Abstract
Cognitive neuroscience of art continues to be criticized for failing to provide interesting results about art itself. In particular, results of brain imaging experiments have not yet been utilized in interpretation of particular works of art. Here we revisit a recent study in which we explored the neuronal and behavioral response to painted portraits with a direct versus an averted gaze. We then demonstrate how fMRI results can be related to the art historical interpretation of a specific painting. The evidentiary status of neuroimaging data is not different from any other extra-pictorial facts that art historians uncover in their research and relate to their account of the significance of a work of art. They are not explanatory in a strong sense, yet they provide supportive evidence for the art writer’s inference about the intended meaning of a given work. We thus argue that brain imaging can assume an important role in the interpretation of particular art works.
Highlights
Over the past two decades, the sister disciplines of the cognitive neuroscience of art and neuroesthetics have enjoyed growing recognition within the mind and brain sciences
As in other domains of cognitive neuroscience, empirical research on aesthetic experience using neuroimaging has been struggling with the problem of reverse inference (Poldrack, 2006; Hutzler, 2014), an interpretive problem that arises when cognitive processes are inferred from the activation of a particular brain region
Reverse inference may be said to be a thorny issue for the cognitive neuroscience of art, given the fact that perceiving art works engages a plethora of brain areas (Vartanian and Skov, 2014), all of which have been known to be active in a number of cognitive and affective operations
Summary
Over the past two decades, the sister disciplines of the cognitive neuroscience of art and neuroesthetics have enjoyed growing recognition within the mind and brain sciences. While in the preparatory drawing, the averted gaze and a half-closed left eye result in the expression of silent endurance and resignation, in the oil painting the gaze is focused on the viewer, which imbues the face with an inquisitive, defiant directness, as if the saint (the artist) is appraising or challenging the viewer, thereby establishing communicative interaction with him/her While both the drawing and the painting may share an overall theme and artistic intention, namely to present a visual metaphor of Kubišta’s own struggle with the world at large, the semantic difference in the affective affordance of the gaze/expression substantially modifies the meaning in each. Of the fMRI and eye-tracking experiments relate to such an art historical narrative?
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