10 Quotes by Eric R. Kandel

Vertical and horizontal lines represented for Mondrian the two opposing life forces: the positive and the negative, the dynamic and the static, the masculine and the feminine. This.

The discovery by Hubel and Wiesel of cells that respond to linear stimuli with specific axes of orientation may partly explain our response to Mondrian’s work, but it does not explain the artist’s focus on horizontal and vertical lines to the exclusion of oblique lines. Vertical.

When memory is disrupted, these essential mental faculties suffer. Thus, memory is the glue that holds our mental life together. Without its unifying force, our consciousness would be broken into as many fragments as there are seconds in the day.

Art is an institution to which we turn when we want to feel a shock of surprise. We feel this want because we sense that it is good for us once in a while to receive a healthy jolt. Otherwise we would so easily get stuck in a rut and could no longer adapt to the new demands that life is apt to make on us. The biological function of art, in other words, is that of a rehearsal, a training in mental gymnastics which increases our tolerance of the unexpected.

One of the great artists of this period, Barnett Newman, wrote about his response and that of his fellow artists: “We are freeing ourselves of the impediments of memory, association, nostalgia, legend, myth, or what have you, that have been devices of Western European painting.” In their attempt to.

How can two mutually exclusive behaviors – mating and fighting – be mediated by the same population of neurons? Anderson found that the difference hinges on the intensity of the stimulus applied. Weak sensory stimulation, such as foreplay, activates mating, whereas stronger stimulation, such as danger, activates aggression. In 1952 Meyer Schapiro paid.

This reductionist vision is reflected in the evolution of his work. Perhaps Mondrian also implicitly realized that by excluding certain angles and focusing only on others he might pique the beholder’s curiosity and imagination about the omissions.

Emotions – sexuality, aggression, pleasure, fear, and pain – are instinctive processes. They color our lives and help us confront the fundamental challenges of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. We.

In the process, he came to understand a crucial principle of brain function: our brain takes the incomplete information about the outside world that it receives from our eyes and makes it complete.