Now in paperback, this groundbreaking study by Harvard neurobiologist Margaret Livingstone explores the inner workings of vision, demonstrating that how we see art depends ultimately on the cells in our eyes and our brains.

In Vision and Art, Livingstone explains how great painters fool the brain: why Mona Lisa’s smile seems so mysterious, Monet’s Poppy Field appears to sway in the breeze, Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie blinks like the lights of Times Square, and Warhol’s Electric Chair pulses with current.

Drawing on history and her own cutting- edge discoveries, Livingstone offers intriguing insights, from explanations of common optical illusions, to speculations on the correlation of learning disabilities with artistic skill. By skillfully bridging the space between science and art, Vision and Art will both arm artists and designers with new techniques that they can use in their own craft, and thrill any reader with an interest in the biology of human vision.

Amazon.com Review
What is it that makes the work of Monet, van Gogh, da Vinci, and Warhol so visually arresting? How do our eyes and brains coordinate to perceive line and color?

Neurobiologist Margaret Livingstone addresses these and many other questions in Vision and Art, a lively look at the science underlying art. She writes accessibly, but with plenty of technical depth, on such matters as the nature of light and the visible spectrum, the organization of visual-image processing, the structure of the vertebrate eye and brain, and individual and culturally conditioned perceptions of color. Using well-known works of art as case studies, she offers fascinating bits of trivia (on, for instance, how pastels are made and why purple dyes are so rare) alongside practical information for artists (for example, how high-contrast contours and evenly distributed luminance attract the eye).

The result is a literate, lucid blend of art and science that will appeal to artists and connoisseurs alike. --Gregory McNamee

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 8 reviews)

Vision and Art by Margaret S. Livingstone

This is a most outstanding work on the anatomic and physiologic concepts underlying visual perception. It is aimed at any interested layman and should be required reading for visual artists, neuro-physiologists and any vision science practitioners. It requires attentive reading initially, but the extent of its insights are breathtakingly rewarding for those efforts. It is a visually stunning book that is the product of an inquiring and perceptive mind who is a senior member of the neuro-physiology faculty at Harvard. As an ophthalmologist and vision scientist-educator, I have strongly recommended it to trainees and older colleagues alike. Try it - you'll like it. MAH
May 21, 2008

Reads like a college textbook

A very good book with great pictures that demonstrate key vision concepts. Near the end of the book, however, I started to skim the chapters because it became too tedious to read - very technical book overall.

I bought a used copy and noticed "student underling" in the first chapter, but an abrupt end to underlining in the second chapter. You know what that means: "This course is not what I expected; I'm dropping out!"
The student and I feel the same way, but I got a lot further.

Buy it, but I found Robert L. Solso's book The Psychology of Art and the Evolution of the Conscious Brain to be a far more exciting read. That one is a five star easily.

Another more engaging book covers many of the same things as Livingstone's but in a more readable style: Visual Intelligence by Donald D. Hoffman.

So, if your interested in vision, etc. I'd start with Solso, then move to Hoffman, and lastly to Livingstone.
February 05, 2008

Vision and Photography

This is a book that every teacher of photography and serious photographer should read and study and re-read. Although the book contains no photographic examples, there are plenty of examples in famous paintings to support the visual research Dr. Livingtson so clearly writes about. The examples in paintings are easily transferable
to a number of familiar and famous photographs.
Ever wonder what Ansel Adams and Edward Weston were so successful with the black-and-white photographs but not with their color photographs? I have, and her book has provided me with insights into this and other photographic practices.
October 16, 2005

Outstanding

After reading it, you'll want to keep it close to you. That way, you'll never forget how important art and science are in your life.
March 15, 2005

Shows you how you see and how you paint

Margaret Livingstone has produced a book so very useful to visual artists that it may, in its density of ideas, seem definitive rather than evocative. But evocative it is. As we learn from studying it, Livingstone's book offers implications that may be developed by any artist who reads it in almost any direction. One might take as an example the very rich Chapter 8, with its notions of luminance as a balance for the salience, or pushiness of certain colors - how Leonardo handled it, how Ingres handled it, and how today's painter or digital image maker might go even further. The size and shape of the book allow for illustrations that work on the eye at the right scale. And there is an overall visual loudness to the book that is jarring and satisfying.

The author gets to the structure of our visual systems, makes them very clear, and tells us things that are lasting and verifiable. Her spirit of personal experimentation shows in the book, and makes us think that looking inquisitively at the world will pay off.
January 16, 2004

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See
by Donald D. Hoffman

Eye and Brain
by Richard L. Gregory

Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye
by Rudolf Arnheim

Cognition and the Visual Arts
by Robert L. Solso

The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat
by Martin Kemp