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19.
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The Hunter (Catalan Landscape) by Joan Miro
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20.
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Ugly Masks—-Man and Woman by Rabindranath Tagore
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21.
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Movement of Bullocks by Feliks Topolski
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22.
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Number 1 by Jackson Pollock
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23.
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The Tantras, India
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24.
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Minotauromachy by Pablo Picasso
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25.
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Primitivist idea
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26.
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Brahmin with tuftknot
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27.
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Primitive thalamus
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28.
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Thalamus bird
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29.
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Thalamus bird in brain
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30.
|
Sending messages
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31.
|
Birds dimly roused
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32.
|
Rhythm bird
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33.
|
Yoga pose
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34.
|
Rhythm bird flies off
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35.
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Engraving by Krishna Reddy
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36.
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Dialectic situation
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37.
|
Chakras
|
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38.
|
Six plexuses
|
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39.
|
Buddhist architectural forms
|
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40.
|
Krishna's nervous reactions
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41.
|
Union of hearts
|
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42.
|
The heart bird
|
|
43.
|
Heartbeat of cat
|
|
44.
|
Cosmic Egg
|
|
45,
|
Symbol of Shiva, India
|
|
46.
|
Incarnation of Vishnu
|
|
47.
|
Mont Sainte-Victoire by Paul Cezanne
|
|
48.
|
Two-headed bird of reason
|
|
49.
|
Brain as lotus
|
|
50.
|
Helpless without instincts
|
|
51.
|
Reticular formations
|
|
52.
|
Brain coordinates responses
|
|
53.
|
Bird of reason
|
|
54.
|
Phoenix bird
|
|
55.
|
Flight of seven birds
|
|
56.
|
Indian cave drawings
|
|
57.
|
Actor's Mask by Paul Klee
|
|
58.
|
Hot Pursuit by Paul Klee
|
|
59.
|
Hunt area in primitive drawing
|
|
60.
|
The Dying Princess, Ajanta cave painting
|
|
61.
|
Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci
|
|
62.
|
Landscape attributed to Ma Yuan
|
|
63.
|
Portrait of the Artist by Harmensz van Rijn Rembrandt
|
|
64.
|
Panel (3) by Wassily Kandinsky
|
|
65.
|
Composition in White, Black and Red by Piet Mondrian
|
|
66.
|
Guernica by Pablo Picasso
|
|
67.
|
Person Throwing a Stone at a Bird by Joan Miro
|
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68.
|
Threading Light by Mark Tobey
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69.
|
Birds by Gaitonde
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70.
|
Feeding the chicks
|
Preface
AS A YOUNG student of philosophy in London in 1925, I was much preoccupied with the problem of perception. All the old ideas were in question. And I found that the psychology of perception was adopting revolutionary hypotheses, outdating most of the 19th-century concepts under the influence of scientific investigation. Lord Russell's reductio ad obsurdum of every percept to "sensation," based on sense data, held sway in philosophical discussion; and Clive Bell's "aesthetic emotion," to be derived from "significant form," were the slogans of the English art world. Of course, in ordinary life, in the museums and art galleries, the impact of the new analysis had not been registered. But I felt that most people, including myself, looked at paintings and sculptures but did not see them.
So in 1926 I began to do research, under the guidance of Professor Spearman in the psychological laboratory at University College, London, on the reactions of all kinds of people to works of art. I "exposed" 200 men and women intellectuals—doctors, nurses, technicians and students from the Slade School of Art—to reproductions of Leonardo's Last Supper, a Rembrandt Self-Portrait, The Dying Princess from Ajanta and other important pictures. The results seemed to confirm my idea that people saw pictures either as illustrations or as decorations, but very seldom as perceptions-apperceptions.
I heard my own professor's
