The unlimited and artistic brain

From deficit to the work of art

Since the ancient times, the artistic creativity has been one of the great mysterious for the humanist studies. Now, with the development of neuroscience, we can say that art emerges no matter the mental state of the artist and that the mystery has changed their points of view. Laboratories and scanners help to create a different approach to the concept of creativity. Art can be explained with the frame of knowledge of the neuroscientist. The interest by the brain develops new tools to think about the relationship painter-painting.

Artistic work implies products and process. The works of art are the most important but, can the artistic process to contribute new knowledge to the mystery of the art? Realizes the art externally what brain does internally? As the procedure is a long topic (if we consider technics, materials, supports, styles, etc.) it is relevant for this paper to focus in some inner neuronal activity in relation to the artistic result. In this case, the image depicts three different paintings and each painting was produced not only in different times but with tree different states of brain and ultimately diverse mind of the same artist. The vertical lines become more rigid: the free trees to definite squares to constraint windows. The variety of colors from the first change to basics as plain blue, for the sky, and simply red, for the facade of the building of the third.

These paintings were created by Anne Adams, paradoxically, a former biologist, diagnosed with PNFA (Progressive Non Fluent Aphasia). Non fluent and a-grammatic speech, is caused by degeneration in the left frontal insula. That deficit is co-related with a kind of disinhibition of the judge. The stylistic way of the artistic form was transformed at the same time that the deficit was growing. The straight geometric forms and rigid lines that the after diagnose painting shows how the creative mind worked.

Patients lose verbal and symbolic thinking skills, but can paint realistic landscapes, animals, geometric detailed designs without abstract content. Mainly because they spend more time detailing his works. Musicians can still run music without lyrics that express something of themselves. There is a super- motivated in terms of time and energy. In patients, the frontal lobe does not degenerate, it remains almost intact. This shows that the wellspring lobe is essential for motivation and excitement of creative work.

The patients were more likely than participants from any of the other groups to produce drawings devoid of meaning: the paintings that they created, and indeed much of the artwork from this patient group, was striking in the aesthetic dimension, characterized by the unorthodox use of vivid, unconventional colors and intricate, repetitive geometrical designs, underscoring the unique perception as well as the obsessive nature of their work. (Vartanian, O., Bristol, A. S., & Kaufman, J. C., 2013). p. 120)

The grammar of the visual change to a-grammatism. Changes in the front neuroanatomy involves emergency of some kind of creativity. The frontal cortex receives information across all regions of the brain: motor, sensory, emotional, and interacting pathways controlling attention, memory, language and other cognitive processes. Then the lack of inhibition in both content, emotional and cognitive is traduced in a continuous work that seems effortless and deliberate.

The repetition is clear in the middle painting. The flower multiplies. The space transforms the background to a kind of net. For the third painting, the details multiply too: the floor of the sidewalk, the details of the facade. As Zeki (1998) affirms, “The definition of the function of the visual brain — a search for constancies with the aim obtaining knowledge about the world — that I have given above, is applicable with equal vigor to the function of art.” (p. 4) This tendency to a strong repetition of elements is the same case of the famous composer Maurice Ravel. If we remember the master pace, “The Bolero”, the pattern is evident. The sound comes like waves.

Finally, if we compare the three paintings, the middle, six years before the diagnose, the geometric patterns appeared, maybe weak, but evident. The painting is organized by squares. Each one has a frame and flowers in different colors. A kind of reticle is the main composition that order all the elements in and outside. The brain likes a lot creativity. Creativity found in the works of art the manifestation of the artistic mind, no matter its state. How many of the art´s history in the past was possible by the neuro-deficits? The question is only the first step to new explanations about the power of the own brain.

Reference:

Vartanian, Oshin, Bristol, Adam S., and Kaufman, James C. (2013). How Degeneration of Some Brain Regions Can Lead to New Creative Impulses. In Indre V. Viskontas and Bruce L. Miller, Neuroscience of Creativity. Cambridge, US: The MIT Press, 2013. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 13 May 2016.

Zeki, Semir, (1998). Art and Brain. Daedalus 127 №2. pp. 71–103.