The Psychology
of Art and the Evolution of the Conscious
Brain
by Robert L. Solso
The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003
294 pp., illus. 114 b/w, 24 col. Trade,
$45.00
ISBN: 0-262-19484-8.
Reviewed by Robert Pepperell
pepperell@ntlworld.com
There has been a recent spate of titles
in which eminent scientists of one sort
or another have applied theories from
their own field to the analysis of art
(several have been reviewed in Leonardo).
The art in question is almost invariably
painting, from the period prior to the
second half of the last century, and mainly
drawn from the corpus of the major European
museums. So we tend to get neurological
accounts of Van Gogh or cognitive accounts
of Manet, and the like. To be fair to
Robert Solso, The Psychology of Art
does consider several examples of artefacts
from Africa and Asia alongside those from
Europe and America, but otherwise it follows
in much the same vein as others. It offers
a "cognitive neuroscience account of aesthetics"
based on a conventional evolutionary theory
of mind (along the lines of our
perceptual systems evolved to find ripe
berries and avoid tigers) whilst
efficiently summarising the current state
of knowledge on perception, dealing with
things like visual processing, cognition,
and illusion. All this is illustrated
with frequent (although not always necessary)
references to well-known paintings.
Solsos major theoretical contribution
in the book is what he calls AWAREness,
or "the five facets of consciousness".
These include attention, wakefulness,
architecture (the neural structures underpinning
consciousness), recall, emotions plus
several others that combine to form a
working definition of consciousness as
"a state of attentional wakefulness in
which one is immediately aware of his
subjective sensations" (p. 27). His aim
is to arrive at an objective scientific
account of what is an essentially subjective
experience by attempting to "reduce the
variance in defining the subjective experience
we call consciousness". Variance
is a technical term from psychology referring
to that which is controlled or minimized
in experiments and is used here in order
to create "an objective science of art"
(p. 27). The notion of variance thus presented
seems crucial to the methodology of Solsos
project, and yet we are given little by
way of further explanation; there are
brief mentions (such as on p. 128) but
no reference in the index, where the inquisitive
reader would naturally look.
Much of the book is spent outlining a
range of topics that gives empirical insights
into the way we see and think, including
neuroanatomy, the visual system, perceptual
illusions, and evolutionary biology. But
while there is plenty of anatomical and
empirical data to help us understand the
primary processes of sight and perception,
"the neurological trail goes cold", as
Solso puts it, when we get to the bit
that seems to matterconscious experience
itself. In order then to explain phenomena
like aesthetic experience we are reduced
to making "intelligent inferences" based
largely on the principles of evolutionary
necessity (survival and reproduction)
out of which the basic attributes of consciousness
and aesthetic sensitivity somehow emerge.
So, for example, our brute, primal reactions
to objects of attraction like the smell
of roses were initially tied to survival
needs but later acquire "secondary valences"
such that "things become beautiful,
not just pleasing. Food became
delicious more than simply
consumable" (p. 255). Whether this forms
the basis of an "objective science of
art", or is just informed speculation,
I found it hard to judge.
As I was reviewing The Psychology of
Art, I met an undergraduate art student
who, by chance, was also reading the book.
She had found it useful for its clear
and well-illustrated presentation of topics
and data from the contemporary psychology
of perception. It is less useful, I feel,
as a contribution to our theoretical understanding
of art or its relationship to mind. Of
the 100 or so bibliographic references
in the book, only around 10 were specifically
on art, and several of these were general
histories. What this fact reveals is a
lack of depth and complexity in the authors
appreciation of this aspect of his topic.
There are moments where the book misleads
(Léger is described as an "overtly
abstract" artist on p. 250), where the
level of argument is reduced to truism
("Without light there would be no art,
but without an eye to register the light
there would still be no art" on p. 82),
or where the conclusions are simply banal
("Faces have dominated art, especially
Western art" on p. 132).
Naivety and banality are scarcely forgivable
in a book purporting an academic study
of art but perhaps understandable when
the author is working well outside his
field. What is less understandable, however,
is the perpetuation of gross errors that
have a bearing on the field in which the
author has some specialist knowledge,
namely the psychology of visual perception.
For it has long been recognised that flat
representations are quite unlike the real
objects they represent, which is why we
never mistake a photograph for what it
depicts. Yet Solso asserts the most naïve
view of representation when he says:
"All art is representational . . . at
least partly. In the case of realist
art, as in illustrations by Norman Rockwell,
a depicted object is made nearly identical
with what the eye senses. Here a pumpkin
looks like a pumpkin, a man like a man,
a woman like a woman." (p. 248)
"What! Small, square and flat?" as Picasso
is reputed to have jibed when a stranger
asked him why he didnt paint women
as they really were and produced a photograph
of his wife for reference. Solso evidently
has a soft spot for Rockwell, whose brand
of realism he nevertheless
recognises as "somehow slightly idealised",
which to judge by the two examples he
presents is an understatement. The first
is a mawkish and highly contrived assemblage
of "faces of people from around the world",
entitled Do unto Others (1961),
and the second a G.I. homecoming scene
featuring a serviceman peeling potatoes
with his doting "Mom", entitled Thanksgiving
(1945). (Solso chides art critics for
not treating such works as serious
art). The level of discussion here
descends from the naïve to the credulous,
as the author abandons any semblance of
scientific analysis or critical awareness:
"This is Rockwell at his best. He shows
people as they like to be seen and as
we like to see them" (p. 249).
Given his irony-free enthusiasm for superficial
Americana, it is no surprise that Solso
is uncomfortable in the presence of contemporary
art and criticism. His distaste for Lucien
Freuds portrait of the Queen is
telling; "How could such a picture be
produced by such a talented artist?" (p.
158). So, despite its pretensions to universality,
The Psychology of Art contains
little to no analysis of recent art, with
the exception perhaps of Humphrey Ocean,
the rather conventional portraitist whose
head Solso scanned in a recent highly
publicised experiment to determine which
parts of the artists brain lit up
when he drew. What we are left with is
a book that is useful in part for its
accessible presentation of certain scientific
ideas (although it is not the best of
its kind) but that fails to carry any
convincing thesis about the nature of
art or our appreciation of it.