The legitimacy of developing a systematic approach to the reading of art has been given a boost by new research being done in other fields - namely genetics and neurobiology. In his book A History of the Mind, Nicholas Humphrey described how the human visual system works.
Fundamental to his argument, and germane to mine, is the proposition that the human visual system has two rudimentary parallel channels.
One is the sensory channel, coming from the optic nerve, which translates information hitting the retina into a format digestible by the brain.
The second is a perceptive channel which further translates information from the sensory channel into a format useable by other parts of the brain.
Apparently the perceptive channel will confirm its interpretation of visual data with the sensory channel before transcribing it further and passing information along to other lobes in the brain. Given the specialized nature of perception, one has to conclude that the decision to act or to further contemplate the visual data is made in other areas of the mind.
Perception, then, on its own does not generate introspective thought.
If the visual information warns the body of an impending life-threatening situation, the decision to act is pretty well guaranteed. But if the situation is not life-threatening, then the decision to think further about what the eyes are reporting is totally optional.
All of which is to say that introspection is a voluntary response engaging a separate area of the mind. It is a type of leisure activity. It takes time. And, because it is subservient to threats of physical harm, introspection is an act of thought which requires some means of controlling the input of new stimulus - otherwise the eyes would be a defensive organ and no more.
An artist is a person who creates his own visual stimulus in a setting where the distractions are controlled. Every studio is an introspective laboratory and just as in any of the sciences some laboratories produce better results than others.
The point is that what is for most people a leisure activity is a normal mode of functioning for the artist. Truly there are other professionals who work under similar conditions but it is my intention to concentrate on those whose work product retains a visual format.
With art and the artist the loop between sight, perception, introspection, and work product is as tight as it can get. In the artist's case speech is another form of distraction. Art illustrates an interpretation of life mediated by successive levels of introspection.
With art and the artist the loop between sight, perception, introspection, and work product is as tight as it can get. In the artist's case speech is another form of distraction. Art illustrates an interpretation of life mediated by successive levels of introspection.
Executing artistic expression while actively immersed in an introspection state is what accounts for varying degrees of artistic success. The most profound work will succeed at capturing and conveying to a viewer a deeply introspective state.
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