Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

In quest of the science of art

— Photo: S. Mahinsha

State’s honour: Education Minister M.A. Baby presenting a memento to V.S. Ramachandran, world-renowned neuroscientist, in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday. V. Sashi Kumar, mediaperson, looks on.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: At which precise point does science meet art in the human consciousness? How do some people see colours when they hear certain sounds or are shown black and white letters or numbers strewn all over a page? What was the great sculptor who made the 11th Century Nataraja “performing the dance of the cosmos” within a divine circle trying to convey?

To ordinary mortals, these and umpteen other questions relating to the human brain and human response to artistic creation may seem difficult to answer, but not for V.S. Ramachandran, world-renowned neuroscientist.

For 57-year-old Dr. Ramachandran, described by Richard Dawkins as the “Marco Polo of Neuroscience,” the human brain is an unexplored frontier which has much to reveal about the way humans respond to works of art and makes connections between seemingly unrelated aspects of phenomena to arrive at new meanings. To journey with him on his exploratory voyages into the mysteries of the brain is to experience the thrill of being at the perilous intersection of science and art.

“The point of art is not realism. It is deliberate exaggeration, distortion and hyperbole and the human mind responds to this exaggeration through different processes in the limbic system,” Dr. Ramachandran told an invited audience at the AKG Centre here on Tuesday while delivering a lecture on “Neuro-aesthetics and art appreciation” organised jointly by the Department of Culture and the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi.

Present to hear him were Education and Culture Minister M.A. Baby; Sashi Kumar, noted mediaperson; akademi chairman ‘Bharat’ Murali; leading neurologists and neurosurgeons; academics; and students.

The figurines made by the artists of Mohenjo-Daro were realistic. But what the artists who made the Chola bronzes were attempting at was exaggeration.

The same was what Picasso tried to do with his distorted images.

What each of them tried to convey, he explained, was the “rasa” (the essence or the soul) of different things in different contexts.

Art, according to Dr. Ramachandran, is also metaphoric expression of ideas.

The 11th Century bronze of Siva as the cosmic dancer epitomises the attempt of the artist to bring together two seemingly antithetical elements of creation and destruction to throw up the sense of ultimate balance and tranquillity.

The possibilities of exaggeration are most evident in the Chola bronzes which were made through the process of exaggeration where exaggerated forms of Parvati and other gods and goddesses were arrived at by adding the average female and male forms, subtracting the required form from it and exaggerating the image thus arrived at.

Caricatures too are examples of exaggeration. To do a caricature of Richard Nixon, the average of all faces should be put together, Nixon’s face subtracted from it and exaggerated.

“This way you will get the ‘Republican rasa,’ but if you overdo it, it will become a comic image,” Dr. Ramachandran, who is Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, U.S., said.

Dr. Ramachandran’s lecture was divided into two parts.

The first was on neuroscience and dealt with the condition known as “phantom limb” experienced by people whose arms and legs are amputated and the phenomenon of Synaesthesia, the condition in which certain people see colour when they hear sounds or see numbers or letters in black and white which, Dr. Ramachandran says, can also reveal much about how humans appreciate art.

The second part was on art and how the brain responds to art, very much an attempt to develop a science of art.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

New DDG of NCC Directorate
LSGIs told to monitor amenities
Meeting convened
GO lowers role of entrance test in PG medical admissions
In quest of the science of art
Railway division earnings up
KSEB-Corporation row puts streetlights to sleep
Teachers’ meet to focus on academic standards
Thiruvananthapuram today

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu