Beauty and the Brain Redux

Landscape With A Man Killed By A Snake by Nicolas Poussin

Recent neurobiological discoveries have made it possible to give a scientific account of the brain’s involvement on our feelings when looking at pictures. Neuroscience can provide the link between how pictures look and our emotional responses to them.

We now know from neurobiological studies that when we see a scary face, the visual stimulation travels to the thalamus, which in turn passes this information directly to a region of the brain called the amygdala, the brain's fear center. At the same time, visual information goes via a slower route to the visual cortex, which creates an accurate representation of the stimulus and then feeds it to the amygdala. The first, direct route to the amygdala causes the instantaneous reaction of wanting to flee from the frightening object, while the second, slower route provides a more complete understanding of the danger, and may lead to the conclusion that the object is just a picture and is not a threat.

For example, take a look at the above picture by Nicolas Poussin. Two onlookers, a man and a woman, react to the man's death in the foreground in anguish. Surprisingly, we feel a sense of wanting to move ourselves when we look at the picture. Our own legs seem to want to move as the running man's legs move. We say these feelings are in our bones, though they are really in our brains.

But how can a mere painting inspire these physical reactions? In the late 1980s, Giacomo Rizzolatti and colleagues at the University of Parma in Italy discovered the existence of neurons that fire not only when an action is performed but also when an action is observed being performed by another. These mirror neurons fire chiefly when we observe our peers engaging in goal-directed actions such as reaching for food.

In another study by the Parma group, observing another person being touched activates the cortical network of regions normally involved in the beholder’s own experience of being touched. Functional MRI experiments have shown that when people view others being touched, the same part of the secondary somato-sensory cortex (the so-called SII-PV area) is activated as when they themselves are touched.

It seems that viewing art is a very complex series of events.

Just paint it!

Is It Art Or Is It Trash?

Estes Park Valley by Richard Edde


You know the art world is really screwed up when some moron artist puts a painting in a gallery of a man looking salaciously at a partially clad child. The curator of the gallery defended her decision by saying it was art. I guess her reasoning was that if something was hung on a wall in the name of art, sold in the name of art, and collected in the name of art, it must be art. If it walks and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. Not so!

That painting was definitely not art, it was trash. Oh, it might be a story for the newspapers or it might even be the artist's opinion, but it is not a piece of art. Art can and sometimes, should, offend, but there must be a level of decency and that painting should offend everyone.

I am sure we would all agree that creativity is an inalienable right but the problem comes with the notion that it must be shared with others and in order to do so it is called art. These people who do so give art and ethical artists a bad name. If someone wants to create something offensive, he or she is free to do so. But when those pieces are placed in a museum or gallery and passed off as art, those of us who enjoy true art must protest loudly.

The argument is that what is offensive to one person may not be to another and it is this gray area that some artists stand behind as their defense. But here is the thing - most of us would find the painting of a man looking at a nude child as offensive, it crosses the line. Should we demand that such trash be removed from our galleries and museums?

In a word, yes.

Just paint it.

Howard Terpning

Grandfather Prays To Sun by Howard Terpning

So many times I have looked at the art of Howard Terpning and wished, no prayed, that I could paint like him. I cannot believe that anyone can do with oils what he does. Take a few minutes out of your busy day and enjoy the genius of this man.

Howard Terpning was born November 5, 1927, in Oak Park, Illinois, birthplace of Ernest Hemingway. As a boy he was torn between two ambitions; to become an artist or a pilot. His brother, Jack, fulfilled the later ambition, becoming a B-24 pilot during World War II. Unfortunately, he was lost in New Guinea. The aircraft and crew were recovered in 1974.

In 1945, Terpning joined the Marine Corps and served as an infantryman in China. Afterward, he found educational institutions heavily enrolled with returned war veterans. Through the help of a friend of his father he entered the Chicago Academy of Fine Art. Later, he attended the American Academy of Fine Art.

He tried to find work in New York City but was disappointed and returned to Chicago. Haddon Sundblom who was considered the dean of American illustrators took Terpning on as an apprentice for $35 a week.

After five years he moved to Milwaukee where for three years he painted subjects like farmers on tractors. Deciding it was time to try New York again, he struck out on his own, painting seven days a week, often thirteen hours a day. He averaged eight illustrations a month, a pace that today makes him wonder how he managed.

In all, he worked prolifically as a commercial artist for twenty-five years, seventeen of them in New York. Besides advertising art, he illustrated stories and articles for such publications as McCall's, Ladies' Home Journal, Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, and Time. He painted more than eighty move posters, starting with The Guns of Navarone. They include Doctor Zhivago and a reissue of Gone With The Wind and The Sound of Music.

He became restless, however. Though financially rewarding, the commercial work was no longer satisfying to him as an artist. He began painting portraits for his own pleasure. Among the first was Sioux Chief Gall, done for his daughter, Susan.

In the summer of 1974, at age 47, he took a couple of months off from his commercial work and finished three paintings, all on speculation and hope. The feeling of freedom, of painting what he wanted instead of commissioned pieces, made that summer one of the most satisfying of his life as an artist. He sent the canvases to Troy's Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, which sold them in January 1975. That was a turning point in Howard's life. Gradually he reduced his commercial accounts until abandoning his career entirely. In 1976, he moved to Tucson to become a western painter. In just a few years he won the respect and admiration of his peers and a vast following for his works. Today he is considered the premier chronicler of Native American peoples and is one of the giants in his field.

Just paint it!

Through A Glass Darkly

Untitled by Martin Rameriz

Martin Rameriz (1895-1963) created nearly 300 drawings of remarkable visual clarity and expressive power. In 2007, The New York Times called the Mexican artist "simply one of the greatest artists of the 20th century." What is so remarkable about his achievement is that all of his work was created inside a mental institution, the DeWitt State Hospital in northern California.

Scientists have studied the link between creativity and mental illness and the lines between the two are sometimes not very clear. One study suggests that creative people often share more personality traits with the mentally ill than "normal" people in less creative pursuits. Connie Strong and her co-author, Dr. Terence Ketter, measured creativity and personality traits in 48 patients with bipolar disorder and 47 healthy people without a creative path in life. They found that both creative students and those with bipolar disorders shared several personality traits. Such individuals were more open, more neurotic, and more moody than the other study participants. Their results were published in The Journal of Affective Disorders.

In a 1987 study, Nancy C. Andreasen examined 30 writers and found that 80% had experienced at least one episode of major depression, hypomania, or mania. Andreasen also examined 30 controls and found that 0% had experienced some form of mental disorder.

It appears that the most common mental disorder among creative thinkers is bipolar disorder, although schizophrenia, as in the case of Martin Rameriz, is not all that uncommon. (Remember Russell Crowe's portrayal of John Nash in the movie, A Beautiful Mind?).

Now the big question. Is the artistic brain wired differently than "non-artistic" ones, which then leads to mental illness or does a person suffering from a mental disorder seek a form of healing through their art? Certainly there are artists who are not mentally ill and there are mentally ill persons who are not artists. At present the answers are not clear at all.

Just paint it!

The Healing Power of Art

Snake River Valley by Richard Edde

More than a century ago, several European writers described the spontaneous art done by patients in mental hospitals. This irrepressible urge to make art out of any available materials confirms the compelling power of artistic expression to reveal inner experience. It was because art making provided a means of expression for those who were often uncommunicative that art therapy came to be developed as part of the healing professions.

Although conventional psychotherapy has its benefits in selected cases, there are many alternative therapies, such as music therapy, hypnosis, color therapy, and aroma therapy that have had a measure of success in treating various mental disorders. Art therapy is a form of expression that strives to aid patients who have suffered mental trauma and emotional abuse.

Art therapy is based on the belief that the creative process is healing and life affirming. For many people mental disease can be difficult to express in words. Art therapy provides a creative outlet for emotions too painful to express verbally.

Consider the following. Somewhere on a pediatric cancer ward a young child draws a picture of his brain. With a large crayon he draws a large circle where an inoperable tumor is located.

In a large empty house a recently widowed woman builds a shadowbox with pictures and keepsakes from her marriage, helping her to cope with her husband's death.

Dysfunctional family members communicate with each other silently by sharing pieces of modeling clay. Working together for the first time, they create a house that symbolizes an effort to improve their relationships.

In each of these cases, art therapy facilitated healing and growth.

If you would like more information about art therapy and the healing power of art visit The American Art Therapy Association.

Just paint it!