The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

I find it intriguing that the visual metaphor is probably understood by the right hemisphere long before the more literal-minded left hemisphere can spell out the reasons. (Unlike a lot of flaky pop psychology lore about hemispheric specialization, this particular distinction probably does have a grain of truth.) I am tempted to suggest that there is ordinarily a translation barrier between the left hemisphere’s language-based, propositional logic and the more oneiric (dream like), intuitive “thinking” (if that’s the right word) of the right, and great art sometimes succeeds by dissolving this barrier. How often have you listened to a strain of music that evokes a richness of meaning that is far more subtle than what can be articulated by the philistine left hemisphere?

FIGURE 8.4 A stone nymph below an arching bough, looking heavenward for divine inspiration. Khajuraho, India, eleventh century.

A more mundane example is the use of certain attention-drawing tricks used by designers. The word “tilt” printed in visually tilted letters produces a comical yet pleasing effect. This tempts me to posit a separate law of aesthetics, which we might call “visual resonance,” or “echo” (although I am wary of falling into the trap that some Gestaltists fell into of calling every observation a law). Here the resonance is between the concept of the word “tilt” with its actual literal tilt, blurring the boundary between conception and perception.

In comics, words like “scared,” “fear,” or “shiver” are often printed in wiggly lines as if the letters themselves were trembling. Why is this so effective? I’d say it is because the wiggly line is a spatial echo of your own shiver, which in turn resonates with the concept of fear. It may be that watching someone tremble (or tremble as depicted metaphorically by a wiggly letters) makes you echo the tremble ever so slightly because it prepares you to run away, anticipating the predator that may have caused the other person to tremble. If so, your reaction time for detecting the word “fear” depicted in wiggly letters might be much shorter than if the word were depicted in straight lines (smooth letters), an idea that can be tested in the laboratory.²

I will conclude my comments on the aesthetic law of metaphor with Indian art’s greatest icon: The Dancing Shiva, or Nataraja. In Chennai (Madras), there is bronze gallery in the state museum that houses a magnificent collection of southern Indian bronzes. One of its prize works is a twelfth-century Nataraja (Figure 8.5). One day around the turn of the twentieth century, an elderly firangi (“foreigner” or “white” in Hindi) gentleman was observed gazing at the Nataraja in awe. To the amazement of the museum guards and patrons, he went into a sort of trance and proceeded to mimic the dance postures. A crowd gathered around, but the gentleman seemed oblivious until the curator finally showed up to see what was going on. He almost had the poor man arrested until he realized the European was none other than the world-famous sculptor Auguste Rodin. Rodin was moved to tears by The Dancing Shiva. In his writings he referred to it as one of the greatest works of art ever created by the human mind.

You don’t have to be religious or Indian or Rodin to appreciate the grandeur of this bronze. At a very literal level, it depicts the cosmic dance of Shiva, who creates, sustains, and destroys the Universe. But the sculpture is much more than that; it is a metaphor of the dance of the Universe itself, of the movement and energy of the cosmos. The artist depicts this sensation through the skillful use of many devices. For example, the centrifugal motion of Shiva’s arms and legs flailing in different directions and the wavy tresses flying off his head symbolize the agitation and frenzy of the cosmos. Yet right in the midst of all this turbulence—this fitful fever of life—is the calm spirit of Shiva himself. He gazes at his own creation with supreme tranquility and poise. How skillfully the artist has combined these seemingly antithetical elements of movement and energy, on the one hand, and eternal peace and stability on the other. This sense of something eternal and stable (God, if you like) is conveyed partly by Shiva’s slightly bent left leg, which gives him balance and poise even in the midst of his frenzy, and partly by his serene, tranquil expression, which conveys a sense of timelessness. In some Nataraja sculptures this peaceful expression is replaced by an enigmatic half-smile, as though the great god were laughing at life and death alike.

FIGURE 8.5 Nataraja depicting the cosmic dance of Shiva. Southern India, Chola period, twelfth century.