
Western women), hairline (shaving in the middle ages), hair silhouette (cutting, braiding, binding, …), and hair
color (tinting). Usually the mouth receives a strong accent (much like the eyes), involving lip color, shape and
size. These components define the overall first impression. They cause the face to “read” clearly, even at a
cursory glance. They also introduce a “style” (e.g., compare the classical geisha, the ancient Egyptian women,
the modern Western young urban professional, …), thus they intentionally set out to trigger specific visual
organizations. More volatile fashions aim at the shape of the face (false shading to accentuate bony structure,
rouge to raise the cheeks, powder to kill a highlight on the nose, and so forth). In some cases actual
ornamentation may be added. All this is carefully orchestrated so as to evoke a highly organized perception in
immediate visual awareness.
That these facial Gestalts are to a large extent conventional becomes evident by widening the scope beyond
one’s daily social environment. Different cultures often use fully different methods, even your own culture
changes over time, both on the short and on the long term. As one compares painted portraits over the
centuries one encounters remarkable uniformity over an era, but great diversity over longer time spans. In
more recent times we have photography and cinema, yielding detailed and veridical data. Of course, one has
to “correct” for various photographic techniques here, the cameramen typically adding their own job of
“make up” in a purely optical way. With only moderate experience you will be able to date a face accurately,
hardly being off by a decade, usually getting it right within a few years. The such-and-so-decade look [51] can
be picked up at a glance, and is mostly a matter of visual organization.
11
Theatrical make up uses the same techniques [52], but in a highly condensed manner. The face should “read”
in the intended manner even from a great distance, and in all light. Despite their differences, the methods of
stage make-up and glamour make-up are only quantitatively different. Both aim at creating a strong visual
Gestalt of some desired kind, say of age, character, or profession.
What goes for the face ipso facto holds for the body [53]. A person may control the visual impression of the
body through assuming certain (studied) poses, moving in particular ways, and so forth, and by accentuating
or hiding various features by way of appropriately chosen dress. If there is an ample layer of fat, “foundation”
(corsetry, bras, …) may work wonders “behind the scene” (optically, that is). These are deployed so as to
influence the immediate visual impression of others.
Again, going through Western painting throughout the centuries (not to speak of non-Western cultures!)
reveals an amazing variety over time, especially as concerns the female gender of the species. The male
gender appears to vary predominantly through different conventional clothing, whereas the female actually
appears to vary in body shape, as is evident from the rendering of humans in the nude. Yet this is evidently
nonsense! From a biological perspective, it is evident that the female Homo Sapiens has (anatomically and
physiologically) not changed that much during historical time. Going through a selection of paintings forcefully
shows that the body image is a conventional Gestalt. It is of vital importance in society, and it also pervades
the visual arts, both in sculpture and in painting.
One might say (as is the case with the ornaments discussed above) that the body image is a meme [54]. It is
not different from (and closely related to) “fashion” in clothes. Memes are comparatively stable “mental
images” (or schemes), that are somehow “contagious”. They apparently spread from person to person within
a time-slice of culture, and soon become traditionalized. One witnesses changes that seem comparatively fast
as compared to the lifetime of an established meme. Almost by definition, all memes of interest to the
present quest are especially good Gestalts.
Here is a striking example of such a sudden “transition”. The female body image throughout (visually)
recorded history is roughly characterized as a vertical column with some conventional modulation of the
silhouette (accentuated belly and short legs in the Western middle ages, flat belly, narrow waist, and wide
hips (“36-24-36”) in contemporary times) with a structured upper part (breasts, shoulders and head). The
columnar nature is emphasized in Egyptian, Greek (kore), and Roman art, to be continued in the Western
middle ages all the way up to the twentieth century. The long robe is the dress that highly accentuates this by
hiding the legs, thus delineating the column rising from the floor. Trousers came only recently.
In 1961 Marilyn Monroe [55] wears jeans [56] (and even a bikini - invented by Louis Réard in 1946 [57]) in The
Misfits [58]. Her penultimate act is an emotional solo performance. She intentionally keeps her legs together,
although she goes through emotional contortions, mainly bending in hips and knees. Michelangelo Antonioni’s
Blow-Up [59] dates from 1966, only five years later. One notices that the photographer’s models are
instructed to pose with legs widely apart, poses that are orthogonal to the classical ideal. Jean Shrimpton [60]
(“the shrimp”) and Lesley Lawson *61+ (“Twiggy”) set the scene in the fashion world of that period, and
introduced a novel model of the modern female. The poses became angular, emphasizing knee and elbow
joints, which tended to be played down in the past. Fashion accentuated the effect through strategically
constructed sleeves, and stockings, striving for an androgynous effect. Designers often forced the models to
wear caps, causing them to look like young boys in the awkward age. Remarkably, this changeover occurred in
just a few years. Pre-sixties and post-sixties photographs of women are impossible to confuse. The fashion
(graphics) artists immediately followed suit. Soon modern visual artists did the same.
The particular revolution described above gave rise to major changes in the composition of fashion
photographs. This can be nicely monitored from Antonioni’s Blow-up photo sessions [59]. Instead of the
composition involving the single figure (essentially a Greek sculpture), or the small group (say the Three
Graces *62+), the composition involves an arbitrary number of models that repeat (or play upon each other’s)
awkward poses. In case a single model is photographed the angular pose is usually related to the picture
12
frame, or suitably arranged props. In this way one obtains again a well organized perceptual organization,
albeit of a completely different kind than the generic perceptual organizations from before the transition. This
illustrates that strong compositions are possible in any “style”. No photographer could avoid the change, as a
study of the work of the well known fashion photographers reveals (study Richard Avedon [63] (Figure 13)
as an example).
Figure 13.
Left: Richard Avedon (1923-2004), Vogue 1957.
Right: Richard Avedon, Vogue 1967 (the model is Veruschka, Vera Gräfin von
Lehndorff-Steinort or Veruschka von Lehndorff, born 1939)
Richard Avedon was a major, very creative photographer, not someone slavishly following the
mainstream. He tended to set the fashion. He did not invent the sixties “twiggy” look. Yet,
comparing the photographs, the left one is obviously “fifties”, the right one equally obviously
“sixties”. Apparently, Avedon too, fell prey to a powerful meme. The figure at left rises from
the ground as a Greek kore, except for the position of the arms (which do in no way “stick
out”, but harmoniously continue the flow of the thorax), whereas Veruschka is in a dynamic
pose, with her extremities stuck out in opposition to the trunk. The latter feature is equally
visible in static poses of the sixties (some poses were no doubt hard to “hold”), it was a major
aspect of the “sixties look”.
2.3. Sculpture
Sculpture is the art of composition in three dimensions. Here we mainly focus on the classical bronze, stone
and wood sculptures, although the realm of “sculpture” has been greatly expanded in recent times. Moreover
we concentrate on simple works (busts, figures, putti, single animals, …), and ignore most groups (like Rodin’s
Burghers of Calais *64+), or extended scenes (like Bernini’s St. Theresa [65]). Some dyadic and even triadic
topics are readily regarded as “simple” though, think of “the three graces” *62+, “mother and child” (e.g., Isis
with Horus, Mary with Child Jesus, …), or “woman with male corpse” (e.g., Pieta, …), in one of the
conventional poses.
Sculpture is all about perceptual organization. Although one may display the plaster cast of an object as a
“sculpture” (not uncommon in our era), this is evidently conceptual art, not different from displaying a urinal.
Sculpture proper is “architectonic”, it is about the composition of volumes and surfaces. The (late) nineteenth
century German sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand [66] published a theory in 1893, that was ridiculed (and
acclaimed by others) at the time. He is only interested in “naturalistic” work. He distinguishes sharply between
the Daseinsform and the Wirkungsform of volumetric objects. The Daseinsform is what might be called the
physical presence of an object. It enters awareness through movements of the vantage point (binocular vision,
moving around the object, or looking at the manipulated object). Thus, it is not a thing of immediate visual
awareness, but a cognitive construction on the basis of many successive awarenesses. The Wirkungsform is an
artistic construction that works from a single viewpoint, immediately. This involves architectonic thinking on
the part of the artist. The artist has to understand microgenesis. The observer should appreciate the view as
13
“natural”, and be able to capture it in immediate visual awareness. As Hildebrand observes, children’s
drawings work immediately. He concludes that the Wirkungsform should include what makes the children’s
drawings work. Thus, sculpting is not about copying nature. It is about affecting human visual awareness. He
mentions the “Grecian nose” *67+ as an example (“… it is not as if the Greeks had noses like that …”).
Most Western sculpture made before WW-I is “volumetric”, and can be largely understood in terms of an
overall composition based on a small number of simple (ovoid, cubical, or cylindrical) major forms, smoothed
together and elaborated by way of surface relief. Here “surface” should be understood in a very broad sense.
Thus – for visual purposes – a cube can be understood as essentially a sphere (a compact volumetric object
with aspect ratios roughly 1:1:1), with a superficial “dressing” of corners and edges. The overall composition is
due to the mutual relation of the major forms, and is retained when the sculpture suffers through weathering,
and so forth, as is often seen in old (non-restored) works. Even the overall configuration usually yields a strong
cylindrical, ovoid, or block-like impression [68] (Figure 14). Exceptions (e.g., horse rider, boy with dolphin, etc.)
are usually seen as “groups” of pieces that might exist as individuals. The relations between group members
are of a higher order than the relations between the sub-volumes of a single member.
Figure 14.
Left: The Egyptian piece at left is almost a cubical chunk of stone (man called Ay Second
Prophet of Amun and High Priest of the Goddess Mut at Thebes, Limestone, XVIII Dynasty,
1336-1327 B.C.E., Brooklyn Museum).
Center: Peplos Kore from Paros (c. 530 BCE, Acropolis Museum).
Right: The Venus de Milo, Greek Hellenistic, ca. 100 BCE, Louvre. Notice that so called
“abstraction” comes first, so called “naturalism” only in later stages. This is entirely typical. Art
does not arise from a need for mimesis, it derived from an urge to create something that
should hold itself against nature. Naturalism only becomes possible when the artist has
“conquered nature”.
An interesting instance of variations on a single basic shape are the “character heads” made by the Austrian
sculptor Franz Xavier Messerschmidt [69] (Figure 15). By all counts Messerschmidt might be denoted mentally
ill, when he produced sixty-four studies of his own head, assuming the most incredible grimaces. There is no
doubt a system in this madness, although we remain in the dark as to Messerschmidt’s formal design. What is
of interest here is that the basic form, Messerschmidt’s skull, remains constant over the series, whereas the
muscular/fatty/skinny cladding varies widely. The set is well documented, and makes a fascinating corpus of
work for the study of (sculptural) form.
14
Figure 15. Four “character heads” by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736-1787). At one point of
his career Messerschmidt became mentally ill, and started on a project of sixty-four
representations of his own head in various states of grimace. The set (most have been kept) is
worth close study because these (mutually very different) shapes are all based on a single
template, namely the sculptor’s own skull.
Later developments in mainstream Western sculpture involve extreme non-convexities. These may take the
form of holes (see also Bertamini & Casati, this volume, chapter 10), or are due to the bending of elongated
volumes. Such work still retains the overall volumetric character though. Constructivism changed that by
introducing non-volumetric elements like wires, rods, and plates. Such work may lead to completely different
perceptual organizations, in which the overall, mostly empty space, dominates over volumetric, filled space. If
the classical organization is like a rock, the new one is like an empty tree in the winter. The introduction of
non-rigidly connected parts in arbitrary movements then destroyed even this static spatial organization. The
perceptual organization may be similar to that of a flock of birds. The visual organization changes when you
walk around a work, very differently for open and closed sculpture, the reason being that you look through
open structures (Figure 16). The constructivists introduced transparent material for much the same reasons.
Figure 16.
Left: Naum Gabo (1890-1977) Constructed Head No. 2 (1916, original lost).
Center: Henri Moore (1898-1986) Helmet No 2 (1950, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart).
Right: Alexander Calder (1898-1976) Rouge Triomphant (1959-1963, Gagosian Gallery). The
Gabo is constructed from planar sheets, the Moore has been cut through, and the Calder has
hardly any “bulk” appearance. Compare the Eyptian piece at 14 left, which is compact, as a
pebble.
2.4. Painting
With “painting” I refer to any type of essentially “planar” art, be it drawing, embroidery, map making, intarsia,
sand painting, you name it. I mainly limit the discussion to works of human, or slightly subhuman, size, and
mainly confined to some visually obvious “frame”. The frame may be implicitly defined through paper size, or
15
explicitly as with an actual frame around a canvas, and so forth. In most cases the frame, in whatever form, is
an important part of the composition. Paintings as physical objects are arrangements of colors on a planar
surface of limited extent. Paintings as artworks may or may not succeed in evoking varieties of visual
awareness in observers that suit the intention of the artist. Success or failure depends upon the distribution of
colors, at least if the group of observers are in the artist’s intended target group. Thus “composition” is
everything [70].
Of course, the range of possible visual awarenesses that the artist might want to evoke is virtually unlimited.
To complicate matters, artists had, and have, often secret agendas. Apart from the urge to evoke visual
awareness in their intended audience, they often have pedagogic, or idealistic objectives (this includes
propaganda and advertisement). Here we only consider visual awareness proper. The best illustrators,
propagandists, and so forth, are invariably good artists. They have to be, otherwise their “messages” would
not be driven home. For all we care, “pure art” is a nonentity. I simply concentrate on the perceptual
organization, and ignore the “message”. This may be hard if the cognitive message is very loud. A thoroughly
detached attitude is of the foremost importance. Experimental phenomenology should proceed as a physician
performing an autopsy. In studying visual awareness one should be “all eye”.
The first impact upon the eye is the composition. The composition is often not noticed by the observer in a
conscious fashion, it is always an important part of the artist’s trade though. The composition is why certain
images are remembered forever, and others forgotten after so much as a glance.
Example of a memorable image is the photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal on the 23rd of February 1945 on
Iwo Jima, generally known as Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima [71] (Figure 17). It depicts five Marines and a U.S.
Navy corpsman raising the flag of the U.S. atop Mount Suribachi. Three of the five did not survive the battle.
The photograph won a Pulitzer Prize in the same year, in 1954 it was used as the topic of the Marine Corps
War Memorial (by Felix de Weldon) at Arlington National Cemetery. By public demand it was printed on a
postage stamp five months after the event, selling over 137 million (biggest sell of the US Post Office). The
photograph has been reenacted, published, painted, sculpted, cartooned, tattooed and so forth, countless
times. It is a true public image.
Figure 17.
Left: original photograph of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima.
Center: the first stamp.
Right: a doujinshi (Dōjinshi (同人誌), transliterated as doujinshi, is the Japanese term for
self-published works, usually magazines, manga or novels) of the Strike Witches (a
mixed-media project originally created by Humikane Shimada via a series of magazine
illustration columns; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Witches) entitled “Witches No
Panties”.
Another example is the painting American Gothic [72] (Figure 18) by Grant Wood (1930). Whereas initially the
painting raised huge controversy, it soon became a public image. There exist numerous copies (including
sculptures), and countless parodies. A postage stamp was issued in 1998.
16
Figure 18.
Left: Grant Wood’s (1891-1942) American Gothic (1930, Art Institute of Chicago).
Center: a Department of Agriculture Food Bank Debit Card.
Right: one of the many parodies (the Web message said: “Paris Hilton, left, and Nicole Richie
pose with Tinkerbelle in this undated publicity photo. The friends star in Fox’s new reality series
“The Simple Life”, in which Hilton and Richie try to survive on a far. The show airs Wednesday,
Aug. 13, 2003 (AP Photo/Fox, Sam Jones)”).
Notice how such parodies can (pictorially) be far off (e.g., the left figure is higher than the right
one, both figures are female, much younger, the clothes are very different, also in color, the
background is fully different, and so forth), yet are immediately recognized for what they are.
There seems to be no explicit “reasoning” involved. Apparently the “gist” is very generic in
such cases.
Why do these images command such public interest, even among people with scant interest in the arts, and
even many years after the first publication? It is not just their conceptual meaning, although that evidently
plays a role too. It is their immediate visual impact, as the many parodies, many of which are just visual puns,
only roughly reflecting the gist of the image, show. Apparently these images “have something” that other
pictures lack. The “something” evidently has to do with the perceptual organization evoked by them. The
images have a Gestalt quality that easily survives reduction to postage stamp size.
The first visual impression is largely based upon the overall “gist” *73+. This gist is retained even in a thumbnail
reduction to a dozen by a dozen pixels. Art directors [74] that have to select pictures for magazines often look
at reduced images (by printing proof sheets, using a reducing glass, and so forth). It is generally agreed that if
an image doesn’t survive such minified viewing it will certainly fail to have “impact”, even when printed large
at high resolution in some glossy magazine. Of course, in cases of iconic images, for use in signs, and so forth,
the gist may be all there is (Figure 19).
Figure 19. Isotypes (International System of Typographic Picture Education) were pushed by
Otto Neurath (1882-1945; Austrian philosopher, member of the Wiener Kreis) about 1935 (see
17
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotype_%28picture_language%29,
and
Otto
Neurath,
International picture language. London: Kegan Paul, 1936. Facsimile reprint: Department of
Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading, 1980). They were designed by
an artist, Gerd Arntz (German-Dutch, 1900-1988; see http://www.gerdarntz.org/). Such
pictograms are still widely used all over the world. Most can be “read” at a glance, without any
prior instruction.
Artists use various kinds of preliminary depictions [75]. The croquis is a gestural drawing of the live model. It is
done fast, and captures the essential. The croquis (usually a number of croquis) are used by the artist to
design the final composition. The croquis is sought for by the connaisseur because of its sprezzatura [76]. The
esquisse [75] is a first sketch. The esquisse is intended to be used by the artist, and is sought for by the
connaisseur because it allows a rare insight in the artist’s mind set. The esquisse is often a stronger statement
than the finished work. Several (or many) may be made, in order to explore the realm of possibilities of a
project. The croquis and esquisse are usually of small size. The ébauche [75] is the underpainting for a
painting, it is not intended to be seen, or used as such, since its fate is to be overpainted. It is the size of the
final painting. Since it is painted in a much broader style, the ébauche may well be more indicative of the
artist’s intentions than the final work though. Famously, the impressionists were accused of passing off their
ébauches as final paintings.
Thus, the exploration of the gist is usually an important part of the evolution of a work. All these exploratory,
or summary statements are of considerable interest to the study of visual organization as it applies to the
visual arts. In many cases they may be of more immediate interest than the study of completed works. It is
hard to say to what extent artistic development of a work parallels microgenesis of visual perception [77].
Both cases where it apparently does, and cases where it clearly does not, are not hard to find.
The impact of an image starts with the gist, but most images, except perhaps gestural sketches, esquisses
made in preparation for final works, and so forth, have relevant structures at other scales, that will be
revealed under continued observation. Even comparatively simple paintings usually require a “good glance”
involving a dozen fixations in order to obtain a preliminary impression. This is not yet full scrutiny, but it
certainly moves part of the way to visual cognition. Many of the parts will still be in mere visual awareness
though. Their impact on the whole is pre-cognitive and depends upon Gestalt factors rather than cognitive
factors. Most images one sees have many layers of scale, and even after scrutiny there is usually quite a bit of
“mystery” left, that are structural elements that remain on the pre-cognitive level although one is well aware
of them. An understanding of this spectrum that ranges from pure awareness, over cognitive stages to pure
reflective thought, is largely lacking.
A fact that is often forgotten, or certainly highly underestimated, is that virtually all images are instances from
an extremely huge space of possibilities. Consider a low quality image from the internet, it is likely to have a
file size of 4kb, implying that it is one of a set of 84000, a huge number. The image is a member of a set of more
than 2 103612 possible images. No one has an intuition for numbers like that. You have at most 10 5 hairs on
your head. The number of particles in the universe is estimated at 1080, again, much smaller. Remember that is
for just a low quality image! Thus, the number of possible images is for all practical purposes infinite. Of
course, most of these images “look like nothing”, that is to say are look-alike “noise patterns”. The ones that
“look like something” are only a tiny fraction, though still an essentially infinite set. No way you could ever see
them all.
The “space of images” as explored here is merely the space of physical images, Maurice Denis’ “essentially a
flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order”. What is really of interest in the present
investigation is, of course, the space of visual presentations of a human observer. This is much more difficult
to describe, it is a virtual space. This is the space of real interest. The discussion below focuses on this visual
space, although I will use the space of physical images to indicate rough ballparks.
You identify the style of a painting at a glance, you identify artists from works you never saw before at a
18
glance, you spot a “fake van Gogh” on first sight, and so forth. It is a priori likely that the set of images that are
striking on first sight is also huge, but no doubt you haven’t encountered more than a vanishingly small
fraction yet, no matter your age. There is still ample room for further development in the arts, so to speak.
Perhaps the amazing thing is that “visual organization’’ works as well as it apparently does. However, it seems
quite possible, perhaps even likely, that the ability of human observers to deal with images enables them to
deal with only a small, singular subset.
From the perspective of experimental phenomenology, it is evidently of interest to attempt to attain an
overview of the boundaries of human visual microgenesis. This is far more difficult a problem than one might
expect. Throughout the history of Western art there have been “paradigm shifts”, not only of a mild character
(a style change), but also of a cataclysmic nature. Although hardly imaginable now, the paintings of the early
impressionists were considered dangerous enough that pregnant women were kept away from the salon des
refusés for fear of miscarriages *78+. The cubist movement, and the work of “Jack the Dripper” *79+, perhaps
fall in a similar category. Such occasions can be seen as the conquest of a novel area, previously terra
incognita, of the space of images. In the case of the globe one at least had a notion that there was a “white
area” somewhere, it could be marked hic sunt dracones [80]. This is not really possible with the space of
images. The new area discovered by Jackson Pollock must have felt more like the fear of early seamen to fall
off the edge of the (then flat) earth.
Many of the cataclysmic changes had to do with attacks on our trust in the structure of the generic terrestrial
environment. This involves the ground plane, the existence of mutually disjunct solid bodies, optical
properties like the opaqueness and diffuse scattering of material surfaces, and so forth. Impressionism [81]
destroyed part of that by dissolving the picture of the environment into a chromatic, misty space. Cubism [82]
merged the solid bodies with the background, and started their fragmentation. Pollock completely sacrificed
solid bodies (Figure 20). The observer finally lost the ground under the feet. Meanwhile, movements like
surrealism and dada attacked from the other side, so to speak, and destroyed the relations an observer
silently expects to find in the generic terrestrial scene [83].
Figure 20.
Left: Ingres (1780-1867) La source (begun 1820, completed 1856, Musée d’Orsay).
Center: Picasso (1881-1973) Girl with mandolin (Fanny Telier) (1910, The Museum of Modern
Art, New York). Right: Pollock (1912-1956) Echo No. 25 (1951, Pollock-Krasner Foundation /
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York).
Compare the spatial structure. The figure in the Ingres is a solid form that stands in front of a
background, there is space behind the body. The woman in the Picasso is easy enough to
recognize as such, but is not solid, and seems to become part of the “background” (which
therefore doubles as foreground). In the Pollock there is only a faint, fleeting and changing
impression of objects and environment. The pictorial surface dominates over any classical
“pictorial space.”
19
An analysis in terms of experimental phenomenology suggests a first rough inventory of the part of the space
of images that might be open to the human visual observer. One criterion is whether microgenesis arrives at
some fixed point after prolonged looking. Such fixed points appear to occur in one of the following three cases
– a more or less uniform image;
– a highly structured image, that is statistically uniform even in its small parts;
– a “classical” scene.
In the first case one sees nothing remarkable, whereas it is evident that this will never change, for want of
structure. The blue sky is an instance, so are many modern minimalist paintings [84]. In the second case
microgenesis “gives up” in face of complexity. The image is summarized as “texture”. The film grain in the sky
of a fifties monochrome photograph is an example [85] (Figure 21). One doesn’t even try to “see anything” in
such a sky, although the texture is noted. The third case is that of the nineteenth century still life, landscape,
or genre painting. One simply sees what is there, and that is it. The proviso here is that images are rarely
exhausted at one ontic level. The genre scene may well offer interesting “mystery” in the background, in the
rendering of structure, and so forth. After all, no painter is going to paint all the leaves of grass, yet the image
of a meadow can hardly be painted a uniform (dead) green.
Figure 21. The effect of film grain. Such photographs work best at large size, when the grain is
very evident. Notice that the grain, although an obvious texture, does not represent any
property of the girl’s cheek, except - mirabile dictu - perfect smoothness. (Photo from
http://purple-underground.blogspot.nl/2010/11/numero-goes-60s.html. The text reads “this
editorial of NUMERO makes me think of the ones in the 1960’s TWEN magazine issues. It’s a
perfect replication of the past. I love the high black and white contrast. very twiggy”.)
NUMERO is an international fashion magazine (http://www.numero-magazine.com/).
These three categories serve for a first parcellation of the space of images, a bit like the distinction between
oceans and continents of the globe. Of course, the boundaries cannot be sharp. Given any image, it is always
possible to construct a huge number of images that are essentially look-alikes. Thus, an image is not like a
point, but like an open environment [86] in image space. Such open environments will be different for a
glance, a good look, or under scrutiny. Under a glance the environment of look-alikes may well have a
complicated structure, since the observer is likely to “miss” parts that would be easily “got” at another glance.
Perhaps more interesting are the images for which microgenesis fails to immediately arrive at a (single) fixed
point. One may distinguish (at least)
– spontaneous jumps from one fixed point to another;
– spontaneous fluctuations between a limited number of fixed points;
– endless, chaotic fluctuations of visual presentation.
In the first case the observer notices that visual awareness suddenly changes, whereas it is hard to regain the
20
previous presentation. An example is the well known “Dalmatian dog” picture *87+. At first blush it looks like a
pattern of blotches. Once you’ve seen the dog, it will stubbornly stay. In the second case the presentations
jump back and forth between a number of fairly obvious presentations. A well known case is Jastrow’s
duck-rabbit *88+: you never see anything like a “duck-rabbit”, but either a duck or a rabbit. Moreover, these
presentations spontaneously flip. The third case is perhaps the most interesting, both from an artistic, and
from a scientific perspective. It is the case famously described by Leonardo da Vinci, in which the observer
never stops to “hallucinate” in the presence of an image *89+. The first one who did an analysis in the style of
experimental phenomenology on the topic was John Ruskin [90]. The effect was used in Western art mainly in
informal drawings, or the background of “official” paintings, until the surrealists claimed it as one of their
main devices.
Leonardo writes:
“look at walls splashed with a number of stains or stones of various mixed colors. If you have to invent
some scene, you can see their resemblances (similitudine) to a number of landscapes, adorned in various
ways with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys and hills. Moreover, you can see various
battles, the rapid actions of figures, strange expressions on faces, costumes, and an infinite number of
things, which you can reduce to good, integrated form. This happens thus on walls and varicolored stones,
as in the sound of bells, in whose pealing you can find every word and name you can imagine”.
Of course, the same thing happens when you look at (or into) a painting. John Ruskin is special because he saw
that one doesn’t need any ancient stained wall. Every vision suffices, if you only tune in to the presence of
“mystery” in everything. Nothing is absolutely clear. You cannot count the grains of sand beneath your feet,
nor the leaves on the tree before you. What the painter paints is not the leaves, but a leafy, “mysterious”
texture [91]. Therein lies the art.
There is a huge realm of the visual arts that exploits the pleasure experienced by observers due to Ruskin’s
mystery. It has merely come bluntly to the surface in modern times. Like all pictorial structure, mystery occurs
at all ontic levels. Much of surrealism occurred at the level of the represented entities. This is the level where
René Magritte *92+ worked. In a sense, it is the least “visual” of these manifestations. The level of the “leafy
texture” is the level of the smallest relevant constituents. It is purely visual, and interesting, although only
mildly so. It is to be expected in virtually any serious painting (Magritte intentionally tried to avoid it). The
most interesting levels from a conceptual point of view are the levels of the simple meaningful units and the
salient Gestalts. Some of the more interesting work of Salvador Dali [93] plays on the latter level, but the
former is perhaps the more interesting from the viewpoint of experimental phenomenology. Artists who
address this level (for instance, Robert Pepperell [94], or Suzanna Unrein [95]) play on the sentiments
described by Leonardo (Figure 22).
Figure 22.
Left: Suzanne Unrein Rapid East (2010; http://www.suzanneunrein.com).
Right: Robert Pepperell Succulus (2005; http://www.robertpepperell.com).
Notice how Unrein paints in a “post-neo-baroque”-style. She writes “I started with Rubens,
Correggio and Raphael, then branched out to less likely combinations of Poussin and
21
Bougereau. Now it’s the animaliers of the 17th & 18th centuries, the boar hunts and dogfights.
By combining the hounds from these genres with the figures from more epic scenes the dogs
become a dysfunctional Greek chorus further confusing the summarizing of a scene. I am less
interested in the narrative than the elements and forms that inspire the abstraction, and
movement, with a larger range of color combinations. By combining figures from a variety of
artists in a range of eras, I want to transport them from their original meaning into the
contemporary domain and the challenge of newer interpretations”.
Pepperell’s painting is ambiguous on purpose, he writes “… paintings and drawings are the
result of intensive experimentation in materials and methods designed to evoke a very specific,
though elusive, state of mind. The works induce a disrupted perceptual condition in which what
we see cannot be matched with what we know. Instead of a recognisable depiction the viewer
is presented with — what the art historian Dario Gamboni has called — a ‘potential image’,
that is, a complex multiplicity of possible images, none of which ever finally resolves”.
22
3. Conclusion
The topic is virtually boundless. I have only touched on a few conceptually interesting issues here, fully
ignoring extensive fields of endeavor like architecture, photography, cinema, or mime. Moreover, I did not
touch on the tangencies with music, poetry, and so forth. Each subtopic could easily be extended into a book,
or a life of research.
My main objective in this chapter has been to offer some general background for thought, and to show the
way to potentially profitable openings for future research in the experimental phenomenology of the visual
arts.
23
4. Notes (on the Web)
Supplementary notes (Internet addresses as per January 2013).
1. Duchamp's Fountain is one of the landmark objects of twentieth century art. Virtually any book on “modern
art” will have a section on it. A place to start is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29.
On the person Marcel Duchamp see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp.
2. Objet trouvé is French for “found object”. It has become a standard term in art circles. In English one more
often uses “ready made”. A place to start is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_object.
3. “Intentionality” is a philosophic term meaning something akin to “pointing to something (usually something
in the world)”. For instance a thought is necessarily about something, you cannot have a thought that is about
nothing, although you may have thoughts about NOTHING. The term is usually traced to the teachings of
Franz Brentano (see also Albertazzi, this volume, chapter 2). Notice that “intention” has nothing to do with the
intentions of anybody. A starting point is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionality.
On Franz Brentano see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Brentano.
4. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821-1881, was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoyevsky. The Brothers Karamazov is his final novel. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov.
5. In our times “conceptual art” is almost synonymous with art period. This is a fact, whatever thoughts one
may have on it. A starting point is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_art. The number of popular books
on the topic approaches infinity.
6. Raphael is the short name of Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483-1520). Raphael was one of the best known
Italian painters and architects of the High Renaissance. There are many books on the man and his work, a
convenient starting point is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael. Raphael’s Sistine Madonna (La Madonna di
San Sisto, 1513/4) is the last painting he personally finished. It was completed ca. 1513-1514, as a
commissioned altarpiece. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Madonna.
7. Picasso's Bull's head is a work the artist did during WW-II. It is an amazing work, that could be seen as a
simple child's play, or (equally well) as an extremely sophisticated creation. At the time, the work was not
particularly appreciated by the public, it was removed from an exhibition for that reason.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull%27s_Head.
8. I use Piero Manzoni’s Merda d’artista to illustrate what I think of “conceptual art”. Maybe you (the reader)
thinks it is a work of genius. That is fine, as long as my point that conceptual art is not visual art comes across.
(Who cares for visual art anyway? It is the concept that counts!) My (mis-)use of Manzoni is perhaps unfair.
Read up on this on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_shit and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero_Manzoni.
9. Maurice Denis (1870-1943) was a French painter, a member of the Symbolist and Les Nabis movements. He
was something of a theorist too, and did quite a bit of writing. On his life see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Denis. The quotation is from a Symbolist Manifesto of 1890.
Se rappeler qu'un tableau, avant d’etre un cheval de bataille, une femme nue ou une quelconque
anecdote, est essentiellement une surface plane recouverte de couleurs en un certain ordre assemblées,
Définition du Néo-traditionalisme, revue Art et Critique, 30 aout 1890.
10. See J.Koenderink, A.J.van Doorn, and J.Wagemans, Depth, i-Perception 2(6), 541-564.
24
11. Paul Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a
major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He became extremely influential. Jackson Pollock was
best known for his unique drip painting, and was sometimes known as “Jack the Dripper”. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock. (In case you fail to get the nickname see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Ripper.)
12. The Holy Face of Jesus is one of the acheiropoieta relating to Christ. These have been reported throughout
the centuries. Especially devotions to the face of Jesus have been practiced throughout the ages. Devotions to
the Holy Face were approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1895 and Pope Pius XII in 1958. The shroud of Turin is the
best known example. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Face_of_Jesus.
On the face in the toilet door see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/6373674/Jesuss-face
spotted-on-the-toilet-door-in-Ikea-Glasgow.html. Another recent example is the face in a tree stump at
Belfast cemetery
(http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/face-of-jesus-christ-appears-on-tre
e-stump-at-belfast-cemetery-16195735.html), drawing crowds of visitors.
13. Mark Tansey (born 1949) is an American painter born in San Jose, California. The Innocent Eye Test dates
from 1981. According to Tansey ( quoted in Mark Tansey: Visions and Revisions, by Arthur C. Danto), see
http://www.101bananas.com/art/innocent.html:
“I think of the painted picture as an embodiment of the very problem that we face with the notion
‘reality’.
The problem or question is, which reality? In a painted picture, is it the depicted reality, or the reality of
the picture plane, or the multidimensional reality the artist and viewer exist in? That all three are
involved points to the fact that pictures are inherently problematic. This problem is not one that can or
ought to be eradicated by reductionist or purist solutions. We know that to successfully achieve the real
is to destroy the medium; there is more to be achieved by using it than through its destruction”.
14. Roman marble copies of original Greek bronzes: a well known example is the famous Discobolus. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discobolus. The Greek original was completed towards the end of the Severe
period, circa 460-450bc, but the original Greek bronze is lost. However, there exist numerous Roman copies,
including full-scale ones in marble. The first one found (in 1781) is the Palombara Discobolus. It was famously
bought by Adolf Hitler in 1937 (put in the Munich Glyptothek), but was returned to Rome in 1948.
15. Edmund Husserl has a notion of “double-intentionality” that is quite different from my meaning here. In
order to avoid problems I will speak of a “double-sided intentionality” associated with works of art. In
Husserl's view the Langsintentionalität runs along protention and retention in the living present, whereas the
Querintentionalität runs from the living-present to the object of which consciousness is aware. See
http://www.iep.utm.edu/phe-time/#SH1e. On Husserl (Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl, 1859 -1938) see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Husserl.
16. Hermeneutics is (roughly speaking) the art and science of text interpretation. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics.
17. Francis George Steiner (born 1929), is an influential European-born American literary critic, essayist,
philosopher, novelist, translator, and educator. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Steiner. Here I am
mainly referring to his influential book After Babel (1975), on translation, for which see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Babel.
18. Classic authors on the topic are Rudolf Arnheim (1904-2007; see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Arnheim), and José Ortegay Gasset (1883-1955; see
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gasset/).
19. Roman Ingarden’s ontological thoughts are particularly relevant here. See
25
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ingarden/.
20. Pieter Cornelis “Piet” Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian (1872-1944), was a Dutch painter. He was an
important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Mondrian.
21. Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (1879-1935) was a Russian painter and art theoretician. He was a pioneer
of geometric abstract art and the originator of the avant-garde Suprematist movement. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimir_Malevich.
22. Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), was a Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an extravagant
Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Paul_Rubens.
23. Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) was an Italian
painter of the Early Renaissance. He belonged to the Florentine school under the patronage of Lorenzo de’
Medici. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandro_Botticelli.
24. Riedl, R. (1978), Order in living organisms: A systems analysis of evolution. New York: Wiley.
25. Riedl, R. (1984), Biology of Knowledge: The Evolutionary Basis of Reason. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
26. E.H. Gombrich, The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art (The Wrightsman Lectures,
V. 9). Phaidon Press; 2 edition (January 1, 1994).
27. On the Alhambra see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra.
28. On Celtic ornaments see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_art.
29. On spiral curves see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral.
30. On the triskele see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_spiral.
31. On tattood Maori heads see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokomokai.
32. On African scarifications see http://www.ezakwantu.com/Gallery%20Scarification.htm.
33. On sand painting see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandpainting.
34. On indigenous Australian art (also known as Australian Aboriginal art) see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian_art.
35. On Japanese family emblems see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mon_%28emblem%29 and
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/家紋の一覧#.E3.82.AE.E3.83.A3.E3.83.A9.E3.83.AA.E3.83.BC.
36. On the Trichterbecherkultur see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichterbecherkultur.
37. On the egg and dart pattern see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg-and-dart.
38. On the Erechtheion see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erechtheion.
39. The frieze groups are treated in Coxeter, H. S. M. (1969). Introduction to Geometry. New York: John Wiley
& Sons. pp. 47–49. See also S. V. Jablan, Symmetry and ornament. Electronic reprint, copyright 1995, of the
26
book Theory of Symmetry and Ornament, originally published on paper by the Mathematical Institute,
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1995. Electronic version at http://www.emis.de/monographs/jablan/index.html.
40. On visual discrimination of the frieze [39] and wallpaper [41] groups see Klaus Landwehr (2011) Visual
discrimination of the 17 plane symmetry groups. Symmetry vol. 30(3), pages 207-219.
41. On the “wallpaper groups”: George Pólya (1924) Über die Analogie der Kristallsymmetrie in der Ebene,
Zeitschrift für Kristallographie, vol. 60, pages 278–282.
42. E. Fedorov (1891) Simmetrija na ploskosti [Symmetry in the plane], Zapiski Imperatorskogo
Sant-Petersburgskogo Mineralogicheskogo Obshchestva [Proceedings of the Imperial St. Petersburg
Mineralogical Society], series 2, vol. 28, pages 345-291 (in Russian).
43. On symmetries see Weyl, Hermann (1952). Symmetry. Princeton University Press. On the importance of
the vertical axis of bilateral symmetry in perception, see Ernst Mach (1886). Die Analyse der Empfindungen
und das Verhältnis des Physischen zum Psychischen. The text is available at
http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~psycho/wundt/opera/mach/empfndng/AlysEmIn.htm.
44. On the Rorschach test see See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test.
45. On pareidolia (seeing faces anywhere) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia. Spectacular examples
are found regularly on the Faces in Places website (http://facesinplaces.blogspot.nl/).
46. David Pierre Giottino Humbert de Superville (The Hague, July 18, 1770 - Leiden, January 9, 1849). Available
at http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/superville1827/0006?sid=dd31a03a096431e9277bcc612775728c.
47. On releasers see this site on ethology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethology.
48. The art of camouflage was actually developed by a remarkable artist, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_Handerson_Thayer.
49. On eye stripes see the entry on the blog of the artist James Gurney,
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.nl/2008/02/eye-stripe.html.
50. On Atropa belladonna see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atropa_belladonna.
51. On decade looks download
http://www.addictedcosmetics.co.uk/site/images/infotheque/pdf/Make%20up%20Through%20the%20Decad
es.pdf.
52. On theatrical makeup see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatrical_makeup.
53. On the female body in art throughout the ages see the book by Anne Hollander (1980). Seeing through
clothes. New York: Avon Books.
54. On memes see S. J. Blackmore (1999). The meme machine. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press.
55. On Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson, 1926-1962) see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe.
56. On jeans see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeans.
57. The bikini was invented by Louis Réard in 1946 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Réard).
27
58. The Misfits (1961) is a drama film directed by John Huston, starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe,
Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritten and Eli Wallach.
59. Michelangelo Antonioni’s movie Blow-Up dates from 1966. It stars David Hemmings. There is a special role
for the sixties model Veruschka. The plot is after a short story by Julio Cortázar Las babas del diablo (1959).
60. Jean Rosemary Shrimpton (born 1942) is an English model and actress.
61. Lesley Lawson (born Hornby,1949), widely known by the nickname Twiggy, is an English model, actress,
and singer.
62. The Three Graces (Charites) became a popular theme in Western art. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charites.
63. Richard Avedon (1923-2004), born Richard Avonda was an American fashion and portrait photographer.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Avedon.
64. The Burghers of Calais is a major work by Rodin. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burghers_of_Calais.
65. Saint Teresa in Ecstasy is a sculptural group in the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. It was
designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It is a major work of the High Roman Baroque.
66. Adolf von Hildebrand was a German sculptor, author of an important book Das Problem der Form (1893).
At http://www.adolf-von-hildebrand.de one finds a wealth of information.
67. On the Grecian nose in art see http://www.ehow.co.uk/facts_7568296_greek-nose.html. In the book on
cosmetics (Harriet Hubbard Ayer's Book of Health and Beauty) of 1902 the author describes the Greek nose as
“perfect”. This seems to have been the general opinion throughout the nineteenth century.
68. An introduction to sculpture is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculpture.
69. On Franz Xavier Messerschmidt (1736-1783) see wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Xaver_Messerschmidt.
70. On composition in the visual arts see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_(visual_arts).
71. On the battle of Iwo Jima see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima.
72. On Grant Wood’s American Gothic see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gothic.
73. On gist download Aude Oliva’s chapter Gist of a scene at http://cvcl.mit.edu/papers/oliva04.pdf.
74. On Art Directors see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_director.
75. Croquis see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquis, on esquisse http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquisse, and
on ébauche http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ébauche.
76. The term sprezzatura derives from Baldessare Castiglione’s “The Book of the Courtier” (1508), it is “… a
certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort
and almost without any thought about it. …”. The book is available at
http://archive.org/details/bookofcourtier00castuoft.
77. On microgenesis see Jason W. Brown (1999). Microgenesis and Buddhism: The concept of momentariness.
Philosophy East and West vol. 49(3): pages 261-277.
28
78. On the salon des refusés see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_des_Refusés.
79. Jack the Dripper (Paul Jackson Pollock 1912-1956, known as Jackson Pollock) was an influential American
painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement.
80. On hic sunt dracones (“here be dragons”) see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_be_dragons.
81. On impressionism see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism.
82. On cubism see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubism.
83. On generic terrestrial scenes see Kenneth Clarke’s (1949) Landscape into art, which is available for
download at http://archive.org/details/landscapeintoart000630mbp.
84. On “minimal art” see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism#Minimal_art.2C_minimalism_in_visual_art.
85. On film grain see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_grain, and
http://grubbasoftware.com/filmlibrary_trixpan.html. Famous for its artistic use of film grain was Twen
Magazine (1951-1971, in German; http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twen_(Zeitschrift)).
86. On open environments see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighbourhood_(mathematics).
87. The Dalmatian dog picture can be seen at
http://psylux.psych.tu-dresden.de/i1/kaw/diverses%20Material/www.illusionworks.com/html/camouflage.ht
ml.
88. Jastrow’s duck-rabbit can be seen at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Duck-Rabbit_illusion.jpg.
89. Leonardo’s observations on what one might see in an old wall can be found at
http://www.mirabilissimeinvenzioni.com/ing_treatiseonpainting_ing.html.
90. John Ruskin mystery is discussed in his Elements of drawing, which can be downloaded from
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30325/30325-h/30325-h.htm.
91. On background texture (leafiness) see
http://www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/encyc_texturetypes.html. Good descriptions can be found in John
Ruskin’s Modern Painters, an electronic version is available at
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/ruskin/empi/index.htm.
92. René François Ghislain Magritte (1898-1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Magritte.
93. Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marqués de Dalí de Pubol (1904-1989), known as
Salvador Dalí was a major surrealist artist. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD.
94. Robert Pepperell (born 1963) is an artist and professor of Fine Art at the Cardiff School of Art & Design. His
website is http://www.robertpepperell.com.
95. Suzanne Unrein is a Californian artist. Her website is http://www.suzanneunrein.com.
29