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Painting and visual information processing

Rong-Ding He • Rong-Qiao He

Published online: 3 December 2016

� Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016

Paintings are creative ways of touching human vision and

awaken certain feelings from the depths of the heart. In

terms of science, these deep feelings result from our visual

information processing. To achieve this effect, painters

intentionally or unintentionally follow the principles of

vision and psychology in which the brain network is

extremely complicated [1, 2]. In fact, a masterpiece

painting equals an excellent piece of visual art; that is to

say, an outstanding painter is a visual expert.

The surrealist Salvador Dalı́ was a skilled draftsman,

best known for the striking and bizarre images in his work.

His best-known work, Persistence of Memory, shows his

thoughts on indelible memory, with clocks deformed in a

surrealistic manner, which presents a challenge to the

visual science principle of visual invariance [3]. Visual

invariance is described as follows: objects can be rotated,

stretched, squeezed, or otherwise distorted and yet remain

recognizable to human vision (Fig. 1a). In Persistence of

Memory, Dali bends the clocks but we still recognize them

as clocks, and not as something else (Fig. 1b). However, if

he had gone beyond the limit of bending and instead folded

the clocks, we would not be able to identify them as clocks.

Thus, he is good at handling the deformation, conforming

to the visual invariance principle, and allowing us to

recognize the items for what they are, even when they

appear visually to be different. His surrealistic expressions

and deep thoughts are established with the appropriate

application of visual invariance.

Human vision comprises central and peripheral vision,

organized in a rhombic-like visual field [4]. Peripheral

vision is just as important as central vision although we

clearly see every object with our central vision (Fig. 1c)

[5]. As shown in Fig. 1d, peripheral vision can concave an

object at the nasal side [6]. The Portrait of Dora Maar

(Fig. 1e) painted by Pablo Picasso (1937) is one of the

world’s aesthetic masterpieces [7]. Picasso painted the

Portrait with thick lines, a clear-cut structure, and in bright

color, which allows us to perceive a vivid Dora. He gives

Dora an extended nose and cheek to compensate for the

concaved effect of peripheral vision, although the spatial

resolution is poor in the peripheral vision. With a master’s

talent, Picasso has painted a portrait on a 2D plane that

appears illusively full and has a 3D-like appearance in the

peripheral vision. This is evidence that peripheral vision

can result in the illusory perception of a normal object,

depending upon the structure of that visual object.

Wheatfield with Crows was painted in July 1890 in the

final weeks of van Gogh’s life. This masterpiece depicts a

dramatic, cloudy sky filled with crows over a wheat field.

The sense of isolation is heightened by a central path

leading nowhere and by the uncertain direction of the

crows’ flight. van Gogh painted the flying crows with thick

black lines (Fig. 2a), which makes them appear as if they

are really flying with their flapping wings.

To understand why the crows appear to be really flying,

we need to know the pathways that are projected from the

retinae to the visual cortex. The human visual system is

composed of three anatomically distinct parallel pathways

projecting from the magnocellular, parvocellular, and

Electronic supplementary material The online version of thisarticle (doi:10.1007/s11434-016-1210-z) contains supplementarymaterial, which is available to authorized users.

R.-D. He

Fine Art College, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, China

R.-Q. He (&)

State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute

of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101,

China

e-mail: herq@ibp.ac.cn

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Sci. Bull. (2016) 61(23):1775–1778 www.scibull.com

DOI 10.1007/s11434-016-1210-z www.springer.com/scp

koniocellular ganglion cells to the lateral geniculate

nucleus, and via these to the primary visual cortex V1. The

thick lines used by van Gogh to depict the crows at least

conformed to the phenomenon of lateral inhibition in visual

neurobiology [8]. Lateral inhibition is the capacity of an

excited neuron to reduce the activity of its neighbors,

which makes the darker area falsely appear even darker and

the lighter area falsely appear even lighter (Fig. 2b). This

effect creates a contrast in stimulation that allows increased

sensory perception. Magno cells with more myelin are

activated by achromatic low spatial frequencies, and have

high contrast sensitivity and temporal resolution with a

high conduction velocity (Table S1). The magnocellular

pathway is sensitive to movement and velocity. The thick

lines used by van Gogh to depict the flying crows stimulate

the magnocellular pathway and give the reader the per-

ception that the crows are flying over the wheat field.

In contrast, the painting Irises in Monet’s Garden by

Claude Monet shows the lush opulence of irises, shrubs,

overhanging trees, and patchwork light (Fig. 2c). He did

not use line drawing to depict the boundaries between the

flowers, trees, and other objects, but instead used a varie-

gated patchwork to obscure the boundaries. The magno-

cellular visual pathway is not sensitive to the irises without

boundaries. The lush opulence of the irises should stimu-

late the parvocellular pathway in which the cells are small

with less myelin, are color-opponent (so-called red/green)

[9], have low contrast sensitivity, are high spatial, have low

temporal resolution, and have low conduction velocity

[10]. The painting of the Irises gives us the impression that

Fig. 1 (Color online) Paintings by talented artists always conform to visual psychological principles. a Visual invariance. The three objects may

well be recognized as the same box with a hole in it, even though the visual shapes are different (from DCMs, http://changingminds.org). b In

Persistence of Memory painted by Salvador Dali in 1931 (from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), the clocks were strikingly deformed. The bent

clocks express the author’s surrealistic imagination on persistent memory. This painting skill challenges the visual invariance principle.

c Peripheral vision. The human visual field is composed of the central and peripheral fields [4]. Please observe the fixation point and perceive the

circle with the peripheral vision. d The peripheral vision perceives a circle as concave. e Dora Maar painted by Pablo Picasso in 1937 (from

Allposter.com, order#: 1001201666985). The portrait shows a normal, beautiful, vivid, and 3-dimensional-like Dora when anyone fixes his/her

eyes on the fixation point and perceives Dora face in the peripheral vision

1776 Sci. Bull. (2016) 61(23):1775–1778

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Monet’s garden is silent, relaxed, comfortable, and more

imaginative, at the moment when we observe the master-

piece. Furthermore, there is no horizon to our visual field

and this perpetuates the abiding impressionist ambition of

harmonizing the spatial depth and surface.

Different people may have different perceptions and

feelings when they observe these global masterpieces

because their understanding of these paintings is based on

different backgrounds [11], such as language, culture,

society, and history [12]. Each of the paintings has its own

specific style and stimulates the magno-, carvo-, or konio-

cellular pathway, or all three. Further perception to

understand the deeper meaning of a painting is not only

related with visual cortex but also the other cortexes. In

addition, health conditions also influence visual percep-

tion. Ahmadi et al. found that dyslexic subjects capacity

suffer from both magnocellular and parvocellular deficits

as well as partial impairment of the koniocellular pathway.

Neurodegenerations including Alzheimer’s [13] and

Parkinson’s disease [14] may be associated with deficits in

brain function [15]. In any case, it is imperative to

understand and follow the visual and psychological prin-

ciples in painting. Otherwise, it is difficult for the painting

to elicit a response from the deep mind of the audience.

Fig. 2 Different painting skills stimulate different visual information processing pathways. a Wheatfield with Crows (van Gogh, 1890, from

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). He used thick black lines to paint the crows, which look like living crows flying over the wheat field. b Lateral

inhibition. This makes the darker area falsely appear even darker and the lighter area falsely appear even lighter, along the boundary between

adjacent shades of grey in the Mach band illusion. In Wheatfield with Crows, the thick black lines stimulate the magnocellular pathway, to create

a perception of crows flying. This moving effect is at least related with lateral inhibition. c Irises in Monet’s Garden painted by Claude Monet in

1890 (from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) is in a different style from that of Wheatfield with Crows. There is a variegated patchwork, but no

rims with dark lines between the flowers and trees. This painting style can stimulate the parvocellular visual pathway and awaken feelings of

silence, relaxation, comfort, and thoughtfulness in its viewers. d Facing the variegated patchwork, a person could not perceive the imaging of the

Mach band. This is why the flowers and trees in Irises in Monet’s Garden look silent and motionless. The three anatomically distinct parallel

pathways projecting from the magnocellular, parvocellular, and koniocellular ganglion cells to the lateral geniculate nucleus, and through there to

the primary visual cortex V1. These sub-systems have distinct structural and spatiotemporal characteristics

Sci. Bull. (2016) 61(23):1775–1778 1777

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Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of

interest.

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