The Enchanted Gaze: Modification of Butterfly Eyespots in Flemish Art
In: Art & PerceptionZEN lab, Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via Madonna del Piano 6, 50019 Florence, Italy
Search for other papers by Giulia Simbula in
Current site
Google Scholar
Search for other papers by Vincenzo Zingaro in
Current site
Google Scholar
Search for other papers by Mariagrazia Portera in
Current site
Google Scholar
Search for other papers by Leonardo Dapporto in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
As shown by Palaeolithic cave paintings, animals were the first subjects that humans began to depict and recall in their imagination, not solely for their utilitarian function. Some animals, due to distinctive morphological features, appear to have captured our ancestors’ attention in a special way. This is the case of animals with eye-like patterns, which have been reproduced in multiple ways and contexts throughout human history. This paper examines how Flemish artists have depicted a particular example of eye-like patterns, the eyespots on the wings of Aglais io butterflies, to understand whether these artists attributed any particular relevance to the eyespots. Modifications were identified by comparing 51 images of A. io specimens with 50 depicted ones by means of geometric morphometric using 34 landmarks and 12 semi-landmarks. Generally, eyespots resulted to be located towards the interior of the wing, enabling us to discriminate 92% of depicted A. io from real images. This tendency is in line with the observer centre bias but, in this case, applied to the production of pictorial images rather than to their visual fruition, and which might be called ‘a shifting location bias’. Moreover, the eyespots’ size was depicted with accuracy and minimal variation among painters, while the outline of the wings appeared to be subject to considerable artistic freedom. Overall, these findings highlight the importance attributed by the artists to the eyespots, sustaining the hypothesis concerning the salience of this feature in attracting human attention.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Adams, D., Collyer, M., Kaliontzopoulou, A. and Baken, E. (2022). Geomorph: Software for Geometric Morphometric Analyses, R package version 4.0.4. https://cran.r-project.org/package=geomorph.
-
Beldade, P. and Monteiro, A. (2021). Eco-evo–devo advances with butterfly eyespots, Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 69, 6–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gde.2020.12.011.
-
Bookstein, F. L. (1997). Landmark methods for forms without landmarks: morphometrics of group differences in outline shape, Med. Image Anal. 1, 225–243. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1361-8415(97)85012-8.
-
Boswijk, V. and Coler, M. (2020). What is salience? Open Linguist. 6, 713–722. https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2020-0042.
-
Breuker, C. J., Gibbs, M., Van Dyck, H., Brakefield, P. M., Klingenberg, C. P. and Van Dongen, S. (2007). Integration of wings and their eyespots in the speckled wood butterfly Pararge aegeria, J. Exp. Zool. B Mol. Dev. Evol. 308B, 454–463. https://doi.org/10.1002/jez.b.21171.
-
Breuker, C. J., Gibbs, M., Van Dongen, S., Merckx, T. and Van Dyck, H. (2010). The Use of Geometric Morphometrics in Studying Butterfly Wings in an Evolutionary Ecological Context, in Morphometrics for Nonmorphometricians, A. M. T. Elewa (Ed.), pp. 271–287, Springer, Berlin, Germany. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-95853-6_12.
-
Costa, M. F. and Soares, J. C. (2015). Free as a butterfly: symbology and palliative care. Rev. Bras. Geriatr. Gerontol. 18, 631–641. https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-9823.2015.14236.
-
Cunningham, M. R. (1986). Measuring the physical in physical attractiveness: Quasi-experiments on the sociobiology of female facial beauty, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 50, 925–935. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.50.5.925.
-
Dakin, R. and Montgomerie, R. (2011). Peahens prefer peacocks displaying more eyespots, but rarely, Anim. Behav., 82, 21–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.03.016.
-
Davies, S. (2012). The Artful Species: Aesthetics, Art, and Evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom.
-
Dissanayake, E. (2003). The core of art — making special, J. Can. Assoc. Curric. Stud. 1, 13–38.
-
Dutton, D. (2009). The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom.
-
Geneste, J.-M. (2017). From Chauvet to Lascaux: 15,000 years of cave art, Archaeol. Ethnol. Anthropol. Eurasia 45, 29–40. https://doi.org/10.17746/1563-0110.2017.45.3.029-040.
-
Gómez-Puerto, G., Munar, E. and Nadal, M. (2016). Preference for curvature: A historical and conceptual framework. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 9, 712. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00712.
-
Grill-Spector, K. Weiner, K. S., Kay, K. and Gomez, J. (2017). The functional neuroanatomy of human face perception. Annu. Rev. Vis. Sci. 3, 167–196. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-vision-102016-061214.
-
Hemingson, C. R., Siqueira, A. C., Cowman, P. F. and Bellwood, D. R. (2021). Drivers of eyespot evolution in coral reef fishes, Evolution 75, 903–914. https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.14197.
-
Hendrix, L. (1995). Of hirsutes and insects: Joris Hoefnagel and the art of the wondrous, Word Image (Lond.) 11, 373–390. https://doi.org/10.1080/02666286.1995.10435927.
-
Higgins, E. T. (1996). Knowledge activation: accessibility, applicability and salience, in: Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles, E. T. Higgins and A. W. Kruglanski (Eds), pp. 133–168, Guildford Press, New York, NY, USA.
-
Hollingworth, H. L. (1910). The central tendency of judgment, J. Philos. Psychol. Sci. Meth. 7, 461–469. https://doi.org/10.2307/2012819.
-
Kellert, S. R. and Wilson, E. O. (1993). The Biophilia Hypothesis. Island Press, Washington, DC, USA.
-
Kirita, T., Endo, M., Abe, T. and Takano, R. (1996). The effect of cosmetics and facial expression on rating facial attractiveness: from view points of rating dimensions and strategies, Fragr. J. 24, 91–100.
-
Kristjanson, A. F. and Antes, J. R. (1989). Eye movement analysis of artists and nonartists viewing paintings, Vis. Arts Res. 21–30.
-
Lê Cao, K. A., Boitard, S. and Besse, P. (2011). Sparse PLS discriminant analysis: biologically relevant feature selection and graphical displays for multiclass problems, BMC Bioinform. 12, 253. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-12-253.
-
Manesi, Z., Van Lange, P. A. M. and Pollet, T. V. (2015). Butterfly eyespots: their potential influence on aesthetic preferences and conservation attitudes, PLOS One 10, e0141433. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141433.
-
Masciocchi, C. M., Mihalas, S., Parkhurst, D. and Niebur, E. (2009). Everyone knows what is interesting: Salient locations which should be fixated, J. Vis. 9, 25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1167/9.11.25.
-
Massaro, D., Savazzi, F., Di Dio, C., Freedberg, D., Gallese, V., Gilli, G. and Marchetti, A. (2012). When art moves the eyes: a behavioral and eye-tracking study, PloS One 7, e37285. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0037285.
-
Mitteroecker, P. and Schaefer, K. (2022). Thirty years of geometric morphometrics: Achievements, challenges, and the ongoing quest for biological meaningfulness, Am. J. Biol. Anthropol. 178, 181–210. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24531.
-
Munar, E., Gómez-Puerto, G., Call, J. and Nadal, M. (2015). Common visual preference for curved contours in humans and great apes, PloS One 10, e0141106. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141106.
-
Nazari, V. (2014). Chasing butterflies in medieval Europe, J. Lepid. Soc. 68, 223–231. https://doi.org/10.18473/lepi.v68i4.a1.
-
Nazari, V. (2021). Lepidoptera in Upper Paleolithic art, Antenna 45, 66–72.
-
Neri, J. (2011). The insect and the image: visualizing nature in early modern Europe, 1500–1700. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
-
Oana Cula, G., Fantasia, J., Kollias, N. and Chen, T. (2010). Beauty perception: A scientific evaluation of the importance of the eye area across populations, Dermatopharmacology/Cosmeceuticals 62, Suppl. 1, AB63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaad.2009.11.632.
-
Oda, M. (2004). Relation between symmetry and attractiveness of face, Techn. Rep. IEICE 104, 1–6.
-
Park, J. and Heo, D. (2020). The Influence of the eyespots of peacock butterfly (Aglais io) and caterpillar on predator recognition, Open Sci. J. 5(2). https://doi.org/10.23954/osj.v5i2.2455.
-
Parr, T. and Friston, K. J. (2019). Attention or salience? Curr. Opin. Psychol. 29, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.10.006.
-
Peissig, J., Killian, A. and Mousavi, M. (2016). The role of the eyes and makeup in attractiveness, J. Vis., 16, 490. https://doi.org/10.1167/16.12.490.
-
Peterson, M., Cox, I. and Eckstein, M. (2008). The use of the eyes for human face recognition explained through information distribution analysis, J. Vis. 8, 894. https://doi.org/10.1167/8.6.894.
-
Platania, L., Vodă, R., Dincă, V., Talavera, G., Vila, R. and Dapporto, L. (2020). Integrative analyses on Western Palearctic Lasiommata reveal a mosaic of nascent butterfly species, J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Res. 58, 809–822. https://doi.org/10.1111/jzs.12356.
-
R Core Team (2022). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/.
-
Ramachandran, V. S. and Hirstein, W. (1999). The science of art: a neurological theory of aesthetic experience, J. Conscious. Stud. 6, 15–51.
-
Randler, C., Staller, N., Kalb, N. and Tryjanowski, P. (2023). Charismatic species and birdwatching: advanced birders prefer small, shy, dull, and rare species, Anthrozoös 36, 427–445. https://doi.org/10.1080/08927936.2023.2182030.
-
Robles, K. E., Bies, A. J., Lazarides, S. and Sereno, M. E. (2022). The relationship between shape perception accuracy and drawing ability, Sci. Rep. 12, 14900. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18858-6.
-
Rohlf, F. J. (2006). tpsDig: Digitize landmarks and outlines, version 2.10. Department of Ecology and Evolution, State University of New York at Stony Brook.
-
Rohlf, F. J. and Slice, D. E. (1990). Extensions of the Procrustes method for the optimal superimposition of landmarks,. Syst. Zool. 39, 40–59. https://doi.org/10.2307/2992207.
-
Schellekens, E. and Goldie, P. (2011). The Aesthetic Mind: Philosophy and Psychology. Oxford University Press,. Oxford, United Kingdom.
-
Stevens, S. S. and Greenbaum, H. B. (1966). Regression effect in psychophysical judgment, Percept. Psychophys. 1, 439–446. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207424.
-
Tatler, B. W. (2007). The central fixation bias in scene viewing: Selecting an optimal viewing position independently of motor biases and image feature distributions, J. Vis. 7, 4. https://doi.org/10.1167/7.14.4.
-
Taubert, J., Wardle, S. G., Flessert, M., Leopold, D. A. and Ungerleider, L. G. (2017). Face pareidolia in the rhesus monkey, Curr. Biol. 27, 2505–2509.e2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.06.075.
-
Trawinski, T., Mestry, N. and Donnelly, N. (2023). The effect of prior viewing position and spatial scale on the viewing of paintings, Vision 7, 55. https://doi.org/10.3390/vision7030055.
-
Xiang, Y., Graeber, T., Enke, B. and Gershman, S. J. (2021). Confidence and central tendency in perceptual judgment, Atten. Percept. Psychophys. 83, 3024–3034. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-021-02300-6.
-
Yarbus, A. L. (1967). Eye movements during perception of complex objects, in: Eye Movements and Vision, A. L. Yarbus (Ed.), pp. 171–211, Springer US, Boston, MA, USA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-5379-7_8.
-
Yorzinski, J. L., Patricelli, G. L., Bykau, S. and Platt, M. L. (2017). Selective attention in peacocks during assessment of rival males, J. Exp. Biol. 220, 1146–1153. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.150946.
-
Zelditch, M. L., Swiderski, D. L. and Sheets, H. D. (2012). Geometric Morphometrics for Biologists: A Primer. Academic Press, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Supplementary Materials
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 307 | 307 | 35 |
| Full Text Views | 23 | 23 | 17 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 297 | 297 | 57 |
The Enchanted Gaze: Modification of Butterfly Eyespots in Flemish Art
In: Art & PerceptionZEN lab, Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via Madonna del Piano 6, 50019 Florence, Italy
Search for other papers by Giulia Simbula in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Vincenzo Zingaro in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Mariagrazia Portera in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Leonardo Dapporto in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
As shown by Palaeolithic cave paintings, animals were the first subjects that humans began to depict and recall in their imagination, not solely for their utilitarian function. Some animals, due to distinctive morphological features, appear to have captured our ancestors’ attention in a special way. This is the case of animals with eye-like patterns, which have been reproduced in multiple ways and contexts throughout human history. This paper examines how Flemish artists have depicted a particular example of eye-like patterns, the eyespots on the wings of Aglais io butterflies, to understand whether these artists attributed any particular relevance to the eyespots. Modifications were identified by comparing 51 images of A. io specimens with 50 depicted ones by means of geometric morphometric using 34 landmarks and 12 semi-landmarks. Generally, eyespots resulted to be located towards the interior of the wing, enabling us to discriminate 92% of depicted A. io from real images. This tendency is in line with the observer centre bias but, in this case, applied to the production of pictorial images rather than to their visual fruition, and which might be called ‘a shifting location bias’. Moreover, the eyespots’ size was depicted with accuracy and minimal variation among painters, while the outline of the wings appeared to be subject to considerable artistic freedom. Overall, these findings highlight the importance attributed by the artists to the eyespots, sustaining the hypothesis concerning the salience of this feature in attracting human attention.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 307 | 307 | 35 |
| Full Text Views | 23 | 23 | 17 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 297 | 297 | 57 |