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Review
. 2007 Aug;17(4):476-82.
doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2007.07.010. Epub 2007 Sep 11.

Perspectives on science and art

Bevil R Conway  1 , Margaret S Livingstone
Affiliations
Review

Perspectives on science and art

Bevil R Conway et al. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2007 Aug.

Abstract

Artists try to understand how we see, sometimes explicitly exploring rules of perspective or color, visual illusions, or iconography, and conversely, scientists who study vision sometimes address the perceptual questions and discoveries raised by the works of art, as we do here.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The Annunciation (1311) by Duccio in daylight (top) and candlelight (middle). Bottom shows fixation regions in daylight (green) and candlelight (red). From reference [4].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Portrait of a Woman (1895) by Raja Ravi Varma. Bottom panels quantify the eye-centering (top) and bi-modal head distribution (bottom) in 600 years of portraits. Bottom panels from references [5•,7].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Several portraits by Picasso (right), and photographs of each subject (left): From top: Jacqueline Picasso (1957), Jacqueline Picasso (1955), Marie-Thérèse Walter (1936), Françiose Gilot (1946), Emilie Marguerite Walter (1939), Ambroise Vollard (1910), and Wilhlm Uhde (1910).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Still Life with Commode (1887–1888) by Paul Cezanne.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Chair Jardin de Luxembourg (1985) by David Hockney.
Figure 6
Figure 6
(Left) Colliding shadows in Lorenzo di Credi’s Annunciation (1480–1485). (Right) Impossible reflection in Vermeer’s Young woman with a water jug (ca. 1662).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Emoticons. Who cannot determine the expressions even though there are no noses, foreheads, and the resolution is low?
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Hubel DH. In: Forward in Vision and Art, the Biology of Seeing. Livingstone M, editor. Abrams Press; 2002.
    1. Yarbus AL. Eye Movements and Vision. New York: Plenum Press; 1967.
    1. Reinagel P, Zador AM. Natural scene statistics at the centre of gaze. Network. 1999;10:341–350. - PubMed
    1. Leonards U, Baddeley R, Gilchrist ID, Troscianko T, Ledda P, Williamson B. Mediaeval artists: masters in directing the observers’ gaze. Curr Biol. 2007;17:R8–R9. - PubMed

    1. Tyler CW. Painters centre one eye in portraits. Nature. 1998;392:877.. This study identifies the pervasive tendency of artists to center one eye along the horizontal axis of a portrait.