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Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain.

2000; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 77; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1097/00006324-200006000-00005

1538-9235

Michael C. Barris,

Aesthetic Perception and Analysis

Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain. Semir Zeki. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pages: 224. Price $35.00. ISBN: 0-19-850519-1. Those who have followed the career of the University of London’s Professor of Neurobiology, Semir Zeki, over the last 25 years will not be surprised by this book. As with his 1993 book, 1 he has lucidly summarized the steady production of his laboratory for a general audience, which particularly includes neuropsychologists, cognitive scientists, artists, and art historians. His stated goal is to discuss “the perception of works of art” (p. 99), and he illustrates this with 36 anatomical and physiological illustrations, 45 photographs of fine art, and four photographs that combine anatomical illustrations and fine art. All of the illustrations are printed in high resolution, and most are in full color.FIGUREFigureZeki’s early work involved single-cell cortical electrophysiology in monkeys; his more recent work uses functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) of brains of human patients. He uses a constant illustration format, both within his papers and within this book. This facilitates the reader’s understanding. Twenty of the 21 chapters read freely as independent essays, complete with independent references. This independence suggests that he originally organized them as lectures for specific groups. The exception, chapter 8 (Seeing and Understanding), requires a previous reading of chapter 3 (The Myth of the ‘Seeing Eye’) and Chapter 7 (The Modularity of Vision). Chapter 7 is a layman’s introduction to electrophysiology and fMRI, whereas chapter 8 develops the notion of the identity of vision and cognition, following Irvin Rock 2 without citing him. Zeki tackles the ancient nativism-empiricism dichotomy in chapter 5 (The Neurology of the Platonic Ideal) and the role of early experience in chapter 10 (The Pathology of the Platonic Ideal and the Hegelian Concept), quoting John Locke’s insights on this problem. In many of the remaining chapters, Zeki discusses the empirical exploitation of brain function by European and North American artists. Chapter 4 is an exception to Zeki’s emphasis on 20th-century artists in that it explores the work of the 17th-century Dutch painter Vermeer and the 16th-century Italian painter Michelangelo. Twentieth-century artists represented include René Magritte, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Mikhail Vrubel, Kazimar Malevich, Ellsworth Kelly, Alexander Rodchenko, Ben Nicholson, Theo van Doesburg, Josef Albers, Ad Reinhardt, Henri Matisse, Naum Gabo, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, Hugo Demarco, Piet Mondrian, Marcel Duchamp, Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Alexander Calder, and Isia Leviant. A final section of five chapters compares Zeki’s recent clinical explorations with fine art. In chapter 17, portraiture is discussed in the context of prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces). In chapter 18, painterly color rendition is discussed with respect to achromatopsia (inability to perceive color). In chapter 19, the School of Fauvism (the painterly use of intense unexpected colors) is discussed with reference to color constancy. In chapter 20, abstract art perception, defective in akinetopsic patients, is contrasted with representational art perception. Akinetopsia is the inability to perceive objects in motion. This condition is associated with damage to area V5 of visual cortex. Chapter 21 discusses Claude Monet’s series of 30 paintings of Rouen Cathedral, each of which differ in time of day and time of year whereas the spatial configuration remains nearly identical. Seeing five paintings of this series reproduced here, I expected a discussion of the Purkinje shift 3 from blues in morning paintings to yellows in midday paintings. However, Zeki chose to discuss color constancy. The painterly representation of the Purkinje shift has been left to others 4 to discuss. I found only two single-letter typographical errors in this book. The captions of the anatomical and physiological illustrations consistently refer to blue coloration that appears purple to me. This error in ink specification could be corrected in a reprint. Curiously, the blue inks in the fine art photographs appear as I have seen them in other reproductions. Zeki demonstrates a solid grasp of art history, philosophy, and his science. He has selected works from these disciplines that most will agree are seminal. His literary style is lucid. This book is a good read.