Shining Mountains by Richard Edde
With painting, sculpture, poetry, and music, we humans express the most elevated concepts, passions, madness, pleasure, torments, and intimate thoughts of our souls. Neuroscientists have advanced our knowledge of the physiology of the brain thanks to the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques which allow visualization of brain activity while we carry out an action, think, or experience an emotion. Neuroaesthetic researchers are now beginning to unlock the secrets of how we appreciate beauty.
Standing before a work of art, each person has a different emotional experience due to genetic and cultural factors. The origin of these perceptions, however, are common to all of us. Many areas of the brain are activated in analogous ways in all human beings when they are before the same object. This common basis puts us on the same interpretive plane.
Semir Zeki of the University College London took ten participants and showed them 300 paintings and asked them to classify each as being either beautiful, ugly, or neutral. "Beautiful" paintings elicited increased activity in the orbito-frontal cortex, which is involved in emotion and reward. Interestingly, the "uglier" a painting, the greater the motor cortex activity, as if the brain was preparing to escape. In another study, there seem to be certain qualities that are found independent of genetics or culture. These are grids, zigzags, spirals, and curves. Such findings may suggest that, at least on one level, beauty might be universal.
The limbic system of our brains corresponds to the brains of our primitive mammalian ancestors. It is an area that allows us to distinguish between agreeable and non-agreeable, helping to formulate our emotions. Its activation or stimulation can be measured by the galvanic skin response. Pleasing pictures give a higher response than non-pleasing ones.
Our emotional responses are mediated by certain neurotransmitters such as dopamine, and serotonin which are released by these different parts of the brain. Hence, we feel joy, sadness, etc. when viewing, hearing, or reading a work of art.
This is a greatly simplified version of what is taking place in our heads and much research is needed in this new field of neuroaesthetics.
Just paint it!
Garden Gate by Richard Edde
I like to call myself an artist, but I don't really know what that means. My passion is oil painting, landscapes mostly. I am largely self-taught although through the years I have had three teachers all of whom imparted certain gifts.
Early on I realized you can't learn to paint from reading books. Oh, you can learn the Rule of Thirds, linear and atmospheric perspective, that sort of thing. But just as one can't learn to play tennis by reading about it, you can't learn how to paint unless you actually paint.
In the beginning I read every book on painting the library had which was literally hundreds. I would go back home and try to emulate what I had just read but it almost always failed. Until I found my first art instructor, Harlow. He would say, "here is how you make a cloud, see?" and I would then imitate his brushstrokes. After Harlow found a job as an illustrator I discovered Martha, who was a graduate student in Art History and was willing to give my private lessons. She showed me how to make water look like water, rocks look like rocks, etc . She unlocked the secrets behind making a painting resemble nature which was what I wanted. I am forever in her debt.
As the years went by I adapted what I had learned from them and began to paint in my own style. I would never have made the progress I did, however, without them saying, "here is how you do this; let me show you."
I am sure they have no idea the profound impression they had on my artistic development. We have all moved on with our lives and no longer communicate with each other.
I do know I will never forget them.
Just paint it!.
Madonna dell Granduca by Raphael
I know you must be asking what happened to art during the Renaissance? Spanning the 14th to the 17th centuries the cultural movement which began in Florence flamed a rebirth of classical ideas which had long been lost to Europe. The icons of the Italian Renaissance were Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Their works portrayed the zenith of artistry that was to be emulated by others for hundreds of years.
What were these contributions to art made by these men and their brethren?
- The introduction of linear perspective. Using light and shadow, foreshortening, the artists were able to create three dimensional paintings.
- The introduction of humanism into their works. By returning to the classics, they began to pay more attention to the human form and human behavior with little emphasis on religion. They added depth and emotion unlike paintings before them.
- The use of symmetry. The artists began to portray correct proportion of body parts making their figures the same on both sides.
- The application of contrapposto. Modeling the human form in non-symmetrical, relaxed stances that appeared realistic.
- Sfumato. The technique of effecting a gradual transition from one color to another (blending) allowing for no hard edges.
- Importing the technique of oil on canvas from the Netherlands with their natural representation. Jan van Eyck (1390-1441) used mineral pigments mixed with linseed oil and applied them to canvas, a technique still used today.
What is interesting is that we artists today are employing the contributions made by a handful of visionaries centuries ago.
Just paint it!
Entombment of Christ by Peiter van der Werff
The above painting by Peiter van der Werff done in 1709, is the oldest known painting using the color, Prussian Blue. It is interesting that such a beautiful color was the result of an experiment gone awry. In fact, its maker, a fellow named Jacob Diesbach, was actually trying to make a red color, cochineal red lake, in his Berlin laboratory in 1706. A deep crimson can be obtained from female, cochineal, or scaly, insects. Diesbach needed iron sulfate and potash to complete making the pigment. In order to save money, he purchased some cheap, contaminated potash from an alchemist friend, potash contaminated with animal oil. When he mixed the contaminated potash with the iron sulfate and insect color, instead of a dark red, he got first a purple, then a dark blue pigment. It was the first synthetic blue pigment - Prussian Blue.
Blues were the colors most perplexing to artists up until Diesbach's experiment gone bad. Artists did not have a stable, plentiful blue to work with that was inexpensive. Ultramarine, which came from lapis lazuli and found in what is now Afghanistan was more expensive than gold. Indigo had a tendency to turn black with age and azurite turned green when used in frescoes.
So what happened chemically in Diesbach's experiment? The alkali, potash, reacted with the animal oil and formed potassium ferrocyanide. Mixing this with the iron sulfate, iron ferrocyanide was formed - Prussian Blue.
By 1750, because it was cheap to make, the pigment was widely used throughout Europe. In 1878, Winsor & Newton sold its own version of Prussian Blue. Notable artists who used the color were Gainsborough, Monet, Van Gogh, and Picasso. In the 19th century, the color was the base for dyes used in the making of German uniforms as well as inks. Pharmaceutical grade Prussian Blue has medicinal uses, being given to patients who have ingested thallium or radioactive cesium. And it is used by pathologists as a stain for iron in biopsy specimens.
All from an experiment gone wrong.
Just paint it!
Aspen by Richard Edde
In today's hectic world filled with the anxieties and frustrations of earning a living, raising children, worrying about our 401k's, where the terrorists will strike again, does art play a meaningful role? What purpose does art serve when we are confronted with the very terrifying and confusing world in which we live? When our malls and sports arenas are filled with more people than our museums and concert halls has the appreciation of art become an unnecessary part of our lives?
Do we really need art today? I think we do.
I believe art matters because it is universal, non-material, transcendent. Art matters because it deals with daily experience in a transforming way; art questions the way we view the world and offers a unique perspective apart from the status quo explanations we hear at work or on the news. Art matters because looking at a beautiful painting or sculpture gives us an experience that nothing else can. Not only can it make us feel good, it can provoke, excite, soothe, and inspire.
This is not an escapist experience, but restorative. Art gives our eyes and mind a chance to rest, to think, to muse. Looking at art we reconnect with our inner spirit, a spirit that is rich in feelings, thoughts, and dreams. Beauty, in whatever form it takes, soothes the soul.
If you doubt this is true, go visit your nearest museum, immerse yourself in beauty, and feel your soul restored.
Just paint it!
Dr. Gachet by Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh"s unfortunate life and tragic suicide are well known. What remains shrouded in mystery are the reasons behind his maniacal personality that led ultimately to his death. There has been much speculation over the years as to Van Gogh's medical history but no conclusive information uncovered. Of course, we will probably never definitively know what troubled the artist but Dr. Thomas Courtney Lee, a surgeon at Georgetown University College of Medicine, offers a scientific theory that merits consideration. Using elements of pathography, a scientific blending of fact and conjecture, he concluded that Van Gogh suffered in his later years from the effects of digitalis intoxication.
Digitalis, a drug these days used to treat heart failure, was originally derived from the foxglove plant, digitalis purpurea. In the 19th century it was considered something of a panacea, given not only for the heart but for dropsy as well as a treatment for epilepsy. Van Gogh's medical history includes, according to most authorities, epileptic crises as well as depression, self-mutilation, and suicide. Large doses of digitalis can cause vomiting, giddiness, and visual disturbances. Van Gogh's later paintings show an obsession with the color yellow; even his house in Auyers was painted yellow. Abnormalities in color perception, in particular yellow halos, have been associated with the use of digitalis.
A further clue may be found in the artist's portraits of his last physician, Dr. Paul Ferdinand Gachet. In one of the paintings, the doctor is holding a flower in his hand, in another, the flower is in a glass. Van Gogh mentions these were the foxglove flower of purple color, the purple digitalis plant.
A Czech pharmacologist, Jan Evangelista Purkinje, experimented on himself using the digitalis plant and found that in his vision, "there was a rounded spot of dim lights which disappeared and again reappeared intermittently, and around were noticeable several such concentric light and dark waves in similar motion." .
It is entirely possible that Dr. Gachet treated Van Gogh with digitalis in his later life and as a consequence, the artist was under its influence and immersed in its yellow fog. Viewing his Starry Night one is reminded of Purkinje's description. How unfortunate that the artist's untimely end might have been the result of a drug overdose.
Just paint it!
Jeanne Hebuterne with Hat by Amedeo ModiglianiAmedeo Modigliani was a Jewish artist born in Italy on July 12, 1884. He moved to France in 1906 where he spent the rest of his artistic career and died in Paris on January 24, 1920, at the age of 35. Shortly before his birth, his father's money-changing business went bankrupt and the family became destitute. Modigliani's birth saved the family from certain ruin, because, as according to an ancient Italian law, creditors could not seize the bed of a pregnant woman or a mother with a newborn child. When officials entered the family home as his mother went into labor, the family protected their most valuable possessions by piling them on top of the expectant mother.
After being home-schooled until the age of ten, Amedeo spent his teenage years suffering from recurrent bouts of pleurisy along with typhoid fever and tuberculosis. His mother would nurse young Amedeo back to health as there were no resources for medical care.
Modigliani began drawing and painting at an early age and worked in Guglielmo Micheli's Art School from 1898 to 1900. Here his earliest formal artistic instruction took place in an atmosphere deeply steeped in a study of the styles and themes of 19th century Italian art. While with Micheli, Modigliani not only studied landscape, but portraiture, still-life, and the nude. His fellow students recall that the latter was where he displayed his greatest talent, and apparently this was not an entirely academic pursuit for the teenager; when not painting nudes, was occupied with seducing the household maid.
Suffering from the effects of tuberculosis he moved to Venice in 1902 and began smoking hashish and frequenting disreputable parts of the city where he sketched nudes and drank wine to excess. In 1906, bored with Venice, he moved back to Paris and took up a bohemian lifestyle, drinking absinthe until he was drunk and using drugs. His studio became a disheveled mess and he destroyed most of his art. While drunk, he would sometimes strip himself naked at social gatherings. He became the epitome of the tragic artist, creating a posthumous legend almost as well-known as van Gogh. He continued to paint even while his alcoholic blackouts became more frequent. He married and fathered a daughter.
In 1920, after not hearing from him for several days, his downstairs neighbor checked on the family and found Modigliani in bed, delirious and holding onto his wife, Jeanne Hebuterne, who was nearly nine months pregnant. The neighbor summoned a doctor, but little could be done because Modigliani was dying of tubercular meningitis. He died on January 24, 1920. His wife was taken to her parent's home, where, inconsolable, she threw herself out of a fifth-floor window two days after Amedeo's death, killing herself and her unborn child.
Modigliani died penniless and destitute and managed only one solo exhibition in his entire life. He gave away most of his work in exchange for meals and lodging.
Just paint it!
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