The history of this painterly approach to picture-making goes back at least to the Venetians of the 15th and 16th centuries (Bellini, Giorgione and Titian) and development of oil paint as the medium of choice among prominent Renaissance artists. Previously, European painters had relied on egg tempera to achieve clarity and precision in their linear renditions.

Occasionally an artist will move dramatically from one approach to the other in different phases of their career. Mondrian’s early “Van Goghesque” canvas, The Red Tree, pictured in Fig. 2-8, predates his “Formalist” period in America, where his style became linear and devoid of visible brushstroke. (Fig. 2-9)

Other artists are capable of switching from painterly to linear style as particular subjects dictate. Winslow Homer (1836-1910) in his Prout’s Neck period did bold painterly seascapes such as Maine Coast#chological piece,” , 1896 (Fig. 2-11), while his earlier “psy-[.underline]#High Tide, (1870, Fig. 2-10) is more linear and descriptive of optical (rather than painterly) reality. Homer was also master of watercolor technique, a medium which enables the artist to work in linear style where dictated by subject-matter, or in more spontaneous fashion (“wet into wet”) when necessary for painterly effects.

Conceptual and Perceptual

Among attributes of the work of art we have thus far identified — abstract/realistic, tactile/visual, objective/non-objective, open/closed, linear/painterly — none is more elusive than that to come.

You may remember, we spoke earlier of a basic contrast between “left-brain” activity and that of the “right-brain.” These two modes of perception effect marked differences in the end-product of creative endeavor.

For our purposes here, what is most important about this distinction is that human beings evidently have at least two fundamentally different ways of knowing. The “left brain” gives us the faculties with which we typically count, measure, enumerate, speak and reason. When we speak of “knowing” in this sense, it is called conceptual knowing. A “concept,” according to Webster, is “an idea, a thought.” Knowledge which is conceptual in origin is mental, thoughtful, cerebral — derived from activity of the left brain.

The other source of knowledge which we all rely on for much of our decision-making has to do with the “right brain.” Physiologists who have studied brain-damaged people conclude that from the right-side comes a capacity to “integrate” much of the “data” compiled by the left brain. Right-brain activity provides a “wholistic” viewpoint, a wayof-knowing which we define as perceptual.

A “percept” is an impression derived from senses and intuition. Just as “real” a means of discernment as a concept, a percept is a category of experience upon which we base countless everyday decisions.

Knowledge derived from senses and intuition…​

We might, for example, walk into an unfamiliar space and “know” that we are uncomfortable, when that knowing is entirely based on perceptions of color and light, cramped spatial arrangements, smells or possibly peculiar sounds. We don’t have to think about all of those factors to know how we feel.

Now you might ask, “What has all this to do with art?” The answer is that most of us seem to lean toward dominance of either the conceptual (left brain) way of knowing, or the perceptual (right brain) mode of knowing. We can evidently develop whichever mode is not dominant, and in fact, some people seem able to nicely integrate both.

Before we go on to study the impact of this insight on the appreciation of art, perhaps you would like to do a brief experiment to test your own tendencies. This is far from scientific, but it might provide you with a clue as to whether you would make a better accountant (conceptual) or a psychologist (perceptual), a better mathematician (conceptual) or playwright (perceptual).

The experiment is a simple one, but it requires your drawing two pictures. Notice how you feel when someone asks you to draw something. You probably don’t have those same feelings of inadequacy when you are asked to write something, or to calculate something mathematically. Our educational system is designed to cultivate our conceptual faculties, but drawing is one way we develop perceptual skill, and that is generally neglected in the curriculum as non-essential.

Now, on to the drawing project. Take a piece of notebook paper or something comparable and draw the following as simply as possible with pencil or ball-point pen. Spend about two minutes working on each image. It is not necessary to “finish” the drawing, but just put down what you consider the essentials. When you have completed both drawings, I would suggest you turn to the Appendix for an interpretation and explanation. Here are the “subjects.”

1. Draw three apples.

2. Then, using “stick-figures” or whatever seems comfortable, draw a boy running.

The artist’s bias. . . can be embedded in the work of art.

Even if you decided not to try the drawing experiment, it might be well to study the “analysis” of possible solutions in order to clarify your understanding of conceptual and perceptual biases in the making of art. (See page 312) As we return to the discussion of characteristics of works of art, you will see that the artist’s bias toward one or the other of these approaches to knowing can be embedded in the work of art.

To begin with, let’s take similar sculptural forms created by two very different cultures. One civilization was the forerunner of history’s greatest engineers, road-builders and legalists. The other piece was produced by a culture we know for its philosophy and poetry, its athleticism and its art work.

Obviously, you might expect the work of the first of these societies (Fig. 2-13) to be highly “conceptual” in nature, since engineers typically “put together components” to do the job required. Each element has its own identity, such as the “horseman” who seems percariously perched on the back of the horse, and might indeed have been cast separately. A “hoof” is discretely identifiable from the “leg,” and one can discern particular parts such as a “knee-joint,” a “mane” or “nostril.” This Etruscan piece was cast in bronze (a technically demanding process even today) roughly 1,500 years before the beginning of the Christian era. As we see in this highly developed performance, each constituent part is identifiable as a separate concept.

Each constituent part is identifiable as a separate concept.

The other sculpture (Fig. 2-12) is made of clay (a material, incidentally, which appeals to the sense of touch and to our intuitive faculty), and you may notice that rider and horse flow into a whole, a “horse-man” which is indivisible. One cannot easily isolate parts of the animal or its rider, as is possible with the Etruscan piece. The artist did not feel the necessity of acknowledging specific anatomical details, such as “neck” or “foot.” We are given a perceptual expression of the “phenomenon” of horseback-riding, in which we are able to sense movement as well as relationship of man and beast. This piece was produced by forerunners of Greek culture sometime around 1,000 B.C.

We might take as another comparison of conceptual and perceptual viewpoints two similar works by the same artist. What this illustrates, among other things, is that a given artist can operate from either left-brain or right-brain motivation.

The 20th-century English sculptor, Henry Moore, often experimented with a theme such as the family, a reclining figure or mother and child. In the two works chosen (Figs. 2-14 & 2-15), the sculptor has attempted the difficult task of integrating mother, child and rocking-chair in a single statement. From our drawing experiment above, it is clear that the challange here is the bonding not only of mother/child, but also mother/chair, and the kinetic experience of a maternal rocking-movement.

In Fig. 2-14, the body of the mother becomes identified with the back and seat of the chair. There is even an opening in her torso suggestive of a chair-back. The rhythm of the “rocker” shape is repeated in the mother’s arms, and again in the rounded forms of the child. One not only experiences the mother, child and chair as one thing, but it is difficult not to feel the swaying movement that bonds them together. All parts appear to have a quality of fluidity associated with nurturing organic forms. Altogether, this functions as a highly perceptual performance, invoking both senses and intuition, rather than articulating harshly disparate elements.

The other version of the same theme (Fig. 2-15) creates quite a different impression. The chair is obviously an important entity in its own right. “Slats” which are straight and hard crisscross the chair’s back, and the mother-figure pulls away from this brittle support, holding a child awkwardly before her. (Obviously a “separate” concept, rendered more complex by a strange triangular form which intrudes where a mother’s breasts might be.) Doubtless this is the effect Moore sought in the piece (possibly latent content has something to do with alienations of WW II), but one would seem justified in describing a far more conceptual effect here than in the former piece. Perhaps one can find greater expressive power in its pathos, however, sacrificing the rhythm of maternal calm for fragmentation and separation.

Since this conceptual/perceptual aspect of art is so fundamental, it seems worthwhile to make at least one more comparison of the two viewpoints before we continue. We might also introduce a term which the author first encountered while a student of Dr. Alois Schardt some years ago.[1] Dr. Schardt used the expression “whole-consciousness” to summarize the perceptual bias, and it was his conclusion that cultures gradually lose this capacity to “see things whole” as they “ripen.” (We will come back to that idea later, in Chapter 11.)

For the moment, it may be instructive to look at two Greek “funeral stelae” (a stele is a gravemarker) in the famous Dipylon cemetery near Athens. The first of these is called the Hegeso Stele, circa 410 B.C. (Fig. 2-18), and depicts the “deceased,” a young woman in the prime of life, selecting a piece of jewelry from a box proffered by her maidservant.

Considering for a moment the “elements” in this composition, we have the two figures, a chair and the jewelry box. In addition, the two women are “clothed,” which for the sculptor of the second stele (Fig. 2-19/circa 394 BC) was a major concern. The Hegeso sculptor, whose actual name is unknown, assimilated all these “concepts” into a unified work in low relief. He did not attempt to create physical actuality, but gave us a shallow carving which conveyed essential Greek attitudes about death. (Life continued on “another plane.”)

Notice how the Hegeso master has fused the figure of Hegeso (seated) with the form of the chair. Both back and legs of the chair are contoured to flow naturally with the fullness of the young woman’s body. Continuity from an extended arm of the maidservant to that of Hegeso creates a physical bond which makes the two visually inseparable. Clothing is not an element in its own right, but clings to their bodies so as to be virtually indistinguishable from essential physical forms.

There are two other elements here that might bear noticing from the standpoint of “whole-consciousness.” First, the Hegeso sculptor has not introduced the “concept” of three-dimensional (“real”) space as an identifiable element in his work. (In the production done less than a generation later, the carver creates a palpable “space” in which the figures move.) Secondly, in the Hegeso Stele, there is perceptual unity on the psychological level as well as the spatial, due to the artist’s subtle focusing of attention of both figures on the jewelry in Hegeso’s upraised hand.

A more “conceptual” approach to this artistic problem defines various elements as important in their own right: for example, “clothing” is a separately noteworthy component, and “furniture” sharply differentiated from “figure.” Also, as noted above, even a concept of “space” can be introduced.

The Funeral Stele of Demetria, 394 B.C. (Fig. 2-19), is from a period of crisis in Greek culture (the fratracidal Peloponnesian War) and clearly seems more conceptually complex. A three-dimensional chair appears to have critical status, along with elaborate drapery; figures of the two women are lost under a mountain of “cloth.” The observer is also aware now of “real space” in which women move with “theatrical” energy, oriented toward the viewer somewhat self-consciously. The “whole-consciousness” of Hegeso Stele has given way to greater “realism” — and to a “left-brain” analysis which insists on integrity of separate parts at the expense of the whole.

According to the analysis of Dr. Alois Schardt mentioned above, fragmenting aspects of a “maturing” culture virtually assure development of an increasingly conceptual and analytical, rather than intuitive/wholistic (perceptual) approach to the creative process. These critical properties of a work, then, combined with aesthetic bias (tactile/ visual), technique (painterly/linear), quality of form (open/closed), and objectivity (abstract/objective) often become embedded in the artifact itself. As we shall see in a moment, the conceptual/perceptual inclination may also be an important characteristic of the maker of art – the artist himself.  

1. Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, Calif. 1956