The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present

This is a splendid book both on the workings of the brain and how it can be exemplified in the art of Vienna 1900. This was after all the place and time that led to modernity making Vienna one of the pre-eminent capitals of the world. One is swept up in the feeling of being privy to the birth of the new understanding in medicine and art as it took place in Vienna 1900 in its most intense unfolding and this description is extended to later work, predominantly at US universities, often by people who derived from the Viennese school of thinking through emigration.The work follows the tradition of the bridge-builders between the seemingly opposed subjects bringing new insights from brain-science in understanding art. It shows, in academic detail, the brain as a network that finds pleasure in the acquisition of knowledge in either field. It is rather comprehensive and learned at that.The book is cerebral but very readable; in fact I read it in a Marathon session in preparing for a trip to New York to the Golden Adele, this Mona Lisa of the Fin de Siècle. You don't need the trip though; there are wonderful reproductions in the book of interesting work to be analyzed. You need also not read all the academic detail, there is much to enjoy by taking glimpses or by looking at shorter summaries and graphs.In the first part we learn, in an especially engrossing section, about the general atmosphere in Vienna during its golden time, its coffee-house and theater culture, its literary, musical and salon life but another forward force was the influence of Europe's premier Medical School of the time in Vienna that established such routines as stethoscope or auscultation. It was the understanding of its research that urged the artists and scientists to look further below the surface. In fact, Klimt's ornaments often come from microscopic cell structures from Medical School. Much loving personal detail is given in this section. Freud is discussed, as are his contemporaries the writers Schnitzler and Hoffmannsthal who have looked to the unconscious. But the focus is on Klimt, Kokoschka and Schiele, the Austrian Modernist painters. Their work is analyzed from a Nobel brain scientist's perspective in a tour de force.In further sections a new and trailblazing sense for artistic analysis based on brain processes is suggested in great detail and you will learn about contemporary brain criteria for appreciating art. This section does not introduce the scientific practitioners with the same loving attention and it reminds you more of a science survey article. It helps if you don't hate terms like oxytocin, as it is the chemical involved in love, and much is made in the text of these brain chemicals. You learn that caricatures work because specific brain cells exist that like to read them. This is why the exagerations of the Austrian expressionists are so effective.Amongst the broader subject of Vienna 1900, Good Living Street: Portrait of a Patron Family, Vienna 1900Family, Vienna 1900 gives a touching documentary of the Gallias, an art patronage family of which the author is a descendent, and Tassilo's guide to Klimt's Kiss/ Paintings of Vienna's Belvedere an erudite and witty visit with a Jewish teen-girl to the museum where much of the art discussed is displayed. It can serve as an entertaining introductory course so to speak. One of the first to point out the importance of Vienna 1900 as one of the cultural capitals of the world and as a founder of Modernity was Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture, perhaps more for the academically minded. None have gone so deep into the brain so far as Kandel to make Vienna shine. Your whole perspective of looking at art will be changed, and you will learn a lot about yourself even if you may now view yourself more as a caricature.When asked in a comment on flaws of the Kindle edition I came to realize how flawless it is. Footnotes and pictures are fully integrated and pictures are even repeated where the text returns to them.

In this richLY rewarding book, Nobel laureate Eric Kandel (2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) attempts to draw together two widely disparate disciplines, the visual arts and brain science. That he succeeds as well as he does is a tribute to the wide reading he has done -in neuroscience, of course, but also psychology and physiology, philosophy, history and philosophy of art (he doesn't do badly in history either)--and his openness to new ideas.Using the art world and science world of turn of the century Vienna, and focusing on the three extraordinary artists who among them forged Austrian Expressionism -Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), and Egon Schiele (1890-1918) - asks three questions:*Does art have universal functions and features?*If so, how are they arrived at and perceived?*Are our responses to art always personal or are there general biological mechanisms within us that condition them?Kokoschka called himself a "psychological tin can opener." He wanted to paint his subjects' inner reality. Just as Viennese writer Alfred Schnitzler invented the interior monologue, "stream of consciousness," to gain access to the inner thoughts and mood swings of his characters, so Kokoschka and Schiele especially, devised new artistic techniques to look behind the mask of a person's public persona. While they add little new to our understanding of their works, Kandel's comments on why they worked are sensible and, more important yet, given the eventual aim of the book (the book's arc) they provide a bridge to the later discussion of how in fact the brain processes visual information and, briefly, a discussion of "the brain as a creativity machine."The discussion that follows occupies almost two-thirds of the book. After a relatively short (40 pp) discussion of the cognitive psychology of perception, it concentrates on how the brain receives, stores and organizes information, and the implications of this for the visual arts. Parts of what follows is heavy going but plodding through it familiarizes the reader for some very interesting comments.I don't intend to summarize them, but I will give one example. Discussing the dominant role of line in art, Kandel observes:"Artists have always realized that objects are defined by their shapes, which in turn derive from their edges. [But] In the actual world, there is no such thing as an outline: objects end and backgrounds begin without any clear line distinguishing the boundaries. Yet the viewer has no difficulty in perceiving a line drawing as representing a hand, a person, or a house. The fact that this sort of shorthand works so effortlessly tells us a lot about how our visual processing system works. ... [O]ur brain cells are excellent ... at reading lines and contours as edges. ... Each moment that our eyes are open, orientation cells in the primary visual cortex are constructing the elements of line drawings in the scene before us."A book that ranges this widely forces the writer to move outside his or her chosen field of expertise quite regularly. There are risks in doing it but the payoff can be considerable. Kandel has done so boldly without distorting or moving beyond what current evidence has shown. He notes the achievements and observations of others, making it easy to trace where his own ideas and speculations come from. He notes what is speculation and what firm evidence. And he writes lucidly and, occasionally, very well.Another thing I like about the book is the care that has been expended in producing it. Random House deserves applause for its support of the project, which cannot have been cheap. There are numerous color illustrations, works of art and diagrams of the brain, and black and white photographs and schematic drawings of the nervous system, etc. The cover incorporates Klimt's first portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907), one of his most seductive and lushly painted works, and the end papers reproduce a detail, rich in gold, from the dame work. A lovely touch: when Kandel discuses what makes a face attractive, he illustrates it with a photograph of his wife taken when she was much younger.[This is the second book I have purchased and read this year on or about science where the presentation enhances the text. The other was George Dyson's magnificent history of the digital revolution, Turing's Castle (Pantheon, 2012).]

Uno de mis libros favoritos que por fin compré en físico. Lamentable llegó dañado...

Liebe Leserinnen und Leser,heute möchte ich euch meine Erfahrungen mit dem Buch "The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present" von Eric Kandel teilen.Als ehemalige Psychologie-Studentin bin ich immer auf der Suche nach interessanten Büchern, die sich mit der menschlichen Psyche beschäftigen. Als ich auf "The Age of Insight" gestoßen bin, war ich zunächst skeptisch, da es sich um ein Sachbuch handelt und ich mir nicht sicher war, ob es mich wirklich fesseln würde.Aber bereits nach den ersten Seiten war ich absolut begeistert! Eric Kandel, ein Neurowissenschaftler und Nobelpreisträger, führt den Leser auf eine faszinierende Reise durch die Kunstgeschichte Wiens und zeigt auf beeindruckende Weise, wie Kunst und Wissenschaft miteinander verbunden sind.Kandel beschreibt die Entdeckungen und Erkenntnisse der Wiener Schule der Psychoanalyse, insbesondere von Sigmund Freud und Carl Jung, und zeigt auf, wie diese die Kunst und die Kultur beeinflusst haben. Er geht dabei nicht nur auf die Entwicklungen in Wien ein, sondern erweitert den Blick auf die internationale Kunstszene und zeigt auf, wie die Psychoanalyse Einfluss auf die moderne Kunst genommen hat.Besonders interessant fand ich auch die Einblicke in die Neurowissenschaften und die Erkenntnisse über die Funktionsweise des menschlichen Gehirns. Kandel verbindet diese Erkenntnisse auf beeindruckende Weise mit der Kunst und zeigt auf, wie unser Gehirn die Kunst wahrnimmt und verarbeitet.Auch der Schreibstil des Autors hat mich sehr angesprochen. Er schreibt sehr anschaulich und verständlich und verbindet wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse mit Geschichten und Anekdoten, die das Lesen zu einem wahren Vergnügen machen.Alles in allem kann ich "The Age of Insight" jedem empfehlen, der sich für Kunst, Psychoanalyse und Neurowissenschaften interessiert. Es ist ein faszinierendes Buch, das auf beeindruckende Weise zeigt, wie Kunst und Wissenschaft miteinander verbunden sind und wie wir durch die Kunst unser Verständnis von uns selbst erweitern können.Fazit: Ein faszinierendes Buch, das auf beeindruckende Weise Kunst, Psychoanalyse und Neurowissenschaften miteinander verbindet und zeigt, wie wir durch die Kunst unser Verständnis von uns selbst erweitern können. Sehr empfehlenswert!

Es tecnico pero muy bien explicado. Hay bastantes fotos de los cuadros. Una preciosidad y una gozada!

Ainda que discorde aqui e ali de Kandel, um reducionista convicto, bastante explícito e aberto quanto à sua opção epistemológica, deve-se louvar sua honestidade intelectual e clareza. Poucos autores, talvez, que eu mesmo conheça, nenhum, se aventurou em tentar unificar os campos diversos da cultura Austríaca dos 1900, de onde o autor provém, arte, literatura, medicina e psicanálise, sem deixar de lado a vanguarda das contribuições da neurociência, campo que lhe deu o Nobel. Já havia lido várias tentativas anteriores, como as de Changeux ou Eccles, mas nenhuma tão aguda e abrangente. Penso que Kandel é o legítimo herdeiro do antigo neurocientista que versava em estilo refinado temas da literatura e filosofia, que me encantou na juventude, Sir Charles Sherrington.

A surprisingly fascinating book, Dr.Kandel writes better than many art historians! This is a MUST read book!