--- product_id: 161648090 title: "Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures" price: "29051CFA" currency: XOF in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.sn/products/161648090-reductionism-in-art-and-brain-science-bridging-the-two-cultures store_origin: SN region: Senegal --- # Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures **Price:** 29051CFA **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures - **How much does it cost?** 29051CFA with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.sn](https://www.desertcart.sn/products/161648090-reductionism-in-art-and-brain-science-bridging-the-two-cultures) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Are art and science separated by an unbridgeable divide? Can they find common ground? In this new book, neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel, whose remarkable scientific career and deep interest in art give him a unique perspective, demonstrates how science can inform the way we experience a work of art and seek to understand its meaning. Kandel illustrates how reductionism―the distillation of larger scientific or aesthetic concepts into smaller, more tractable components―has been used by scientists and artists alike to pursue their respective truths. He draws on his Nobel Prize-winning work revealing the neurobiological underpinnings of learning and memory in sea slugs to shed light on the complex workings of the mental processes of higher animals. In Reductionism in Art and Brain Science , Kandel shows how this radically reductionist approach, applied to the most complex puzzle of our time―the brain―has been employed by modern artists who distill their subjective world into color, form, and light. Kandel demonstrates through bottom-up sensory and top-down cognitive functions how science can explore the complexities of human perception and help us to perceive, appreciate, and understand great works of art. At the heart of the book is an elegant elucidation of the contribution of reductionism to the evolution of modern art and its role in a monumental shift in artistic perspective. Reductionism steered the transition from figurative art to the first explorations of abstract art reflected in the works of Turner, Monet, Kandinsky, Schoenberg, and Mondrian. Kandel explains how, in the postwar era, Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Louis, Turrell, and Flavin used a reductionist approach to arrive at their abstract expressionism and how Katz, Warhol, Close, and Sandback built upon the advances of the New York School to reimagine figurative and minimal art. Featuring captivating drawings of the brain alongside full-color reproductions of modern art masterpieces, this book draws out the common concerns of science and art and how they illuminate each other. Review: An elegant consideration of abstract art and underlying brain science - I am a great admirer of Kandel's previous books, particularly his "In Search of Memory" and "The Age of Insight." Each of these is outstanding in clarity and precision of writing, as well as for their thought-provoking insights insights about the relation of science and art, particularly including psychology and culture. The present book is much briefer, and much narrower in scope, although not in aim. Specifically, Kandel examines our visual perception through the lenses of 20th Century abstract art and the underlying neurology/biology of "top-down" and bottom-up" brain function. His stated objective is to "bridge" the cultures of art and science by demonstrating their relation through a similar method ("Reductionism"), and more generally by showing how each helps us better understand and appreciate the other. Although his may be a first step only, this is an elegant short work, engaging and a pleasure to read and reflect upon. I have small criticisms, perhaps only personal, that I may as well share briefly. One of Kandel's great strengths is the clarity and precision of his writing, particularly in his explanation of science. Although his exposition of the relevant brain science in the present book exemplifies that strength, his discussion of the art occasionally lapses into the less helpful language of an exposition catalogue. I don't want to overstate this, as mostly he is attentive to explaining how an abstract work is constructed and how this may relate to how our brain processes form, line color and light. But perhaps his own perception and emotional appreciation of particular works occasionally overwhelms his commitment to precision of explanation. Maybe an example of the separate cultures that he is seeking to bridge! The other criticism (if it is that) is simply that some fascinating notions are introduced in the final chapters, especially in "Why Reductionism is Successful in Art," almost as a tease, without being much explored. I would very much enjoy a future Kandel book expanding on these ideas. But put these small complaints aside: Kandel makes a thoughtful, stimulating argument for the importance of integrating our understanding of art and brain science as a means of better understanding and appreciating both. And he does this in a nicely written, beautifully printed and illustrated volume that is (not incidentally) artistic in itself. My only admonition is that, if you enjoy this book, by all means read Kandel's earlier work, especially his fine "The Age of Insight" --- which I personally think makes the case for the intimate relation of art and science even better than the present book. Review: The Neuroscience Behind Modern Art Movements & The Art Behind Advances in Neuroscience - I do not know how this concise, clearly written, well-illustrated synopsis of the relationships of psycho-neurobiology and art appreciation will be received by the general reader. I regard this as an important book, but then I am a medical scientist and an artist already familiar with the experimental and historical evidence of the two associated disciplines. The 20th century saw a new approach to art and mental science, both applying narrow, minimalistic, reduced approaches to grasp the marrow of the larger processes. (Not covered is the Far East Asian form of art whose ink paintings have been for centuries simplistic with sparse lines and broad spaces that the viewer connects and fills in to construct familiar forms.) The primary focus is on how we see, how photon arrays falling on our retina are deconstructed, channeled, analyzed by element and position or orientation, and then associated through memory with learned forms, and how learning requires new synapses and stimulated molecular responsive pathways. Modern art has been an exploration in parallel with neuroscience. Cubism with its combined perspectives and discontinuity, abstract geometric paintings of simple, inherently or acquired emotional colors and color juxtapositions and line paths, and complex arrays of indefinite forms suggestive of texture or movement challenge the viewer, probing deep into the senses and perception. Metaphor was replaced with direct expression; and one artist, Mondrian, had mystical intentions in his later paintings while another, Rothko, whose works many regard as spiritual, had no such objective. Author, Nobel Prize-winner, Eric R. Kandel, whom some viewers of PBS and Charlie Rose know through his series of roundtables on the brain, is mainly a philosophical physicalist, but he does include the feedback looping of bottom-up, emergent reductionism and top-down, organismal holism of learned and experiential associations. Indeed, much of modern art is a mutually dependent creative union of form and receiver, i.e, not what the art is about, but instead what the viewer feels, imagines, or thinks. The book presents seminal examples of artistic insights. Artists, such as Mondrian, Klee, and Kandinsky, wrote essays about the psychological effect of certain artistic techniques and presentations, and Kandel explains the neuroscience behind it. Color fields present a psycho-neurological problem, as people perceive a given color differently, dependent on distance; lighting intensity, hue, and angle; contrast; adjacent hues; and in the instance of color-blindness, neurology. Some artists create optical illusions and stimulate optic centers, with the viewer perceiving shapes, hues, contours, and elevations that are not actually present, further questioning our reality. Other artists take mundane items or icons and craft their forms or images into a different way of seeing, as in Pop Art, bringing sociological and socio-political aspects into fine focus. I hope that this small book finds its way into science and art curricula, interdisciplinary studies, and into the hands of the general reader. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #144,198 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #202 in Medical Cognitive Psychology #289 in Cognitive Psychology (Books) #328 in Art History (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 239 Reviews | ## Images ![Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71N3gnQRRHL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An elegant consideration of abstract art and underlying brain science *by M***E on January 27, 2017* I am a great admirer of Kandel's previous books, particularly his "In Search of Memory" and "The Age of Insight." Each of these is outstanding in clarity and precision of writing, as well as for their thought-provoking insights insights about the relation of science and art, particularly including psychology and culture. The present book is much briefer, and much narrower in scope, although not in aim. Specifically, Kandel examines our visual perception through the lenses of 20th Century abstract art and the underlying neurology/biology of "top-down" and bottom-up" brain function. His stated objective is to "bridge" the cultures of art and science by demonstrating their relation through a similar method ("Reductionism"), and more generally by showing how each helps us better understand and appreciate the other. Although his may be a first step only, this is an elegant short work, engaging and a pleasure to read and reflect upon. I have small criticisms, perhaps only personal, that I may as well share briefly. One of Kandel's great strengths is the clarity and precision of his writing, particularly in his explanation of science. Although his exposition of the relevant brain science in the present book exemplifies that strength, his discussion of the art occasionally lapses into the less helpful language of an exposition catalogue. I don't want to overstate this, as mostly he is attentive to explaining how an abstract work is constructed and how this may relate to how our brain processes form, line color and light. But perhaps his own perception and emotional appreciation of particular works occasionally overwhelms his commitment to precision of explanation. Maybe an example of the separate cultures that he is seeking to bridge! The other criticism (if it is that) is simply that some fascinating notions are introduced in the final chapters, especially in "Why Reductionism is Successful in Art," almost as a tease, without being much explored. I would very much enjoy a future Kandel book expanding on these ideas. But put these small complaints aside: Kandel makes a thoughtful, stimulating argument for the importance of integrating our understanding of art and brain science as a means of better understanding and appreciating both. And he does this in a nicely written, beautifully printed and illustrated volume that is (not incidentally) artistic in itself. My only admonition is that, if you enjoy this book, by all means read Kandel's earlier work, especially his fine "The Age of Insight" --- which I personally think makes the case for the intimate relation of art and science even better than the present book. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Neuroscience Behind Modern Art Movements & The Art Behind Advances in Neuroscience *by D***L on September 22, 2016* I do not know how this concise, clearly written, well-illustrated synopsis of the relationships of psycho-neurobiology and art appreciation will be received by the general reader. I regard this as an important book, but then I am a medical scientist and an artist already familiar with the experimental and historical evidence of the two associated disciplines. The 20th century saw a new approach to art and mental science, both applying narrow, minimalistic, reduced approaches to grasp the marrow of the larger processes. (Not covered is the Far East Asian form of art whose ink paintings have been for centuries simplistic with sparse lines and broad spaces that the viewer connects and fills in to construct familiar forms.) The primary focus is on how we see, how photon arrays falling on our retina are deconstructed, channeled, analyzed by element and position or orientation, and then associated through memory with learned forms, and how learning requires new synapses and stimulated molecular responsive pathways. Modern art has been an exploration in parallel with neuroscience. Cubism with its combined perspectives and discontinuity, abstract geometric paintings of simple, inherently or acquired emotional colors and color juxtapositions and line paths, and complex arrays of indefinite forms suggestive of texture or movement challenge the viewer, probing deep into the senses and perception. Metaphor was replaced with direct expression; and one artist, Mondrian, had mystical intentions in his later paintings while another, Rothko, whose works many regard as spiritual, had no such objective. Author, Nobel Prize-winner, Eric R. Kandel, whom some viewers of PBS and Charlie Rose know through his series of roundtables on the brain, is mainly a philosophical physicalist, but he does include the feedback looping of bottom-up, emergent reductionism and top-down, organismal holism of learned and experiential associations. Indeed, much of modern art is a mutually dependent creative union of form and receiver, i.e, not what the art is about, but instead what the viewer feels, imagines, or thinks. The book presents seminal examples of artistic insights. Artists, such as Mondrian, Klee, and Kandinsky, wrote essays about the psychological effect of certain artistic techniques and presentations, and Kandel explains the neuroscience behind it. Color fields present a psycho-neurological problem, as people perceive a given color differently, dependent on distance; lighting intensity, hue, and angle; contrast; adjacent hues; and in the instance of color-blindness, neurology. Some artists create optical illusions and stimulate optic centers, with the viewer perceiving shapes, hues, contours, and elevations that are not actually present, further questioning our reality. Other artists take mundane items or icons and craft their forms or images into a different way of seeing, as in Pop Art, bringing sociological and socio-political aspects into fine focus. I hope that this small book finds its way into science and art curricula, interdisciplinary studies, and into the hands of the general reader. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I enjoyed the book and learned a few things about the ... *by H***S on March 20, 2017* I enjoyed the book and learned a few things about the working of the human brain. The art part would probably benefit by in-depth analysis of the works that were included, the artists and some art history related to the art work. ## Frequently Bought Together - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures - The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present - Essays on Art and Science --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.sn/products/161648090-reductionism-in-art-and-brain-science-bridging-the-two-cultures](https://www.desertcart.sn/products/161648090-reductionism-in-art-and-brain-science-bridging-the-two-cultures) --- *Product available on Desertcart Senegal* *Store origin: SN* *Last updated: 2026-06-01*