Towards a (Neuro-)Psychology of Art: Cues for Attention in Mesopotamian Art
Keywords:
Mesopotamian art, Psychology of artAbstract
Psychology of art and neuroesthetics remain largely unknown to current scholarship in Mesopotamian art studies and only a few contributions have recently dealt with artefacts relying on these methods of investigation. The goal of this paper is to identify cues for the cognitive process of attention in ancient Mesopotamian art, aiming to find confirmation of their possible use by ancient Mesopotamian artists and audiences. A similar approach was used in ancient Greek art and this contribution represents an attempt to pave the way to open new perspectives for how ancient Near Eastern art can be analysed. The results show the universality of the audience’s attention towards art, probably connected with basic responses of cognitive processes.
References
Albenda, P. 1992. Symmetry in the Art of the Assyrian Empire. In D. Charpin and F. Joannes (eds), La circulation des biens, des personnes et des idées dans le Proche- Orient ancient. Actes de la XXXVIIIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Paris, 9-10 juillet 1991): 297-309. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les civilisations.
Albenda, P. 1998. Monumental Art of the Assyrian Empire: Dynamics of Composition Styles, Monographs on the Ancient Near East 3/1. Malibu, Undena Publications.
Aldhouse-Green, M. 2004. An Archaeology of Images: Iconology and Cosmology in Iron Age and Roman Europe. London and New York: Routledge.
Alster, B. 2003-2004. Images and Text on the ‘Stele of the Vultures’. Archiv für Orientforschung 50: 1-10.
Arnheim, R. 1974. Art and Visual Perception. A Psychology of the Creative Eye. Berkeley and Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
Arnheim, R. 1986. New Essays on the Psychology of Art. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.
Arnheim, R. 1988. The Power of the Center: A Study of Composition in the Visual Arts. Berkeley - Los Angeles - London: University of California Press.
Asher-Greve, J.M. 2006. ‘Golden Age’ of Women? Status and Gender in Third Millennium Sumerian and Akkadian Art. In S. Schroer (ed.), Images and Gender: Contributions to the Hermeneutics of Reading Ancient Art (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 220): 41-81. Fribourg - Göttingen: Academic Press and Fribourg: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Bahrani, Z. 2003. The Graven Image: Representation in Babylonia and Assyria. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Bahrani, Z. 2014. The Infinite Image: Art, Time, and the Aesthetic Dimension in Antiquity. London: Reaktion Books.
Barnett, R.D. 1976. Sculptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668-627 B.C.). London: The Trustees of the British Museum.
Barnett, R.D. and M. Falkner 1962. The Sculptures of Aššur-naṣir-apli II (883-859 B.C.), Tiglath-pileser III (745-727 B.C.), Esarhaddon (681-669 B.C.) from the Central and South-West Palaces at Nimrud. London: The Trustees of the British Museum.
Barnett, R.D., E. Bleibtreu and G. Turner 1998. Sculptures from the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh. London: British Museum Press.
Battini, L. 2019a. Light as Experience: Rethinking Neo-Assyrian Reliefs in their Architectural Context. Ash Sharq 3/2: 69-104.
Battini, L. 2019b. Consented Violence in the Collective Memory: the Lachish Case from Epigraphic and Iconographic Data. Semitica 61: 337-371.
Belting, H. 2001. Bild-Anthropologie. Entwürfe für eine Bildwissenschaft. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
Belting, H. 2005. Image, Medium, Body: A New Approach to Iconology. Critical Inquiry 31/2: 302-319.
Bertamini, M. and A.D.J. Makin 2014. Brain Activity in Response to Visual Symmetry. Symmetry 6: 975-996.
Bertamini, M., Makin, A. and G. Rampone 2013. Implicit Association of Symmetry with Positive Valence, High Arousal and Simplicity. i-Perception 4: 317-327.
Bonatz, D. 2002. Was ist ein Bild im Alten Orient? Aspekte bildlicher Darstellung aus altorientalischer Sicht. In M. Heinz and D. Bonatz (eds), Bild – Macht – Geschichte. Visuelle Kommunikation im Alten Orient: 9-20. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag.
Bonatz, D. 2004. Ashurbanipal’s Headhunt: An Anthropological Perspective. Iraq 66: 93-101.
Bonatz, D. 2017. Der stumme Schrei – Kritische Überlegungen zu Emotionen als Untersuchungsfeld der altorientalischen Bildwissenschaft. In S. Kipfer (ed.), Visualizing Emotions in the Ancient Near East, OBO 285: 55-74. Fribourg - Göttingen: Academic Press Fribourg- Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Bonatz, D. and M. Heinz 2019. Representation. In A.C. Gunter (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Art: 233-259. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell.
Botta, P.E. and M.E. Flandin 1849. Monument de Ninive I-II. Architecture et sculpture. Paris, Imprimerie nationale.
Bredekamp, H. 2003. Art History as Bildwissenschaft. Critical Inquiry 29/3: 418-428.
Bredekamp, H. 2010. Theorie des Bildakts: Über das Lebensrecht des Bildes. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag.
Budge, E.A.W. 1914. Assyrian Sculptures in the British Museum: Reign of Ashur-nasir-pal, 885-860 B.C. London: Trustees of the British Museum.
Canby, J.V. 2001. The 'Ur-Nammu' Stela (University Museum Monograph 110). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum.
Collins, P. 2008. Assyria. Palace Sculptures. London: The British Museum Press.
Collins, S. 2015. The Standard of Ur. London: British Museum Press.
Cooper, J.S. 1978. The Return of Ninurta to Nippur, Analecta Orientalia 52. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum.
Damasio, A. 2010. Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. New York:
Pantheon Books.
Dolce, R. 2018. ‘Losing One’s Head' in the Ancient Near East: Interpretation and Meaning of Decapitation. London and New York: Routledge.
Duarte, A.M. and M.I. Stefanakis 2015. The Use of Cues for Attention in Ancient Greek Art: Aspects that Influence Concentration in the Work of Art and Its Elements. Arte, Individuo y Sociedad 27/3: 517-535.
Fischer, E. 2011. Visual Motion and Self-Motion Processing in the Human Brain (MPI Series in Biological Cybernetics 31). Berlin: Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH.
Frankfort, H. 1954. The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient (The Pelican History of Art 27). London: Penguin Books.
Gell, A. 1992. The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology. In J. Coote and A. Shelton (eds), Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics: 40-63. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gillmann, N. 2011-2012. Les bas-reliefs Neo-Assyriens: une nouvelle tentative d’interpretation. State Archives of Assyria Bulletin XIX: 203-237.
Gombrich, E.H. 1979. The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Gombrich, E.H. 1984. Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. London: Phaidon.
Gombrich, E.H. 1988. Symmetrie, Wahrnehmung und künstlerische Gestaltung. In R. Wille (ed.), Symmetrie in Geistes‐ und Naturwissenschaft. Hauptvorträge und Diskussionen des Symmetrie‐Symposiums an der Technischen Hochschule Darmstadt vom 13. bis 17. Juni 1986 im Rahmen des Symmetrieprojektes der Stadt Darmstadt: 94-119. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, London, Paris and Tokyo: Springer Verlag.
Gunter, A.C. (ed.) 1990. Investigating Artistic Environments in the Ancient Near East. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
Gunter, A.C. (ed.) 2019. A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Art. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell.
Gunter, A.C. 1990. Artists and Ancient Near Eastern Art. In Gunter (ed.), Investigating Artistic Environments in the Ancient Near East: 9-17. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
Gunter, A.C. 2019. The ‘Art’ of the ‘Ancient Near East’. In Gunter (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Art: 1-21. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell.
Hölscher, T. 2014. Semiotics to Agency. In C. Marconi (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Art and Architecture: 662-686. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Iacoboni, M. 2008. I neuroni specchio. Come capiamo ciò che fanno gli altri. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.
Ishrat, M. and P. Abrol 2020. Image Complexity Analysis with Scanpath Identification using Remote Gaze Estimation Model. Multimedia Tools and Applications 2020, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-020-09117-9.
Ismail, B.K. 1986. Eine Siegesstele des Königs Daduša von Ešnunna. In W. Meid and H. Trenkwalder (eds), Im Bannkreis des Alten Orients. Studien zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte des Alten Orients und seines Ausstrahlungsraumes Karl Oberhuber zum 70. Geburtstag gewidmet: 105-108. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.
Ismail, B.K. and A.Cavigneaux 2003. Dādušas Siegesstele IM 95200 aus Ešnunna. Die Inschrift. Baghdader Mitteilungen 34: 129-156.
Janes, R. 2005. Losing Our Heads: Beheadings in Literature and Culture. New York and London: New York University Press.
Kandel, E.R. 2012. The Age of Insight. The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain. From Vienna 1900 to the Present. New York: Random House.
Kandel, E.R. 2016. Reductionism in Art and Brain Science. Bridging the Two Cultures. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kipfer, S. (ed.) 2017. Visualizing Emotions in the Ancient Near East, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 285. Fribourg, Göttingen: Academic Press and Fribourg: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
LeDoux, J.E. 1996. The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Maffei, L. and A. Fiorentini 2008. Arte e cervello. Bologna: Zanichelli.
Meuszyński, J. 1981. Die Rekonstruktion der Reliefdarstellungen und ihrer Anordnung im Nordwestpalast von Kalḫu (Nimrūd). Räume: B.C.D.E.F.H.L.N.P (Baghdader Forschungen 2). Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.
Mitchell, W.J.T. 1984. What is an Image? New Literary History 15/3: 503-537.
Mitchell, W.J.T. 1994. Picture Theory. Chicago - London: The University of Chicago Press.
Mitchell, W.J.T. 2005. What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Mitchell, W.J.T. 2015. Image Science: Iconology, Visual Culture, and Media Aesthetics. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Moser, S. and Smiles, S. (eds) 2005. Introduction: The Image in Question. In S. Moser and S. Smiles (eds), Envisioning the Past: Archaeology and the Image: 1-12. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Müller-Karpe, M. 1993. Metallgefäße im Iraq, I: Von den Anfängen bis zur Akkad-Zeit. (Prähistorische Bronzefunde Abteilung II, volume 14). Stuttgart: Steiner.
Nadali, D. 2008. La stele di Daduša come documento storico dell’età paleobabilonese. Immagini e iscrizione a confronto. Vicino Oriente XIV: 129-146.
Nadali, D. 2012 Interpretations and Translations, Performativity and Embodied Simulation: Reflections on Assyrian Images. In G.B. Lanfranchi, D.M. Bonacossi, C. Pappi, and S. Ponchia (eds), Leggo! Studies Presented to Frederick Mario Fales on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday: 583-595. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Nadali, D. 2014. Categorizing Images and Objects: Where and How Ancient Artefacts Might Be Evaluated. In P. Bieliński (ed.), Proceedings of the 8th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 30 April-4 May 2012, University of Warsaw: 467-476. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Nadali, D. and L. Portuese 2020 (forthcoming). Archaeology of Images: Context and Intericonicity in Neo-Assyrian Art. In J. Bracker (ed.), Homo pictor. Image Studies and Archaeology in Dialogue (Freiburger Studien zur Archäologie und visuellen Kultur 2).
Nadali, D. and L. Verderame 2019. Neo-Assyrian Statues of Gods and Kings in Context. Altorientalische Forschungen 46/2: 234-248.
Nigro, L. 1992. Per una analisi formale dello schema compositivo della stele di Naram-Sin. Contributi e Materiali di Archeologia Orientale IV: 61-100.
Nigro, L. 1997. Legittimazione e consenso: iconologia, religione e politica nelle stele di Sargon di Akkad. Contributi e Materiali di Archeologia Orientale VII: 351-392.
Nigro, L. 1998. Two Steles of Sargon: Iconology and Visual Propaganda at the Beginning of Royal Akkadian Relief. Iraq 60: 85-102.
Niu, Y., Todd, R.M., Kyan, M. and A. Anderson 2012. Visual and Emotional Salience Influence Eye Movements. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception 9/3: 1-18.
Nunn, A. 1988. Die Wandmalerei und der glasierte Wandschmuck im Alten Orient (Handbuch der Orientalistik 7 Bd., Der Alte Vordere Orient 2). Leiden: Brill.
Nunn, A. 2006. Knaufplatten und Knäufe aus Assur (Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 112). Saarwellingen: Harrassowitz.
Nunn, A. 2010. Farben und Farbigkeit auf mesopotamischen Statuetten. In J. Becker, R. Hempelmann and E. Rehm (eds), Kulturlandschaft Syrien. Zentrum und Peripherie. Festschrift für Jan-Waalke Meyer (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 371): 427-448, 659-669. Münster: Ugarit Verlag.
Pecchinedda, A., Bertamini, M., Makin, A.D.J. and N. Ruta 2014. The Pleasantness of Visual Symmetry: Always, Never or Sometimes. Plos One 9/3: 1-10.
Portuese, L. 2016. ‘Merciful’ Messages in the Reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II: the Land of Suḫu. Egitto e Vicino Oriente XXXIX: 179-199.
Portuese, L. 2019. The Throne Room of Aššurnaṣirpal II: a Multisensory Experience. In A. Hawthorn and A.-C Rendu Loisel (eds), Distant Impressions: The Senses in the Near East: 63-92. University Park: Eisenbrauns.
Portuese, L. forthcoming. From an Object to a Thing: Immaterial Materialities in the Neo-Assyrian Realm. In S. Di Paolo (ed.), The Look of Things in the Ancient Near East. Moving from Surface toward Depth and Back Again. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Ramachandran, V.S. 2011. The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human. New York and London: Norton and Company.
Ramachandran, V.S. and W. Hirstein 1999. The Science of Art. A Neurological Theory of Aesthetic Experience. Journal of Consciousness Studies 6/6-7: 15-51.
Reade, J.E. 1979. Assyrian Architectural Decoration: Techniques and Subject-Matter. Baghdader Mitteilungen 10: 17-49.
Reade, J.E. 1983. Assyrian Sculpture. London: The Trustees of the British Museum.
Rizzolatti, G. and R. Sinigaglia 2006. So quel che fai. Il cervello che agisce e i neuroni specchio. Milano: Cortina Raffaello.
Rosen, J. 1998. Symmetry Discovered: Concepts and Applications in Nature and Science. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rosen, J. 2008. Symmetry Rules: How Science and Nature Are Founded on Symmetry. Berlin: Heidelberg: Springer.
Sasson, J.M. 1990. Artisans…Artists: Documentary Perspectives from Mari. In A.C. Gunter (ed.), Investigating Artistic Environments in the Ancient Near East: 21-27. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
Sou, L. 2015. New Light on Colour: A Study of Polychromy on Neo-Assyrian Reliefs. (http://www.undergraduatelibrary.org/2015/classical-studies-archaeology/new-light-colour-study-polychromy-neo-assyrian-reliefs).
Suter, C.E. 2018. The Victory Stele of Dadusha of Eshnunna: A New Look at its Imagery and Ekphrasis in View of Historical Circumstance. Ash-Sharq 2.2: 1-29.
Starr, G.G. 2013. Feeling Beauty: The Neuroscience of Aesthetic Experience. Cambridge - London: The MIT Press.
Tyler, A.C. 1992. Shaping Belief: The Role of Audience in Visual Communication. Design Issues 9/1: 21-29.
Verri, G., Collins, P., Ambers, J., Sweek, T. and S.J.Simpson 2009. Assyrian Colours: Pigments on a Neo-Assyrian Relief of a Parade Horse. Technical Research Bulletin 3: 57-62.
Wagner-Durand, E. 2017. Visualization of Emotions – Potentials and Obstacles. A Response to Dominik Bonatz. In S. Kipfer (ed.), Visualizing Emotions in the Ancient Near East, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 285: 75-93. Göttingen: Academic Press and Fribourg: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Wagner-Durand, E. 2018. Visualizing and Evoking the Emotion Fear in and through Neo-Assyrian Orthostat Reliefs. In B. Horejs, C. Schwall, V. Müller, M. Luciani, M. Ritter, M. Giudetti, R.B. Salisbury, F. Höflmayer and T. Bürge (eds), Proceedings of the 10th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 25-29 April 2016, Vienna: 563-576. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Watanabe, C.E. 1998. Symbolism of the Royal Lion Hunt in Assyria. In J. Prosecký (ed.), Intellectual Life in the Ancient Near East: Papers Presented at the Forty-Third Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Prague, July 1-5, 1996: 439-450. Prague: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Oriental Institute.
Watanabe, C.E. 2002. Animal Symbolism in Mesopotamia: A Contextual Approach (Wiener Offene Orientalistik I). Wien: Wiener Offene Orientalistik.
Wedde, M. 1992. Pictorial Architecture: For a Theory-Based Analysis of Imagery. In R. Laffineur and J.L. Crowley (eds), EIKΩN: Aegean Bronze Age Iconography: Shaping a Methodology. Proceedings of the 4th International Aegean Conference, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia, 6-8 April 1992. Aegaeum 8: 181-203. Liège: Annales d’achéologie égéenne de l’Université de Liége.
Weyl, H. 1952. Symmetry. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Winter, I.J. 1981. Royal Rhetoric and the Development of Historical Narrative in Neo-Assyrian Reliefs. Studies in Visual Communication 7/2: 2-38.
Winter, I.J. 1983. The Program of the Throneroom of Assurnasirpal II. In P.O. Harper and H. Pittman (eds), Essays on Near Eastern Art and Archaeology in Honor of Charles Kyrle Wilkinson: 15-31. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Winter, I.J. 1985. After the Battle Is Over: The Stele of the Vultures and the Beginning of Historical Narrative in the Art of the Ancient Near East. In H.L. Kessler and M.S. Simpson (eds), Pictorial Narrative in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. (Studies in the History of Art 16): 11-32.
Winter, I.J. 1986. Eannatum and the ‘King of Kish’?: Another Look at the Stele of the Vultures and ‘Cartouches’ in Early Sumerian Art. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 76/2: 205-212.
Winter, I.J. 1992. Change in the American Art Museum: The (An) Art Historian’s Voice. In C. Becker, C. James and H. Louis Gates (eds), Different Voices: a Social, Cultural, and Historical Framework for Change in the American Art Museum: 30-57. New York: Association of Art Museum Directors.
Winter, I.J. 1995. Aesthetics in Ancient Mesopotamian Art. In J.M. Sasson (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East IV: 2569-2580. New York: Scribner’s.
Winter, I.J. 1996. Sex, Rhetoric, and the Public Monument: the Alluring Body of Naram-Sîn of Agade. In N.B. Kampen and B. Bergmann (eds), Sexuality in Ancient Art: Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Italy: 11-26. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Winter, I.J. 2002. How Tall Was Naram-Sîn’s Victory Stele? Speculation on the Broken Bottom. In E. Ehrenberg (ed.), Leaving No Stones Unturned: Essays on the Ancient Near East and Egypt in Honor of Donald P. Hansen: 301-311. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
Winter, I.J. 2008. Sennacherib’s Expert Knowledge: Skill and Mastery as Components of Royal Display. In R.D. Biggs, J. Myers and M.T. Roth (eds), Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique International Held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, July 18-22, 2005: 333-338. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Zwickel, W. 2017. The Iconography of Emotions in the Ancient Near East and in Ancient Egypt. In S. Kipfer (ed.), Visualizing Emotions in the Ancient Near East (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 285): 95-121. Göttingen: Academic Press and Fribourg: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.