Modern Art and Modern Science: A Parallel Analysis of Vision by Paul C. Vitz and Arnold B. Glimcher (review)

REFERENCES Avery, O. T.; MacLeod, C; and McCarty, ?. Studies on the chemical nature of the substance inducing transformation of pneumococcal types: induction oftransformation by a deoxyribonucleic acid fraction isolated from pneumococcus type 111. J. Exp. Med. 79:137-158, 1944. Hershey, ?., and Chase, M. Independent functions of viral protein and nucleic acid in growth of bacteriophage. /. Gen. Physiol. 36:39-56, 1952. Bernard S. Strauss Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology University of Chicago Modern Art and Modern Science: A Parallel Analysis of Vision. By Paul C. Vitz and Arnold B. Glimcher. New York: Praeger, 1984. Pp. 368. $35.00. Art imitates science—and vice versa! Such is the essential message of this fascinating book. More specifically, Glimcher (the art historian/critic) and Vitz (the psychologist of the team) show in detail how intricately interconnected and mutually influential have been the scientific and artistic studies of visual processes since the 1850s. Their attractive softcover book is effectively illustrated by about 320 figures (17 in color) and supplemented with more than 50 pages of notes, 400 references, and an index of about 600 items. According to the authors, visual art and science changed drastically when "reductionist synthetic" approaches superseded the "hierarchical-synthetic" philosophies of the previous centuries. They picture this change to have commenced with what they call the "Rood-Helmholtz insight"—that is, that a landscape , etc., appears "flatter and more vivid when examined from an abnormal viewpoint." An excellent chapter on Manet—focusing extensively on his nude, Olympia— shows this flattening of the picture plane (which they also claim was suggested by the newly invented daguerreotype). They then show Monet's innovative use of color to be rooted in Chevreul's color theories. Both trends underlie the works of Seurat and the other pointillists (who used blends ofcolor dots that are "optically mixed," as in a television image). As the stereoscope (invented by Wheatstone in 1838 and a staple in every Victorian parlor) and the early movie experiments of Muybridge and Marey became known, they too affected painting. The authors, for example, interpret the two distinct aspects (front and back) of the barmaid in Manet's Bar at the Folies-Bergère as being analogous to the two views of a stereophoto. And Duchamp's famous Nude Descending a Staircase or Balla's Dynamics of a Dog on a Leash are compared to photographers' "multiple exposures." Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, and many, many others were also inspired by these new ways of seeing. Vitz and Glimcher claim that these artists, like their scientific colleagues, were breaking "space up into more and more viewpoints" and "time into more and more discrete underlying parts." They also show progressive increases in the level of abstraction in both visual arts and the "perception" sciences, continuing right up to recent times. The Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 29, 3, Part 1 ¦ Spring 1986 \ 48 1 figure-ground problem and perceptual ambiguity, for example, were explored, commencing with such well-known images as psychologist Rubin's facial-profile/ chalice paradox (used unchanged as recently as 1972 in Jasper Johns's homage called "Cup 4 Picasso"). Ambiguous figures are found again and again in Arp, Matisse (especially in his cutouts), Miró, Dali, Escher, Picasso, the cubists, and many more. Primarily by way of the ideas of Erhenfels and Wertheimer, gestalt psychology extensively affected the "form quality" of modern art, that is, the way in which objects were selected and presented. Gestalt impact on Kandinsky, Picasso, Klee, and others is extensively documented. (Indeed, in appreciating the straight line as a fundamental visual unit, Mondrian, Kandinsky, and others "were in advance of the scientists"). Seurat's use of line orientation, the gridlike paintings of Mondrian, and the work of minimalist artist Kasimir Malevich (Black Square, White on White, etc.) are all interpreted to be part of the trend toward nonobjectivism and abstraction that paralleled the trend toward more abstract science. In keeping with that trend—and with increased interest in perceptional experimentation in psychology—contemporary art has continued to find and supply ideas in science. Artists such as Vasarely, Bridgit Riley, Ellsworth Kelly, and Robert Irwin explore "the point, the line and the plane" and the limits...