Waubonsee Community College

European art, a neuroarthistory, John Onians

eng

Includes bibliographical references (360-367) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

European art

bibliography

930026802

John Onians

a neuroarthistory

"Ambitious and much anticipated, this book celebrates the value of recent neuroscientific discoveries as tools for art-historical analysis. Case studies ranging across the whole history of European art demonstrate the relationships between forms of visual expression and the objects of visual attention, emotional connection, and intellectual interest in daily life, thus illuminating the previously hidden meanings of many artistic styles and conventions. Art historians have until now concentrated on the conscious intentions of artists and patrons, but neuroscience provides insights into the role of non-conscious mental processes in the production and consumption of works of art. As John Onians powerfully argues, these insights have the potential to revolutionize cultural history. For the first time, an authority renowned for a more traditional approach has applied new neuroscientific knowledge to a wide range of art-historical problems, both familiar and fresh. The result is a provocative, original, and persuasive case for neuroscience as an aid to research in the humanities."--Publisher's description

Introduction : The brain and nervous system: evolution and function ; The brain ; The brain and neuroarthistory -- Part 1. Prehistory, 30,000-4,000 BC: Art before literature : Origins of two-dimensional representation: animal neurography in the Chauvet Cave : Neuroscience and Chauvet: technique ; Neuroscience and Chauvet: style ; Neuroscience and Chauvet: subject matter ; Neuroscience and Chauvet: the role of the site ; Some conclusions ; Final conclusion: the 'big bang', the eye and the brain -- Origins of architecture: home sweet mammoth at Mezhirich: The emergence of architecture ; Architecture and the mammoth ; The emergence of architectural theory -- Origins of abstraction: humans as tools and the formation of culture at Lepenski Vir : From the animal to the human and from naturalism to schematisation in painting ; Lepenski Vir and the emergence of monumental stone sculpture and planned architecture -- Part 2. Ancient Greece, 800-100 BC: art and literate culture : The Greek statue : Men of stone and metal ; Greek naturalism and neurography ; Action, mirroring and empathy ; Quadrangular men ; From mirroring to empathy ; Mirroring and empathy exploited -- The Greek temple: Doric and ionic ; The Greek column and the Greek brain ; The Greek temple ; The Greek temple and Greek warfare -- Greek art and mathematics : Geometric style or military style? ; Pythagorean mathematics ; Convergent perspective -- Part 3. Rome, 100 BC-AD 300: art, the material environment and material power : Roman identity and the environment ; Roman identity and magic ; Roman identity and the imagination -- Roman shapes, Roman magic, and Roman imagination : Roman architecture and Roman landscape ; Angular Greeks and rounded Romans ; Roman architecture and magic ; The rise of the imagination and the decline of naturalism -- Part 4. Europe, 300-1200: art and spiritual power : Christianisation and neural homogenisation ; Christianisation: experience replaced by belief ; Christianisation and neural specialisation ; Christianisation and the power of words -- Europe 300-750: Christian imagination, Christian magic and Christian intellect : Architecture, metaphor and magic ; Painting and sculpture: imagination and schematisation ; Magic: homoeopathic and contagious -- Art and the mind in Christian and pagan Northern Europe, 700-1100 : Looking at letters: The Lindisfarne Gospels ; Bede and levels of interpretation ; Charlemagne and Alcuin ; Rabanus Maurus and mystic signification ; Irminsul and cross: the pagan roots of Rabanus's mystic signification -- The Abbey of St. Denis: new neural resources, new problems and new solutions : St. Denis and Abbot Suger ; Suger's brain ; Suger's brain and Suger's building ; Protecting Christian buildings ; Uniting a divided church: from Jews and gentiles to clergy and laity ; A living churchPart 5. Western Europe, 1200-1600 : French and English Gothic: 1150-1550 : French Gothic ; English Gothic ; Asymmetrical contrasts: English decorated versus French rayonnant and English perpendicular versus French flamboyant -- Italy 1300-1600: cities and styles : Neuroarthistory and the 'period eye' ; Florence and disegno ; Venice and colore ; Verona and clarity ; Mantua and mists -- Part 6. Early modern Europe, 1500-1700: new artists and new viewers : Self-awareness and the early modern artist : Alberti and Leonardo as 'natural' children ; Alberti ; Leonardo ; Michelangelo ; Cellini ; The painter's body image -- Self-awareness and the early modern viewer : The awareness of wonder ; Display ; The power of art collections and their limits -- Part 7. The eighteenth century: art, the brain and the camera obscura : Eighteenth-century England and the Grand Tour: the patron : Gardens as paintings ; The impact of art collecting ; Travel, collecting and William Kent's 'shared' eye ; Asymmetrical architecture and the animal -- Eighteenth-century England and the Grand Tour: the artist : Looking through the camera obscura ; Canaletto : Guardi -- Part 8. The nineteenth century: art, industry and neurology : Nineteenth-century England: Constable and Turner : Constable and Turner and a shared interest in vaporous ; Constable and Turner: differences in exposures, differences in art ; Turner and Ruskin: the formation of the artist's brain -- Nineteenth-century France: Monet, Cézanne and Courbet : Taine: 'milieu' and the 'original sensation' ; Monet ; Cézanne ; Courbet -- Part 9. The twentieth century: art, communication and attention : Malevich and painting : Malevich's suprematist art ; Malevich's theory ; Malevich's autobiography and suprematism -- Le Corbusier and architecture : Le Corbusier: dogmatic or visually receptive? ; Le Corbusier: 'unrepentantly visual' ; Eyes which do not see -- Caris and sculpture : The artist's challenge ; The neuroarthistorian's response