The artist’s coach: Symmetry

 

Art, of course, doesn’t concern only the realm of the visual. It is an experience that always involves the entire human being. But this passage from Ramachandran may help to a better understanding of what many contemporary artists are doing when they use the “figural primitive” called symmetry. Be careful: the below passage could also be read as a metaphor.

 

Symmetry, of course, is also aesthetically pleasing as is well known to any Islamic artist (or indeed to any child looking through a kaleidoscope) and it is thought to be extracted very early in visual processing (Julesz, 1971). Since most biologically important objects – such as predator, prey or mate are symmetrical, it may serve as an early-warning system to grab our attention to facilitate further processing of the symmetrical entity until is fully recognized. As such, this principle complements the other laws described in this essay; it is geared towards discovering “interesting” object-like entities in the world.

Intriguingly, it has recently been shown experimentally that when choosing a mate, animals and humans prefer symmetrical over asymmetrical ones and evolutionary biologists have argued that this is because parasitic infestation – detrimental to fertility – often produces lopsided, asymmetrical growth and development. If so, it is hardly surprising that we have a built-in-aesthetic preference for symmetry.

 

V.S. Ramanchandran, “The science of art: a neurological theory of aesthetic experience”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vo. 6.

 

August 15, 2015