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Neurocentrism, Cognition and the Challenge of the Arts and Humanities
Volume Editors: and
Moving beyond the neurohype of recent decades, this book introduces the concept of worlding as a new way to understand the inherent entanglement of brains/minds with their worldly environments, cultural practices, and social contexts. Case studies ranging from film, literature, music, and dance to pedagogy, historical trauma, and present-day discourses of mindfulness investigate how brains are worlded in an active interplay of biological, cognitive, and socio-discursive factors. Combining scholarly work with personal accounts of neurodiversity and essays by artists reflecting on their practical engagement with cognition, Worlding the Brain makes a case for the distinctive role of the humanities and arts in the study of brains and cognition and explores novel forms interdisciplinarity.

Abstract

Art historical literature has often discussed the impact of painting restorations on viewers. Although many theoretical hypotheses have been proposed regarding the effect of restoration on the beholder’s eye, little empirical research has addressed this topic. This study aimed to fill this gap by investigating whether painting restoration has a meaningful influence on the visual perception of art viewers at the eye-movement level. Specifically, the study designed a mobile eye-tracking study in an ecologically valid setting — the art museum — to investigate the effects of restoration on ten panels from the Isenheim Altarpiece (1512–1516) by Matthias Grünewald, currently displayed at the Unterlinden Museum in France. In this study, 86 museum visitors looked at paintings while wearing eye-tracking glasses before ( ) and after ( ) restoration. The following measures were analyzed: (1) Total Viewing Time; (2) Duration of the First Fixation; (3) Relative Fixation Count; (4) Fixation Heat Maps; (5) Time to First Fixation in areas of interest (AOIs). The results suggested that Relative Fixation Count significantly increased after restoration. Conversely, the Total Viewing Time and Duration of the First Fixation did not seem to be significantly affected by restoration. The Heat Maps suggested a broader visual inspection of the images and a more explorative gaze pattern after restoration. Moreover, the Time to First Fixation in AOIs significantly decreased after restoration. These findings provide the first empirical evidence of the impact of restoration on the visual perception of genuine paintings as opposed to reproductions observed in a museum.

Open Access
In: Art & Perception

Abstract

This article discusses the literary and visual symbolism in Armand Point’s The Princess and the Unicorn. Point composed several versions of this mysterious legend in pastel, enamel, and bas-relief. Under the artistic influences of the medieval tapestry of the Lady and the Unicorn, the French painter Gustave Moreau, and the Italian Renaissance painter Alessandro Botticelli, Point unveils a spiritual creation that in its form, content, and medium seeks to evoke the ‘soul’ in a work of art.

In: Paragone: Past and Present
This series offers art-historical and interdisciplinary approaches to how art was conceived, produced, and received across Europe, from the early medieval to the early modern. It pays particular attention to the social, cultural, religious, and political history of the period as seen through contemporary visual and material culture.

The series is interested in all areas of European artistic life in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Work in the series explores art forms such as painting, sculpture, architecture, textiles, glass, metalwork, ceramics, ephemera, spatial strategies, and more. Themes of study may include emotions, the senses, devotional practices, the environment, animals, bodies, otherness, religious and social changes, literacy (written and visual), protest, and issues of class, race, and gender, to name only a few. Interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and comparative work is also warmly welcomed. The series publishes monographs, edited thematic collections, and reference works.

Authors are cordially invited to submit proposals and/or full manuscripts to either the series editors, Professor Sarah Blick and Professor Laura D. Gelfand or the Publisher at Brill, Dr Kate Hammond.

Brill is in full support of Open Access publishing and offers the option to publish your monograph, edited volume, or chapter in Open Access. Our Open Access services are fully compliant with funder requirements. We support Creative Commons licenses. For more information, please visit Brill Open or contact us at openacess@brill.com.
Free access
In: Paragone: Past and Present
Free access
In: Paragone: Past and Present

Abstract

A unique codex in the University of Bologna, crafted as a single monographic volume, transmits an extremely interesting treatise by the naturalist and antiquary Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605). Entitled Discorso sopra alcuni animali quadrupedi per i quali si possono esprimere i 7 peccati capitali, literally ‘discourse about those animals through which it is possible to [symbolically] express the seven mortal sins,’ it was completed, according to an earlier copy (BUB Aldrov. 91, cc. 472r–482v), on 12 August 1578. The work was dedicated to Alessandro degli Orsi, a nobleman of the city and infantry commander in Hungary, who was honored in 1585 with the gran croce. This article suggests a reconstruction of lost decorations in one of the Orsi family mansions, either the Palazzo Orsi or the Villa Orsi. It also considers the moral implications of virtues versus vice represented by four-legged animals.

In: Paragone: Past and Present