Reductionism in art and brain science : bridging the two cultures / Eric R. Kandel.

Includes bibliographies and index.

Introduction. The emergence of a reductionist school of abstract art in New York -- The Beginning of a Scientific Approach to Art -- The Biology of the Beholder's Share: Visual Perception and Bottom-Up Processing in Art -- The Biology of Learning and Memory: Top-Down Processing in Art -- A Reductionist Approach to Art. Reductionism in the Emergence of Abstract Art -- Mondrian and the Radical Reduction of the Figurative Image -- The New York School of Painters -- How the Brain Processes and Perceives Abstract Images -- From Figuration to Color Abstraction -- Color and the Brain -- A Focus on Light -- A Reductionist Influence on Figuration -- The Emerging Dialogue Between Abstract Art and Science. Why Is Reductionism Successful in Art? -- A Return to the Two Cultures.

Can science and art find common ground? Are scientific and artistic quests mutually exclusive? In this new book, neuroscientist Eric Kandel, whose interests span the fields of science and art, explores how reductionism-the distillation of larger scientific or aesthetic concepts into smaller, more tractable ideas-has been used by scientists and artists alike to pursue their respective truths. Their common use of reductionist strategies demonstrates how science can inform the way we experience a work of art and seek to understand its meaning. Kandel draws on his Nobel Prize-winning work studying the neurobiological underpinnings of learning and memory in the humble sea slug, whose simple brain helps illuminate the complex workings of higher animal minds. He extends these findings to the complexities of human perception, which uses bottom-up sensory and top-down cognitive functions to perceive the world and to appreciate and understand works of art. At the heart of this book is an elegant elucidation of the pivotal contribution of reductionism to modern art's extraordinary evolution and to its role in a monumental shift in artistic perspective.

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