杏吧原创

THERE is nothing new about scientists trying to understand art. The great German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz lectured on the relationship between painting and optics in the 1870s and encouraged physiologists to contribute to the theory of art. Plenty of scientists since have made similar forays.

Yet there is a dazzling boldness in the ideas being put about today by some prominent neuroscientists. For example, Vilayanur Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, claims to have discovered 鈥渢he key to understanding what art really is鈥�. Semir Zeki, who heads the neurobiology laboratory at University College London, claims that great art can be defined 鈥渋n neurological terms鈥�. Has something dramatic happened, or are their claims just hype?

To get an idea of what鈥檚 going on, I will focus here on Ramachandran, because his ideas have been widely discussed by art historians as well as neuroscientists (for his original essay, published in 1999, see Journal of Consciousness Studies, vol 6, p 15). Ramachandran says there is a 鈥渄eep structure鈥� or a 鈥渦niversal rule鈥� underlying all artistic experience, which he describes thus: 鈥淭he purpose of art, surely, is not merely to depict or represent reality 鈥� for that can be accomplished very easily with a camera 鈥� but to enhance, transcend, or indeed even to distort reality鈥�What the artist tries to do (either consciously or unconsciously) is to not only capture the essence of something but also to amplify it in order to more powerfully activate the same neural mechanisms that would be activated by the original object.鈥�

In other words, works of art that we appreciate or enjoy activate the same neural mechanisms that are activated when we see the kinds of objects they represent (a person, a bowl of fruit, a landscape), only more powerfully. His favourite examples are the classical Indian sculptures in which goddesses are depicted with large breasts, narrow waists and wide hips. They 鈥渁mplify the very essence of being feminine鈥�, he says. The result is a 鈥渟uperstimulus in the domain of male/female differences鈥�. His pithy conclusion is that all art is caricature.

Doubtless all of us would be able to list a dozen counter-examples showing that not all art is caricature. The art historian Ernst Gombrich 鈥� whose great book Art and Illusion was a pioneering attempt to apply the psychology of perception to the study of art 鈥� asks drily how exactly one is supposed to photograph 鈥淧aradise or Hell, the Creation of the World, the Passion of Christ, or the escapades of the ancient gods鈥�, all of which, he remarks, are subjects that can be found represented in our museums. But perhaps the most serious problem with Ramachandran鈥檚 theory is that it is not really about art at all.

To be blunt, it is really a theory about why men are attracted to women with big breasts. The fact that the Indian sculpture he discusses is a work of art, or that it is made of bronze, or that it represents a goddess, is completely irrelevant. The theory could just as well be about Pamela Anderson: the Baywatch star has employed her plastic surgeon to amplify the very essence of being feminine, and the result is a super stimulus in the domain of male/female differences. Of course this may be true. But a theory that does not distinguish between a work of art and the kind of object that it represents 鈥� for example, between a sculpture that represents a woman with big breasts and a woman with big breasts 鈥� cannot provide us with 鈥渢he key to understanding what art really is鈥�.

This point will be understood by every undergraduate who has taken a course in aesthetics. In Plato鈥檚 Republic, Socrates says that everyone can be an artist: 鈥淒on鈥檛 you see that you yourself could make all these things in a way?鈥�Take a mirror and carry it about everywhere. You will quickly make the sun and all the things in the sky, and quickly the Earth and yourself and the other animals and artefacts and plants and all the objects of which we just now spoke.鈥�

We cannot be sure how seriously Plato meant us to take the comparison between painting and mirroring, but every aesthetics student learns how to criticise it. They learn that paintings are made with specific tools, materials and techniques, and that understanding 鈥渨hat art really is鈥� means understanding first and foremost that it is art.

Ramachandran seems to have grasped half of this idea. He seems to have grasped that a work of art is not a true mirror image of the world. Remember that he said that the purpose of art is to enhance and to distort reality. The point he seems to have missed is that if a work of art is not a true mirror image of the world, it isn鈥檛 a silicone-enhanced one either.

There are lessons here both about art and about what neuroscience can tell us about art. The first is that to understand art you need to understand how a work of art鈥檚 ability to communicate thoughts and feelings depends on the artist鈥檚 choice of tools, materials and techniques. The lesson about neuroscience is that it should concentrate on specific problems about the visual arts instead of the grandiose question, what is art? For example, why do we find it natural to interpret a line as the boundary of a solid form? Some work has been done on this, but it is still a long way from being solved. This kind of work is much more likely to bear fruit than trying to find the key to understanding what art is, or what its purpose is. Indeed, I doubt whether there is any such thing as the purpose of art, a single overarching source of value found in all art. Why should there be such a thing in art any more than in human life generally?

鈥淭he theory could just as well be about Pamela Anderson鈥�

There is a final lesson which, as a professional philosopher, I feel duty-bound to point out. I firmly believe that neuroscience can contribute to our knowledge about art. I doubt, however, whether Ramachandran鈥檚 claim that his ideas are superior to 鈥渢he vague notions of philosophers and art historians鈥� is right. We cannot expect to make progress without learning from and engaging with the intellectual tradition we have inherited. This is especially true of neuroscience, which is a 19th-century subject deeply rooted in the philosophy of Locke and Kant.

In neuroscience, as in psychology, philosophy is unavoidable. Nobody understood this better than Helmholtz. If we ignore the philosophy of the past, we run the risk of basing our ideas on jejune philosophy of our own.