Reductionism in Art and Brain Science

By examining the perception of art as an interpretation of sensory experience, scientific analysis can, in principle, describe how the brain perceives and responds to a work of art, and give us insights into how this experience transcends our everyday perception of the world around us.

Thus, while Turner explores the boundaries of our visual perception, he does so to engage us more fully with his art, not to explain the mechanisms underlying visual perception.

scientists use reductionism to solve a complex problem and artists use it to elicit a new perceptual and emotional response in the beholder

A reductionist approach even has the capacity to bring forth in the beholder a spiritual response to the art.

By reducing figuration, artists enable us to perceive an essential component of a work in isolation, be it form, line, color, or light. The isolated component stimulates aspects of our imagination in ways that a complex image might not. We perceive unexpected relationships in the work, as well as, perhaps, new connections between art and our perception of the world and new connections

Understanding discrete levels of meaning then paves the way for exploration of broader questions—how these levels are organized and integrated to orchestrate a higher function.

They explored the nature of visual representation by reducing images to their essential elements of form, line, color, or light.

Both brain science and abstract art address, in direct and compelling fashion, questions and goals that are central to humanistic thought.