Reductionism in Art and Brain Science
Reductionism in Art and Brain Science

Author: Eric R. Kandel

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2016-08-30

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 0231542089

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Are art and science separated by an unbridgeable divide? Can they find common ground? In this new book, neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel, whose remarkable scientific career and deep interest in art give him a unique perspective, demonstrates how science can inform the way we experience a work of art and seek to understand its meaning. Kandel illustrates how reductionism—the distillation of larger scientific or aesthetic concepts into smaller, more tractable components—has been used by scientists and artists alike to pursue their respective truths. He draws on his Nobel Prize-winning work revealing the neurobiological underpinnings of learning and memory in sea slugs to shed light on the complex workings of the mental processes of higher animals. In Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Kandel shows how this radically reductionist approach, applied to the most complex puzzle of our time—the brain—has been employed by modern artists who distill their subjective world into color, form, and light. Kandel demonstrates through bottom-up sensory and top-down cognitive functions how science can explore the complexities of human perception and help us to perceive, appreciate, and understand great works of art. At the heart of the book is an elegant elucidation of the contribution of reductionism to the evolution of modern art and its role in a monumental shift in artistic perspective. Reductionism steered the transition from figurative art to the first explorations of abstract art reflected in the works of Turner, Monet, Kandinsky, Schoenberg, and Mondrian. Kandel explains how, in the postwar era, Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Louis, Turrell, and Flavin used a reductionist approach to arrive at their abstract expressionism and how Katz, Warhol, Close, and Sandback built upon the advances of the New York School to reimagine figurative and minimal art. Featuring captivating drawings of the brain alongside full-color reproductions of modern art masterpieces, this book draws out the common concerns of science and art and how they illuminate each other.

Science is Fiction
Science is Fiction

Author: Andy Masaki Bellows

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9780262523189

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Essays examining the work of maverick scientific documentary filmmaker Jean Painleve.

Licentious Gotham
Licentious Gotham

Author: Donna Dennis

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-07-31

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 9780674053731

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Licentious Gotham, set in the streets, news depots, publishing houses, grand jury chambers, and courtrooms of the nation's great metropolis, delves into the stories of the enterprising men and women who created a thriving transcontinental market for sexually arousing books and pictures. The experiences of fancy publishers, flash editors, and racy novelists, who all managed to pursue their trade in the face of laws criminalizing obscene publications, dramatically convey nineteenth-century America's daring notions of sex, gender, and desire, as well as the frequently counterproductive results of attempts to enforce conventional moral standards. In nineteenth-century New York, the business of erotic publishing and legal attacks on obscenity developed in tandem, with each activity shaping and even promoting the pursuit of the other. Obscenity prohibitions, rather than curbing salacious publications, inspired innovative new styles of forbidden literature--such as works highlighting expressions of passion and pleasure by middle-class American women. Obscenity prosecutions also spurred purveyors of lewd materials to devise novel schemes to evade local censorship by advertising and distributing their products through the mail. This subterfuge in turn triggered far-reaching transformations in strategies for policing obscenity. Donna Dennis offers a colorful, groundbreaking account of the birth of an indecent print trade and the origins of obscenity regulation in the United States. By revealing the paradoxes that characterized early efforts to suppress sexual expression in the name of morality, she suggests relevant lessons for our own day.

Georgia O’Keeffe, A Private Friendship, Part II
Georgia O’Keeffe, A Private Friendship, Part II

Author: Nancy Hopkins Reily

Publisher: Sunstone Press

Published: 2014-12-01

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13: 1632930439

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The time is 1946. From Georgia O’Keeffe’s old hacienda sitting on a bluff in Abiquiu, New Mexico, she could see my aunt and uncle, Helen and Winfield Morten’s property across the Chama River. Georgia had begun the restoration of her property. The Mortens, in the final stages of purchasing land along the Chama River, had recently completed their restoration of another old hacienda they called Rancho de Abiquiu. As one of few Anglos in the Chama River valley, Georgia ventured over to Rancho de Abiquiu to introduce herself and a private friendship resulted with the Mortens and their family. In this close family circle, Georgia revealed herself and proved that beneath her bare face there was more to her than just an artist of legendary proportions. Nancy Hopkins Reily spent many of her childhood days walking the Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch land. She explored the canyons, the White Place, Echo Amphitheater, the mountains, and the Chama River by walking the trails worn by earlier moccasined feet. In a seamless, clear, and straightforward narrative of excerpts from their lives, Reily presents Georgia in a time-window of her age. The book features Reily’s youthful experiences, letters from Georgia, glimpses of the family’s memorabilia and photographic snapshots—all gracefully woven into the forces of the contemporaneous scene that shaped their friendship. In addition, there are insights into the land’s beauty, times, culture, history and the people who surrounded Georgia, as well as many minute details that should be remembered and which are often overlooked by others when they speak of Georgia O’Keeffe.