Visual Jokes in Art History

Psychologists were not the first people to be interested in visual illusions nor the use of illusions or multiple interpretations within a painting.  The January 2011 issue of Smithsonian has a great article called "Feast for the Eyes" along with pictures about the artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo who did such work for the Hapsburg dynasty (in the 1500s) who had humor enough to appreciate his work.  Check out the article at the link above-quite fascinating.

If you like the work of Arcimboldo, check out his complete works on this site.

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

Brain Scans as Art

Thanks to Eric Chudler over at Neuroscience for Kids for this find.

The artist, Elizabeth Jameson has taken brain scans and made art from them.  Check out her work here.

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

Louis Wain and the Cat Paintings from Psychosis

I've been fascinated by the Louis Wain pictures of cats that he allegedly drew while increasingly being affected by psychosis. In fact, the four-picture progression is in both my regular and AP textbooks. Wain, to my surprise, was a long-time artist who drew cats with human expression for some years. One set of pictures is here. According to Mindhacks, the progression is false and they make their case with a history of Wain and his psychosis with more detail than I ever knew existed about the artist. Fascinating. This publisher site has more detail about Wain's life and more drawings of his cats. Mindhacks also has this link to more Wain work. Enjoy.