CHAPTE R 1 Aesthetics Theory DENNIS DAKE Iowa State University AN AESTHETIC THEORY OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION One of the most important pieces of the visual communication puzzle is aesthetics. The nature of beauty and why it affects us so deeply is mysterious. Why do qualities so elusive to define (like a sunset or a half-opened rose) affect us so powerfully? This is an important question to consider in visual communication. It is suggested that, because of the essentially nonverbal nature of aesthetics, what can be written is only speculation "about" the nature of visual aesthetics and cannot therefore be "of" visual aesthetics itself. The aesthetic aspects of communication are (a) visible, structural, and configurational in nature; (b) largely implicit in apprehension; (c) holistic in conveying meaning (not wholly translatable into parsed, discursive form); and (d) cognitive in a generative sense, based on a unique type of visual logic. Three disciplines—philosophy, art, and science—have been used historically to study is- sues about visual aesthetics. Of these disciplines the visual arts offer the most complete and truly visual understanding. The sciences increasingly can, however, offer factual evidence for defining how aesthetic qualities play a foundational role in human communications. THE PHILOSOPHIC PERSPECTIVE Aesthetics is traditionally defined as "the study and theory of beauty and of the psycho- logical responses to it" (Neufeldt & Guralnik D. E., 1998); the term specifically refers to the branch of philosophy dealing with art, its creative sources, forms, and effects. This definition forms a convenient launching point toward a much wider application of aesthetic phenomena to all visual communications, but it is only a starting point. A brief historical review will outline the problem philosophers have had articulating a theory ofbeauty. Plato's analysis of beauty—in bodies, in souls, in knowledge—attempted to describe the affective dimensions (based on a "love" of something) of the aesthetic 3
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C H A P T E R
1 Aesthetics Theory
DENNIS DAKE Iowa State University
AN AESTHETIC THEORY OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION
One of the most important pieces of the visual communication puzzle is aesthetics.
The nature of beauty and why it affects us so deeply is mysterious. Why do qualities so
elusive to define (like a sunset or a half-opened rose) affect us so powerfully? This is an
important question to consider in visual communication. It is suggested that, because
of the essentially nonverbal nature of aesthetics, what can be written is only speculation
"about" the nature of visual aesthetics and cannot therefore be "of" visual aesthetics itself.
The aesthetic aspects of communication are (a) visible, structural, and configurational
in nature; (b) largely implicit in apprehension; (c) holistic in conveying meaning (not
wholly translatable into parsed, discursive form); and (d) cognitive in a generative sense,
based on a unique type of visual logic.
Three disciplines—philosophy, art, and science—have been used historically to study is-
sues about visual aesthetics. Of these disciplines the visual arts offer the most complete and
truly visual understanding. The sciences increasingly can, however, offer factual evidence
for defining how aesthetic qualities play a foundational role in human communications.
THE PHILOSOPHIC PERSPECTIVE
Aesthetics is traditionally defined as "the study and theory of beauty and of the psycho-
logical responses to it" (Neufeldt & Guralnik D. E., 1998); the term specifically refers
to the branch of philosophy dealing with art, its creative sources, forms, and effects.
This definition forms a convenient launching point toward a much wider application of
aesthetic phenomena to all visual communications, but it is only a starting point.
A brief historical review will outline the problem philosophers have had articulating a
theory ofbeauty. Plato's analysis of beauty—in bodies, in souls, in knowledge—attempted
to describe the affective dimensions (based on a "love" of something) of the aesthetic
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response. His approach became increasingly more abstract until it evolved as a Theory
of Forms based on what he determined to be properties that beautiful things have in
common (Dickie, 1971). Subsequent philosophers, such as Aristotle and St. Thomas
Aquinas, continued the development of form theory in terms of an analysis of more
practical objects from the world of experience. In the Renaissance, the evolving theory
of art defined beauty in terms of a harmony of parts.
In the 18th century, however, philosophers added notions of the sublime and a philoso-
phy of taste, which made notions of beauty more subjective and diffuse and contributed
to the fragmentation of the theory of beauty. In other words, a useful theory of beauty
based on proportion, unity, and other commonly considered dimensions could not be
agreed upon. As Newton (1962, p. 11) observed, "Beauty could not be described, therefore
it could not be defined." In response, British thinkers and the German philosopher Kant
sought a unified theory in the realm of esthetic theory, in which cognitive and affective
responses were recognized, but within a personal context that permitted individualis-
tic appreciation of beauty. In more recent times, aesthetic theory has articulated two
dimensions—the quality itself and the response to it. The aesthetic response, then, is the
object of the search.
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that is rich in discursive theory and interpretative
speculation, but not totally helpful in understanding the role aesthetic qualities play in
visual communication. Visual aesthetics are visual in foundation and holistic in under-
standing. As the 19th-century artist Paul Cezanne observed, "Talking about art is almost
useless" (Rewald, 1976, p. 303).
Philosophy is based on verbal discursive and parsed explication and follows logical,
linear construction. The thousands of philosophical arguments for aesthetics advanced
historically are based on thought and expression of a different order and character from vi-
sual creation and communication themselves. Thus, philosophical arguments may prove
more of a distraction from exploration of aesthetic aspects of visual communication than
an aid to understanding. A biologically based (from recent discoveries in neuroscience)
understanding of aesthetics could encompass many diverse philosophical arguments and
give a more stable foundation for understanding visual communication.
THE ARTISTIC PERSPECTIVE
Using visual and intuitive experimentation, artists provide a complementary body of
knowledge and understanding on aesthetic visual communication. Although science pro-
vides explicit explanations of aesthetic response, the discipline of art provides a unique vi-
sually based perspective on the role of aesthetics in communication. Artists, as the makers
of visual messages, are infinitely connected to subtle aesthetic clues, their selection, ma-
nipulation, and ultimate refinement. This knowledge of aesthetic relationships, gained
through visual performance, provides a permanent visual record of decisions made and
wordless aesthetic relationships established.
What is suggested (Dake, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2000) is a form of qualitative action research
utilizing observed and expressed studio ideas of artists (artists' preparatory sketches,
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5 1. AESTHETICS THEORY
maquettes, diaries, letters, photographs of developing artworks) correlated with findings
from the sciences. Analogical agreement from this perspective provides a critical, fact-
based filter for expanding understanding of aesthetic communication. Where science and
art provide compatible perspectives, there is hope for a more objective theory of visual
aesthetic communication.
THE SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE
Much scientific research on aesthetics has been generated in the biological and social
sciences. One branch of knowledge yielding a promising perspective is experimental
aesthetics (psychobiology). This approach to exploring aesthetic communication has
generally focused on the responsiveness of individuals to aesthetic properties.
Over the past 40 years, most notably in Berlyne's ecological approach to responsive-
ness, a more precise understanding of aesthetic relationships has been generated. Berlyne
coined the term "collative properties" to define stimulus qualities that depend on com-
parative apprehension with present or past stimuli. Collative variables such as complexity,
ambiguity, incongruity, uncertainty, surprise, novelty, and indistinctness were shown to
be critical to gaining and maintaining viewer attention critical to sustaining the aesthetic
experience (Berlyne, 1974). By informed shaping of aesthetic relationships, visual com-
municators systematically study the capacities of the visual brain using a unique set of
intuitive disciplinary tools.
Dr. Semir Zeki, of the International Institute of Neuroesthetics, in his book Inner
Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain, discusses the primary importance of a brain-
based disciplinary approach. 'All visual art is expressed through the brain and must
therefore obey the laws of the brain, whether in conception, execution, or appreciation;
no theory of aesthetics that is not substantially based on the activity of the brain is ever
likely to be complete, let alone profound" (1999, p. 1).
THE INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE
Studying all manner of visual communications media, not just those usually classified
as art, makes it obvious that all visual communication must utilize the same human
perception system as do art objects. There is no separate eye-to-brain connection for the
processing of images labeled art. By looking at what is scientifically known about the way
the brain processes visual information, one can learn more about the nature and functions
of aesthetic aspects of perception and therefore the role that aesthetic phenomena play
in visual communication. By studying art one can gain a deeper emotional and intuitive
understanding of the multitude of sensitive aesthetic relationships involved in shaping an
image of visual communication.
Establishing a physical basis for aesthetic expression by rigorous scientific explo-
ration and object-based artistic observation promises to help the individual overcome the
current confusing, subjective understanding of aesthetics. A common expression states,
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"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Although it is true that subjectivity can enlighten
the individual viewer's personal response, it also obscures deeper, more dependable,
transpersonal contributions made by visual communication.
VISUAL AESTHETIC THOUGHT
Aesthetics is not about "things" but about systems of ecological relationships and
the processes that create these relationships and aid in their interpretation. The three
primary players in this ecological balancing act are: the visible object itself, the maker of
this object, and the intended viewer. Figure 1.1 illustrates the interactive nature of these
three elements.
The physical object itself contains observable relational properties among and between
all the visible elements. Every line, shape, value, color, and so on, is related to the other
visible elements. Creating meaningful connectedness between the developing visible
form and a hoped for message is the goal of the maker. The physical, concrete nature
is therefore vital to both the viewer and the maker, helping them connect and com-
municate.
As the image-maker engages in shaping the emerging system of phenomenological
elements, an intimate relationship develops between object and maker. To fully partici-
pate in the creative process, the maker must focus on all emerging physical relationships,
mental nonmaterial relationships, plus the relationship to personal intentions and goals.
There must also be a concern for the potential response of the viewing audience.
While creating, the maker also serves as an initial viewer of the emerging image.
Other viewers will also get visible information from the perception of the object. Short
of explicit verbal statements of intention by the maker, the visually literate viewer needs
to complete the maker's creative act by interpreting these relationships among visible
relationships in the created object.
Aesthetics permeates all interactions between these three components of visual com-
munication. Relationships may not immediately reveal the exact intentions of the cre-
ator or help the viewer discover any potential hidden interpretations; but intentions, of
both the maker and the viewer can alter everyone's perspective on imagistic meaning.
Knowledge of meaning can become clearer through a deliberate process of analysis and
interpretation. Heightened awareness of one's own mental imagery is the first step to
accessing this deeper aesthetic aspect of visual communication.
Object
Aesthetics
Yiewer Maker
FIG. 1.1. Diagram of aesthetic relationships.
7 1. AESTHETICS THEORY
PERCEPTION OF AESTHETIC RELATIONSHIPS
Visual Aesthetic Thought Is Configurational (Visibly Relational)
Aesthetic thought is first of all structural thought. Mental imagery (thought) is made
manifest in the material world. In analyzing a work of aesthetic communication, Rudolf
Arnheim has made this case: "What matters is that even at this abstract level the composi-
tional structure is grasped as a whole, namely as a configuration of perceptual components
symbolizing the psychological theme of the work by direct visual reflection. The example
shows also what I meant when I said that basic perceptual features point directly to the
deepest meanings of the artistic statement, even though to do so they need to be seen
in the structural context of the whole" (1992, p. 33). Without a physical manifestation,
aesthetic qualities would not be perceivable. Without a particular holistic configuration,
an image / message would be different in its impact. The qualities of both the parts (details
and separate visual elements) and of the whole structure of an image are simultaneously
conveyed in a specific gestalt presentation. The aesthetics are embedded in the whole.
For visual communication to take place, both part (parsed and detailed) and whole
(holistic and global) information need to be effectively mixed in the viewer's brain. Stud-
ies indicate that the local details of the image are processed in a module within the brain
separate from the module for handling global information. A 1995 study by Heilman,
Chatterjec, and Doty discovered that a global-local dichotomy "maybe related to the man-
ner in which the right and left hemispheres respond to spatial frequencies" (p. 60). Their
data shows that the right hemisphere tends to direct attention toward visual extrapersonal
space (far from the body). This makes right hemispheric processing more concerned with
global matters of fuzzy, low spatial frequency. The left hemisphere, by contrast, directs
attention to visual information taking place close to the body (peripersonal space with
detailed, sharp, high spatial frequency). The shaping of successful aesthetic messages,
therefore, must involve synchronization of two hemispheres through a process of cre-
ative visual thinking. Visual information that only considers individual parts rather than
contextual relationships results in never seeing the forest for the trees. The perception
and understanding of complex relationships are among the most basic contributions of
aesthetic perception to visually based communication.
It appears that individuals trained in visual communication and aesthetic appreciation
see more of the global, contextual information as well as more detailed nameable parts.
Aesthetically trained brains take in more global structural information and balance it with
a subtle perception of small detailed differences. Significant aesthetic perception begins,
however, before conscious awareness processes can make reasoned decisions. Aesthetic
perception precedes cortical information processing and therefore any conscious aware-
ness of associative symbolic inferences. At a very basic level, visual-perceptual processing
determines the type and amount of information that is sent to the brain for further
thought.
Physiognomic Relationships
Aesthetic perception seems to utilize large-scale aspects of visual compositional struc-
ture. These complex relationships between visual elements are not easily comprehended
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in verbal terms. The designated term for these complex structural relationships is
physiognomies.
In aesthetic communication, what is mentally compared and correlated are basic phys-
iognomic structures supporting and composing each image. The contribution of aesthetic
thought to the construction of meaning begins with a heightened sensitivity to this foun-
dational aesthetic structure. Such aesthetic physiognomies are not household names for
objects that can be easily grasped, named, and classified. Aesthetic physiognomies are
largely overlooked by the naming functions of the brain's left hemisphere.
The sensitive perception of aesthetic/physiognomic qualities is present in both
children and adults. According to a developmental study by Seitz and Beilin 'Adults as
well as children perceive category membership as a matter of degree" (1987, p. 324).
Learning to deal constructively with the fuzzy boundaries is the mental space where
visual appearance-based analogies begin to form and deep meaning is based.
Flexibility and Fluency
Creative thinking is closely related to aesthetic apprehension because both use similar
areas of the human brain. Fluency and flexibility characterize all healthy and productive
visual thought. From a variety of potential visual possibilities, the maker of an image can
visually judge the most potentially potent and pertinent structural message. The aesthetic
quality or spirit of a visual message can then best be understood as the embodiment of
a certain quality of flexibility and fluidity of thought that offers new possibilities to
the viewer's mind for consideration. During the graphic ideation of visual message,
designers and artists leave an indelible structural mark on images, which then sets up
a potentially equally creative outcome in the viewer's mind. The quality that makes
for an effective visual message emerges from a visual comparison with a variety of
knowable possibilities. This quality is directly perceivable by a trained individual who
sees configurational relationships in their full meaningful context, including very personal
and individual relationships to the image. A verbal analysis of aesthetics only deals with
one part at a time and is therefore always incomplete in description and understanding.
In the creative design of visual messages, as well as in creative viewing and interpre-
tation, flexibility of structural construction is vital. Flexibility provides for the purely
perceptual apprehension of novelty, originality, and message integrity. Ritualized, stereo-
typed, and repetitive messages are not as likely to attract or sustain viewer attention.
Therefore, the message's flexibility is crucial for discovering and imparting significant
aesthetic aspects of meaning.
Implicit or Hidden Aesthetic Relationships
Not all perception of the visible world is explicitly available to the maker or the viewer.
Neuroscientists theorize that the brain has dual memory systems, one explicit and one
implicit. Visual message designers need access to the contents of implicit perception and
memory to craft messages with communicative, experiential impact.
Current research tantalizingly suggests that the perception of aesthetics depends on
a subconscious substrate that may not be totally a process of inductive (active) learning
9 1. AESTHETICS THEORY
FIG. 1.2. Untitled photograph, Stephen Herrnstadt, 1988 (used with permission of the artist).
or even based on enculturation. If this is true, then visual communications would not
have to be learned as communication's conventions, but would be innate and support
universal aspects of visual communications as is often proposed for the fine arts.
Do skilled visual communicators really see more of the contents of implicit percep-
tion as well as explicit configurations made up of lines, shapes, colors, values, and so
on? A 1995 study by Liu found that experienced designers show greater awareness of
implicit subshapes compared to inexperienced designers. Only experienced designers
could lower their thresholds of recognition activation, which allowed them to discover
implicit emergent subshapes. Seeing more aesthetic forces potentially opens up a whole
world of "felt" holistic structural qualities. These intuitively felt qualities of orientation,
implied spaces, and the essence of empty space add significantly to both the quality and
quantity of visiospatial information available to the brain—things the viewer can explic-
itly see and name plus felt qualities of the image that convey more patterns of meaningful
forces.
A comparison of three forest scene photographs by Stephen Herrnstadt in Figs. 1.2,
1.3, and 1.4 illustrates both the explicit perception of holistic configurational structure
and the richness of implicit relationships. Although all of these images are of nameable
forms called trees, this layer of meaning does little to help us understand the aesthetic
dimension of communication.
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FIG. 1.3. Untitled photograph, Stephen Herrnstadt, 1988 (used with permission of the artist).
In the case of Fig. 1.2, there are several verticals that penetrate a textured ground in the
left half of the photograph. The strongest structure is the widest with marginally more
detail. The message of the verticals contrasts with the much looser and more dynamic
forces of bramble of texture in the bottom half of the image, from which the verticals
arise.
Figure 1.3 has a quite different aesthetic structure. The verticals here have a slight
tilt, which makes them more dynamic. The widest and most dominant vertical is also
the darkest. The middle linear form is lightest of the three verticals and bends most
dramatically toward the third vertical on the right-hand side. This highly structured area
relates to the lighter, bottom two thirds of the surface, which has a looser, more linear
textural feel. There is a subtle curvature of ground/tree horizon line going from upper
left to lower right. When combined with the strong spreading forces of the verticals, this
curvature implies a kind of strong aesthetic energy emanating from the curvature of the
earth itself.
Figure 1.4 also presents a dominant vertical, but in a central position. Because it
is so detailed in texture compared to its surroundings, it becomes the commanding
dominant focus. Some implicit relationships then create an even stronger contrast in
meaning. In Fig. 1.4 the ground and horizon line are deemphasized in favor of a foggy
atmospheric mist. The ambiguous depth of the background gives an otherworldly feel to
11 1. AESTHETICS THEORY
FIG. 1.4. Untitled photograph, Stephen Herrnstadt, 1987 (used with permission of the artist).
the work. When combined with the strong backlit staging, it suggests a meaning more
related to dematerialized spirit than earthly concerns. Together the explicit and implicit
relationships create a fuller understanding of the visual message. A comparison of the
aesthetic structure of these three photographs therefore yields a quite different aesthetic
basis for communication of distinct visual messages.
Holistic Vision: Thinking by Appearance
How is it that the viewer is able to construct meaningful patterns out of an image's
visible and hidden relationships? Could there be a visual semantic structure underlying
visual communication? Dr. Betty Edwards first proposed a basic visual language structure
in her book Drawing on the Artist Within (1986). Edwards described and demonstrated
the expressive, communicative potential of an underlying nonobjective analog structure,
visible in student exercises and works by historic artists.
Takahashi (1995) presented separate scientific collaboration of this universal semantic
potential. By using similar visual analogs created by a group of art students, Takahashi
showed the rich potential for visual communication in underlying visual holistic structure.
Analysis of these analogs by an unrelated group of nonart students identified a remarkable
degree of aesthetic communication. Takahashi concluded, "This finding suggests that a
12 DAKE
synergistic relation exists between some perceptual property and a specific word concept.
The presence of specific visual structures may activate one's knowledge about kinds of
affective categories" (1995, p. 681). Takahashi proposed a positive link between affective
and aesthetic mental processes and later cognitive processes. The implication points to
the existence of a purely visual aesthetic language based on holistic abstract structure, as
revealed in outward appearance.
Thinking by appearance is a function of the right hemisphere of the brain. Levy
and Trevarthen concluded in a 1976 study that "The right and left hemispheres are
specialized for detecting structural and functional similarities, respectively" (p. 311). The
left hemisphere makes logical connections between objects that fulfill similar functions
within denned categorical boundaries. Associative reasoning seems to follow the same
pattern. In contrast, the right hemisphere specializes in making comparisons based purely
on structural appearance. Appearance-based reasoning in the right hemisphere is largely
unknown to the left hemisphere. Perception of the same images presented to the left
hemisphere yield logical and functional decisions. Thus words used to interpret meaning
from images can, by their linear nature, distort and convert the information in the visual
communication.
Reconstrual
Mary Peterson (1993) examined the multiple interpretive possibilities within shape
memory and identified a foundational principle of aesthetic creativity she called recon-
strual. She provided evidence of the vast potential for multiple mental reconstruals from
a single geometric form. Instead of a singular visual recognition and categorization,
Peterson suggested that in perception, "there exists a stage in which a structural descrip-
tion of a shape is not connected to an interpretation" (1993, p. 172). At this important stage
of aesthetic perception there appears to be a rapid mental search through an imagistic
mental lexicon for the best possible match with incoming visual stimuli. Awareness of the
mind's ability to perform a multiple-layered search provides for imaginative perception
and the discovery of possible multiple, meaningful interpretations.
Figure 1.5, "Self Portrait as Pagan Fire God" by Chuck Richards, presents a novel sense
of multiple meanings to the traditional subject of self-portrayal. The representation is
filtered through many layers of thinking by appearance. In addition to the symmetry
of religious icons, appearance comparisons recall fabricated sets of old exotic movies
(such as King Kong), sacrificial rituals of distant cultures, hedonistic masks of spring revels,
mythic sculptural representations of gods who need to be fed (note the eating utensils),
the manipulation behind the scenes (see small Wizard of Oz-like figure in lower-left-hand
corner, and the showmanship of the circus). Rich and fluid appearance thinking endows
the maker and viewer with the capability to stretch and break the tight conceptual bound-
aries of literal meaning. Once "outside the box," the multiple series of visual relationships
and spatial associations lead inevitably to multiple analogies. These embedded analogies
lead to a form of poetic "visual rhyming" and then as in the case of this example to new
multiple-layered meanings for self-portraiture. Who is the person being portrayed? What
is the individual's self-image and his in life? What personality characteristics define this
person's life? The systematic analysis of analogies yielded by these reconstruals changes
13 1. AESTHETICS THEORY
FIG. 1.5. Self-portrait as pagan fire god, Chuck Richards, 24" x 24", colored pencil (used with
permission of the artist).
the aesthetic tone of an actual scene and provides a charged series of potential metaphoric
meanings. A self-portrait is more that the outward appearance of the individual.
Tolerance for multilevels of meaning occurring simultaneously is prerequisite to fully
understanding meaning-making in visual communication. Logical, verbal reasoning is
often not the best laboratory for discovering meaningful patterns. Arthur Koestler sug-
gests the real basis for understanding visual meaning: "The mind is insatiable for meaning,
drawn from, or projected into the world of appearances, for unearthing hidden analogies
which connect the unknown with the familiar, and show the familiar in an unexpected
light. It weaves the raw material of experience into patterns, and connects them with
other patterns" (1975, p. 390).
Meaning in the world of the aesthetic visual communication can never be singular
and literal because the viewer's brain will automatically make multiple connections
through reconstrual. The attempt to impose singular meaning on images (through logical
argument and discursive assertion) does not foreclose flexibility of appearance-based
thinking.
Understanding how meaning arises from aesthetic qualities requires response-ability
from individuals doing creative seeing. This implies not only the ability to respond to initial
physiognomic phenomena, but also the obligation to pursue the universal implications
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FIG. 1.6. Untitled photograph, Stephen Herrnstadt, 1988 (used with permission of the artist).
within individual responses. Painter Pablo Picasso comments on the subject: "Reality is
more than the thing itself. I look always for the super reality. Reality lies in how you see
things. A green parrot is also a green salad and a green parrot. He who makes it only a
parrot diminishes its reality. A painter who copies a tree blinds himself to the real tree.
I see things otherwise. A palm tree can become a horse" (July 10, 1950, Sunday Observer).
Perceived meaningful information involving reconstrued aesthetic qualities becomes a
creative mental action by the viewer.
Two photographic landscape images further demonstrate the diverse potential
meanings generated by using thinking by appearance. The image shown in Fig. 1.6,
Herrnstadt's untitled photographic work, has many possible reconstruals, new nonlit-
eral connections beyond immediate associations. Could it be reminiscent of soldiers'
corpses on a battlefield, for indeed the fallen, decaying trees on the forest probably re-
sulted from destructive forces for organic life. The same configuration of fallen trees
could also be analogous to the veins of Mother Earth herself. Through these veins would
flow energy, creating further organic growth, much like decaying vegetable matter on
the forest floor. The crystalline light shimmering on the organic forms transports the
viewer to a transcendental and fantastic scene. None of these levels of meaning, however,
forecloses a literal reading of the visible evidence. A forestry expert could make accurate
scientific conclusions from the same visible evidence.
15 1. AESTHETICS THEORY
FIG. 1.7. Terminus, Mary Stieglitz, digital image, 2003 (used with permission of the artist).
Figure 1.7, Terminus, a digital print by Mary Stieglitz, presents nature up close in
what appears to be the rotting carcass of an animal. The angular forms also resemble
mountains rising from flat land. This relationship attaches a monumental importance
to the message as a huge creature preys on the parched land. An altered sky area con-
jures up scenes of rusting metal, adding a decaying aesthetic. An organic beauty in this
arrangement engages the viewer to carefully attend to the interplay of form and texture,
as thinking by appearance lends deeper levels of meaning. Metaphoric thinking leads
to far more significant meaning levels than a rotting carcass literally suggests. Visual
meaning can certainly be understood through words (interpretation), deeds (visible at-
tributes), or underlying tone (aesthetic qualities). The power of visual communication
lies in relationships among these three aspects of understanding images.
THE LOGIC OF VISUAL AESTHETICS
How can the maker and viewer have faith and rely on a level of meaning embedded in an
image? Why not opt for an imaginary construction in the mind?A central dilemma of aes-
thetic visual communication is whether visual images can provide evidence of important
human cognitive activity or whether an image's communicative value is wholly dependent
on discursive logic. Can one judge the quality, preciseness, and utility of communication
by purely visual means? What makes a visual image "work" for maker and viewer alike?
The final part of this chapter's theoretical proposition speculates on the full cognitive
import of aesthetic aspects of visual communication. The hypothesis is that effective
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communication depends on a unique visually based logic, created through visual modules
and processes of the human brain. The order and patterns of neural brain structure
determine visual communication effectiveness. Visual logic is defined here as a system
of visual relationships that encourages a developed internal sense of image cohesiveness,
integrity, and elegance necessary to attract attention and guide the viewer to a sense of
aesthetic completion and comprehension.
Six individual, interlocking principles guide the development of this sense of visual
logic. These six principles are (a) Ambiguity and Meaning, (b) Control of Direction,
(c) Ecological Relationships, (d) Tensional, (e) Unity, and (f) Realism.
Ambiguity and Meaning
There are no "pictures" in the human brain, only individual neuronal responses to
different elements in the image. The visual world is therefore always ambiguous (without
a single level of meaning that can be clearly explained in words). Having accepted this, it is
important for viewers to explore the "manner" in which meaning construction is taking
place in their own brains. No amount of parsing with left hemispheric processes will
alone suffice to comprehend meaning. The ambiguity and meaning principle suggests
that, if aesthetic form and content are effectively related, the visually literate viewer is
able to extract relevant information by concentrating on visible relationships and the
nature of meaning-making in the human brain. Multiple meanings emerge later from
the layered relationships with the other five principles.
Control of Direction
The control of direction principle suggests there are actions that the image-maker can
control about the manner in which the image attains and maintains the viewer's attention
and interest and elicits an aesthetic response. On the other hand, there are other aspects,
such as arriving at a common uniform interpretation of meaning, that can't be dictated
by the maker. Individual viewers will arrive at some degree of individual connection
and relationship to the image based on their individual wants, needs, and expectations.
The individual image-maker can control many aspects of "how" the viewer's perceptual
system interacts with visible relationships but not the final interpretation. The maker
can direct the viewer's eye throughout the image's significant areas through directional
clues, groupings of elements, and tensions. The maker can also choose to emphasize
certain aspects of the image and to subordinate others in order to direct the viewer's
mind to significant matters. However, the sheer number of visible relationships will
quickly overwhelm the parsing and decision-making functions of the brain. Intuition
must therefore guide the image-maker and viewer in controlling the effect the image has
on the brain.
Ecological Relationships
When interpreting the inherent visual logic imbedded in an image, the maker (during
the act of ideation) and the viewer (in a process of perception) both become involved in
17 1. AESTHETICS THEORY
an intimate reciprocal and ecological relationship with the image. The visual structure
offers parameters for perception of possible multiple meaning levels, as well as the po-
tential for fixation on one particular meaning or focused aesthetic response. The maker,
through trial and error, shapes this image, and the viewer must empathize with this rela-
tionship while at the same time understanding his or her ecological interactions with the
structure.
Gregory Bateson (1975) theorized that the human mind is essentially an ecological
governor, controlling the body's processes to ensure that decisions are of maximal value.
Because the body is part of the environment itself, appropriate mental interpretation
cannot be totally fixed and objective. Through trial and error decision making, the
brain compares visible structure to potential meanings. During this process, failures of
judgment or aesthetic response (for example, an immediate "I don't like it," based on
superficial viewing) could be viewed as positive experiences to be valued. Failures could
indicate to the viewer that he or she has stretched interpretation beyond his or her past
capabilities and is searching for less obvious relationships, analogies, and connections.
The depth of visual logic is not always initially apparent.
Tensional
Illusionistic use of spatial clues adds an implied tension with the image's true flat surface. In
addition, the visual elements on the picture plane's flat surface have tensional relationships
with each other, with sides of the image, and with its center of the image. The sum total
of all tensions, both explicitly perceived and implicitly apprehended, creates an aesthetic
impression of mood and a visible foundation for the communicated message.
Generally, artists and image-makers intuitively and explicitly shape aesthetic elements
to discover meaningful relationships and cause a specific brain response. Based then
on the viewer's life experience with tensions in the environment, the message being
communicated can be perceived as being more or less truthful. Important tensional
relationships and their implied meanings are thus passed from message-maker to viewer
based on normal human perceptual functions.
Unity
Because the brain's left hemisphere specializes in parsing information, rather than grasp-
ing it whole, the full cognitive and communicative potential of holistic gestalt forms of
knowing is often overlooked (Bolles, 1991). Every effective visual message has cohesive
visual forces that group visual elements (the gestalt grouping principles of similarity,
proximity, closure, continuation, and common fate) into meaningful and aesthetically re-
warding patterns. These underlying structures are not usually apparent to the untrained
eye.
Unity of message implies a wholeness of spirit or purpose that give the visual sense
trustworthiness. Without unity, the experience for the viewer lacks cohesion, making
communicative interpretation less sure. With unity, the viewer's own natural perceptual
abilities can interpret visual clues to determine the nature and type of visual message
and its relationship to reality.
18 DAKE
Realism
All imagery communicates some aspect of reality. That reality may not be a naturalistic
illusion of optical conditions but conveys knowledge about aspects of reality not readily
accessible to the unaided human eye (microscopic views, time-related processes, or ener-
gies outside the visible spectrum). To construct visual images, the maker has a series of
clues to depth used that aid in communicating knowledge of reality. The knowledgeable
viewer must be able to reinterpret these clues to meaning.
Gestalt psychology provides understanding of depth clues (overlap, shadow, color,
gradients, and placement) that give the viewer clues to form and space. Motion clues
in moving images also shape the nature of visual evidence. Awareness of complexity
and arbitrary use of visual clues is necessary for viewers to independently evaluate the
visual image for veracity and importance. Application of the realism principle provides
a ground of information that is either believable and true or false and manipulative.
Informed visual communication must consider the medium of realism selected by the
message designer and its aesthetic and affective dimensions created within the viewer.
Layering
Visual elements never exist in isolation; they are always effected by what is around them.
What is implicitly meaningful is the larger gestalt configuration. The philosopher John
Dewey stated, "To think effectively in terms of relations of qualities is as severe a demand
upon thought as to think in terms of symbols, verbal and mathematical" (Dewey, 1934,
p. 46). For an effective visual message to be shaped, a composite, holistic gestalt must
emerge from multiple types of separate aesthetic relationships, a layering of simultaneous
events.
Each image contains forces and tensions; groupings; selections of depth clues; deci-
sions made through trial, error, and reflection; and conscious design decisions directing
the viewer's attention. Like geological stratum, each separate relationship represents a
process of layered transparency, a unique type of visually based logic. This logic supports
the process of visually based reasoning and the interpretation of the perceived message.
Visual logic is based on understanding of normal functions of perceptual processing
of the human nervous system. Words can only speak of one thing at a time, but images
arrive holistically, everything present simultaneously. Visual logic must be understood in
a wordless way of speculating, considering, and eventually knowing.
SEEKING CONSILIENCE
Aesthetic exploration can lead to unique forms of knowing that are cognitive and affective
at the same time. Zeki (1999) concluded that wordless modes of knowing can discover
significant new knowledge, complementarily and sometimes foreshadowing science.
Figure 1.8 is a painting by the author of this chapter entitled, "Thought Structure." Some
years after its completion and titling, a chemist interpreted this image as an example of
fractal geometry (the mathematics of asymmetry). As the artist, this was not my conscious
19 1. AESTHETICS THEORY
FIG. 1.8. Thought structure, Dennis Dake, 22-1/2" x 28", airbrush/watercolor, 1977.
intention. My intention was to capture the structure of my thoughts: Mathematics as a
subject had never entered my conscious thought. The visually logical resemblance to a
representation of a fractal is, however, striking.
Aesthetics are the mute, unnamable aspects of visual communication that one could
talk about forever. If visual communication is defined as only clarity and exactness in
verbal interpretation, much potential power of visual imagery to connect human minds
would be lost. Literary exactitude forces visual information through too narrow a funnel.
Filtered out is some of visual language's richest potential for informational relationship.
In his 1998 book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, biologist Edward O. Wilson ar-
gued for the fundamental unity of all knowledge and the need to search for proof that
everything is organized in terms of a small number of fundamental natural laws, under-
lying every branch of learning. The physical and biological sciences are now increasingly
reaching such consilience, where new understandings can be based on common prin-
ciples. Wilson saw the effort to bridge between the sciences and other disciplines as a
great labyrinth, which must be negotiated. The greatest challenge Wilson foresaw was
consilience between the sciences and the arts.
Interpretation has multiple dimensions, namely history, biography, linguistics, and aesthetic
judgment. At the foundation of them all lie the material processes of the human mind.
20 DAKE
Theoretically inclined critics of the past have tried many avenues into that subterranean
realm, including most prominently psychoanalysis and post modernist solipsism. These
approaches, which are guided largely by unaided intuition about the way the brain works,
have fared badly. In the absence of a compass based on sound material knowledge, they
make too many wrong turns into blind ends. If the brain is ever to be charted, and an
enduring theory of the arts created as part of the enterprise, it will be by stepwise and
consilient contributions from the brain sciences, psychology, and evolutionary biology. And
if during this process the creative mind is to be understood, it will need collaboration
between scientists and humanities scholars. (Wilson, 1998, p. 216)
This chapter has speculated on some possible connections among knowledge from
the neurosciences, evidence from artistic expression, and the nature of visual aesthetic
communication. Triangulation from these perspectives may generate verifiable principles
and laws on which to base a disciplined understanding of aesthetic aspects of visual
information exchange, a fruitful consilience.
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