What is the Lady Really Smiling About? Mona Lisa's Secret Admirers

The world's most famous work of art owes its subtle fascination, usually held to be inexplicable, to the subliminal embedding of a large number and variety of male faces in the Mona Lisa's clothes and hair as well as in the surrounding land and cloudscape. This is not an isolated instance of an unconscious or accidental process, but shows all the wit, craftsmanship and sophistication we have by other means come to expect of Leonardo da Vinci. Although all the great masters seem to have clearly recognized and imitated this trick, it seems to have completely escaped the notice of academic art criticism, which generally begins recognizing facial alternatives in Arcimboldi and then skips over the centuries to Picasso or Dali. The father of modern art was impressed by a painting full of embedded faces and, realizing the extent to which practically all visual art owes its “ineffable” fascination to this simple technique, evolved the notion of “abstract art” by the simple expedient of gradually eliminating the main Gestalt. Having the key to artistic success within their grasp, Freudians vastly underestimated the extent of its use as well as its relevance to the impact of an art work. Their insistence on interpreting it as an automatic manifestation from the secret recesses of the artist's unconscious mind prevented them from seeing it as a calculated toying with one of the beholder's principal higher order feature detectors, the specialist face processor.

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Visual art as a form of individualization of collective experience: Renaissance discourse

Almanac "Culture and Contemporaneity" ◽

10.32461/2226-0285.2.2021.249251 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Olena Chumachenko

Keyword(s):

Art History ◽

Visual Art ◽

Da Vinci ◽

Leonardo Da Vinci ◽

Cultural Development ◽

Subject Field ◽

Marsilio Ficino ◽

Collective Experience ◽

The Subject ◽

Pietro Aretino

The purpose of the article consists of exploring visual arts in the context of Renaissance discourse as a form of individualization of collective experience. The methodology consists of the application of analytical method – to determine the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study of visual art as a form of individualization of collective experience in the works of the Renaissance theorists: Alberti, G. Vasari, Marsilio Ficino, Lorenzo Valla, Pietro Pomponazzi; Renaissance artists – Giotto, Masaccio, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael Santi, Titian; formalization method – to clarify visual art within the subject field of art history in the context of the culture of the Renaissance; method of comparative studies – for analyzing approaches to understanding the visual art as a form of individualization of collective experience. The scientific novelty of the work is that for the first time the essence of visual art is a form of individualization of collective experience in the context of the Renaissance discourse. Conclusions. The article explores visual art in the context of the Renaissance discourse as a form of individualization of collective experience. Clarified the meaning of the concept of visual art and painting in the framework of the subject field of art history (concepts of A. Gabrichevsky, M. Kagan, V. Vlasov, A. Hildebrand). In the socio-cultural development of the Renaissance, there is an intensive process of individualization of the artist, and there is also a tendency to intensively turn to samples of ancient art, which testifies to the visual art as the brightest form of individualization of collective experience. In the context of comparative analysis, the concepts of Cennino D'Andrea Cennini, G. Vasari, Alberti, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filarete, Piero Della Francesco, Leonardo da Vinci, Jean Peleren, Albrecht Dürer, Pietro Aretino, who described all the advantages of painting based on color, are considered; the Venetian artist Paolo Pino, author of Dialogue on Painting; Lodovico Dolci, author of Dialogue on Painting; the Tuscan writer A. Doni, who in his dialogue "About drawing" explained the priority of the Florentine tradition, in which the emphasis was on drawing, and not on coloring. Key words: visual art, renaissance, painting, collective experience, individualization

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The Impact of Visual Art and High Affective Arousal on Heuristic Decision-Making in Consumers

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2020.565829 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 ◽

Author(s):

Yaeri Kim ◽

Kiwan Park ◽

Yaeeun Kim ◽

Wooyun Yang ◽

Donguk Han ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Visual Arts ◽

Stroop Task ◽

Visual Art ◽

Abstract Art ◽

Cognitive Resources ◽

Affective Valence ◽

Product Packaging ◽

Affective Arousal ◽

The Impact

In marketing, the use of visual-art-based designs on products or packaging crucially impacts consumers’ decision-making when purchasing. While visual art in product packaging should be designed to induce consumer’s favorable evaluations, it should not evoke excessive affective arousal, because this may lead to the depletion of consumer’s cognitive resources. Thus, consumers may use heuristic decision-making and commit an inadvertent mistake while purchasing. Most existing studies on visual arts in marketing have focused on preference (i.e., affective valence) using subjective evaluations. To address this, we applied a neuroscientific measure, electroencephalogram (EEG) to increase experimental validity. Two successive tasks were designed to examine the effects of affective arousal and affective valence, evoked by visual artwork, on the consecutive cognitive decision-making. In task 1, to evaluate the effect of visual art, EEG of two independent groups of people was measured when they viewed abstract artwork. The abstract art of neoplasticism (AbNP) group (n = 20) was showing Mondrian’s artwork, while the abstract art of expressionism (AbEX) group (n = 18) viewed Kandinsky’s artwork. The neoplasticism movement strove to eliminate emotion in art and expressionism to express the feelings of the artist. Building on Gallese’s embodied simulation theory, AbNP and AbEX artworks were expected to induce lower and higher affect, respectively. In task 2, we investigated how the induced affect differentially influenced a succeeding cognitive Stroop task. We anticipated that the AbEX group would deplete more cognitive resources than AbNP group, based on capacity limitation theory. Significantly stronger affect was induced in the AbEX group in task 1 than in the AbNP group, especially in affective arousal. In task 2, the AbEX group showed a faster reaction time and higher error rate in the Stroop task. According to our hypotheses, the higher affective arousal state of the AbEX group might deplete more cognitive resources during task 1 and result in poorer performance in task 2 because affect impacted their cognitive resources. This is the first study using neuroscientific measures to prove that high affective arousal induced by visual arts on packaging may induce heuristic decision-making in consumers, thereby advancing our understanding of neuromarketing.

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Dialektita Estetika Seni Rupa Kontemporer Bali Melalui Karya Upadana dan Valasara

Journal of Urban Society s Arts ◽

10.24821/jousa.v1i1.788 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 57-73

Author(s):

I Gede Arya Sucitra

Keyword(s):

Contemporary Art ◽

Visual Art ◽

Art Criticism ◽

Modern Art ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Transformation Process ◽

The Media ◽

Media Creation ◽

The Aesthetic

Penelitian ini membahas estetika karya seni yang tergelar dalam pameran seni rupaSensuous Objects melalui pendekatan kritik seni rupa. Dua perupa asal Bali yangdikaji merupakan perupa yang berkembang pada era seni rupa kontemporer melaluipenciptaan karya melalui spirit lokalitas Bali dengan pendekatan postmodern.Karya yang dihasilkan transmedia dan dengan cita rasa lokal-global. Pendekatankritik seni melalui empat tahapan analisisnya serta tiga pertimbangan penilaian yangakan menempatkan materi tulisan ini untuk berbincang, berdialog dengan karyaseni serta senimannya, sehingga akan ditemukan terjadinya proses transformasiestetis meliputi tema, gaya, fungsi, makna, hingga konsep berkeseniannya. Kritikseni rupa modern pada dasarnya adalah perbincangan mengenai seni (rupa), “artcriticism talks about art”. Tujuan dari kritik seni adalah pemahaman (understanding),supaya orang memperoleh informasi dan pemahaman yang berkaitan dengan mutusuatu karya seni. Dengan demikian, melalui kritik seni ini pembacaan terhadapkarya dua perupa Bali ini akan menemukan muaranya pada pemaparan karakterkarya dan konsepsi seni yang dihasilkannya. Penulis mengklasifikasikan karya seniperupa Sensuous Objects ke dalam tiga struktur media penciptaan, yakni media duadimensional, tiga dimensional, dan seni instalasi. Berbicara tentang karya seni akantidak utuh jika tidak menyinggung ihwal yang menyangkut medium karena hanyalewat medium itulah, karya seni itu akan memperoleh wujudnya yang konkretlahiriah. Aesthetic Dialectics of Balinese Contemporary Arts through Upadana andValasara’s Artworks. This article examines the aesthetic reading of artworks in an artexhibition called “Sensuous Objects” using an art criticism approach. Two artists fromBali are examined as growing artists in the era of contemporary art through the creationof works in the spirit of locality with a postmodern approach in Bali. The resulting workis the trans-media and the local-global flavor. An approach to art criticism throughthe four stages of analysis and assessment of three considerations will put this writingmaterial in the context of conversation, dialogue with the artwork and the artist, so thereis an aesthetic transformation process including the theme, style, function, meaning, andthe concept of art. Critics of modern art basically talk about art (visual), “art criticismtalks about art”. The purpose of art criticism is to understand that people acquireinformation and understanding pertinent to the quality of artwork. Thus, throughthe reading of artworks, two Balinese artists find out the exposure to the character andconception of artworks produced. The author classifies the artwork of artists calledSensuous Objects into three structures of media creation such as the two-dimensionalmedia, three-dimensional media, and installation art. Speaking of the artwork will not be complete if it does not mention particulars related to the media because only throughthat medium, works of art will acquire its concrete-outward form.

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Replication of Internal Biological Surfaces

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100094802 ◽

1972 ◽

Vol 30 ◽

pp. 308-309

Author(s):

J. A. Nowell ◽

J. Pangborn ◽

W. S. Tyler

Keyword(s):

Da Vinci ◽

Leonardo Da Vinci ◽

Rat Lung ◽

Tubular Structures ◽

Cerebral Ventricles ◽

Internal Surfaces ◽

Biological Surfaces ◽

Dog Kidney ◽

Lung And Kidney ◽

Scanning Electron

Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century, used injection replica techniques to study internal surfaces of the cerebral ventricles. Developments in replicating media have made it possible for modern morphologists to examine injection replicas of lung and kidney with the scanning electron microscope (SEM). Deeply concave surfaces and interrelationships to tubular structures are difficult to examine with the SEM. Injection replicas convert concavities to convexities and tubes to rods, overcoming these difficulties.Batson's plastic was injected into the renal artery of a horse kidney. Latex was injected into the pulmonary artery and cementex in the trachea of a cat. Following polymerization the tissues were removed by digestion in concentrated HCl. Slices of dog kidney were aldehyde fixed by immersion. Rat lung was aldehyde fixed by perfusion via the trachea at 30 cm H2O. Pieces of tissue 10 x 10 x 2 mm were critical point dried using CO2. Selected areas of replicas and tissues were coated with silver and gold and examined with the SEM.

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