Psychology and Philosophy of Abstract Art: Neuro-aesthetics, Perception and Comprehension

164 Pages·2016·2.14 MB·English

by  Paul M.W. Hackett (auth.)

PSYCHOLOGY AND
PHILOSOPHY OF
ABSTRACT ART
Neuro-aesthetics,
Perception and
Comprehension
Paul M.W. Hackett
Psychology and Philosophy of Abstract Art

Paul   M.W.   H ackett
Psychology and
Philosophy of
Abstract Art
Neuro-aesthetics, Perception and Comprehension
Paul   M.W.   Hackett
Emerson College
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
ISBN 978-1-137-48331-7 ISBN 978-1-137-48332-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48332-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016941188
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I dedicate this book about perceiving abstraction to Spike Milligan and
posthumously thank him not only for his humour, but also the rational
insight he provided. He was often thought mad, including by himself
perhaps. Milligan possessed a perception of the world that was complex
with intricate and convoluted turns. Our injudiciousness blinds us from
appreciating the rationality of his responses of despair: all else is illusion.

P
REFACE
In Fine Art and Perceptual Neuroscience (Hackett, 2013), I fi rst proposed
that the facet theory and mapping sentence approach could be used to
investigate artistic understanding, and the appreciation and creation of art.
In later writing, I more generally suggested that a philosophical apprecia-
tion of the mereological and ontological structure of fi ne art is created
when using mapping sentences embodied in a facet theoretical rubric.
Whilst penning my earlier books two major strands of writing came to the
fore. This present book deals with these strands that may be summarized
as: t he conception of a complex space within which abstract two-dimensional
visual art exists and the necessarily simultaneously fragmented and unifi ed
notions of the perception of these artworks. Moreover, this present text will
question what it is to perceive an abstract artwork as a total piece of art
and also what, if any, are the components that comprise this? 1 The schol-
arship I present in this book further develops the use of qualitative and
philosophical mapping sentence enquiries to explore more deeply the per-
ceptual neuroscience/psychology as this relates to fi ne art.
PERCEIVING AND UNDERSTANDING
Perception is the process through which we gather experiential informa-
tion about both the internal condition of our bodies and the world exter-
nal to us. Perception is also an action, a process in which we engage.
Perception allows us to understand our existence through gathering data
from our senses and using this information in a format, which makes
sense to us. Perception has a cardinal position in our daily lives and in an
vii
viii PREFACE
attempt to clarify the process of human perception, I introduce readers of
this book to selected philosophical theories that have been employed and
reported in the literature. I then go on to use and focus these theories to
address the act of perceiving and understandings abstract fi ne art.
As well as philosophical explanations, there have been many attempts to
better understand the general process of visual perception that has origi-
nated from scholars working within psychology, neuroscience and other
disciplines. In order to set the scene for the research, I present in this essay
a review of a selection of research from appropriate disciplines. I hope the
examples of scholarship that I chose as illustrative are able to offer the
reader a broad and suffi cient understanding of visual perception and its
contemporary theories. However, within a book that is as brief as this, the
literature I have chosen is by necessity partial and will inevitably refl ect
my own specifi c requirements and will support my point of view. With
the above caveats stated I commence with a presentation of the origins
of perceptual understanding in a review of Aristotle’s writing on this sub-
ject. In addition to his writing on perception being seminal and erudite,
Aristotle’s theories continue to attract scholarly work that argues for the
utility and perhaps veracity of his claims within a contemporary context.
To illuminate such present-day scholarship I will offer the thoughts of
Anna Marmodoro (2014) and her exposition of the Aristotelian approach
to the perception of objects.
ABSTRACT ART
Rather than simply being concerned with the general process of visual
perception, I will specifi cally address the perception of abstract fi ne art.
I commence this book by making the assertion that to varying extents
the perception and understanding of all works of art require some degree
of conscious awareness on the part of the person experiencing the work.
I believe awareness of fi ne art is necessarily a relatively time-protracted
process as brief exposure to a visual stimulus, no matter how aesthetically
attractive, I claim, seems diffi cult to conceive of under usual understand-
ings of art experiences. It would also seem to me that different works
of art are experienced in different ways and that problems may exist in
attempting to fi nd a common “art experience”: an art experience that
transcends art genres, media, sensory modality and so on.
As a consequence of the potential diffi culties that appear to exist in try-
ing to identify possible experiential commonalities across different forms
PREFACE ix
of art, in this essay I will place boundaries around my consideration of
perception to include just art-related visual sensations. Therefore, I defi ne
the object of perceptual interest in my writing as being two-dimensional
drawings, paintings and so on, and I further limit the art genre to abstract
art. By restricting my outlook to this single form of fi ne art, I am breaking
off a tiny fragment from the enormous corpus of possible artworks and
limiting the scope of this writing to a tiny art particular. Even with this
restriction of purview, it is diffi cult to imagine that when we perceive and
experience abstract two-dimensional fi ne artworks, such as paintings and
drawings, this process is straightforward, trouble-free or undemanding.
Therefore, in order to remove any unnecessary ambiguity, in the initial
chapter of this book I clarify the subject matter of my writing by defi ning
the abstract two-dimensional artworks that constitute the focus of interest
as being from approximately the last 115 years. It is my hope that by the
time readers have completed this initial chapter they will have developed a
rudimentary awareness of abstract two-dimensional art.
PERCEIVING AND UNDERSTANDING TWO-DIMENSIONAL
ABSTRACT ART
However, my concern is not solely with reviewing the nature of abstract
fi ne art as a static veridical object or event, rather my interest is in these
forms of artwork as they are actively perceived and experienced. Therefore,
as I have already alluded, as this book progresses, theories of perception
from psychology, philosophy and so on will be applied to the perception
of abstract fi ne art. In addition to these theoretical perspectives, I will also
forward the idea that categories may be used to form a basis for under-
standing perception and I therefore briefl y review categorial systems,
ontologies and mereologies. I also introduce psychological constructs, as
these may help in our understanding of the process of meaningful percep-
tion as opposed to the simple registration of sensation. In reviewing qua-
lia I consider the theoretical understanding and underpinnings of qualia
drawing upon contemporary scholarly writing. I will also look briefl y at
criticisms of qualia by, for instance, John Searle who has deprecated the
need for and use of any intermediary construct, 2 such as a quale, to illumi-
nate perceptual understanding.
The contemporary scholarship of Paul Crowther (especially that to be
found on the categories of art experience from his 2007 book) e mbodies