Mariana explain the first phenomena (Kandel, 2012)

1.Empathy: unconscious mimicry

The beholder’s response to a painting of a person recruits not only the beholder’s
perceptual and emotional capability, but also the capability for empathy. We respond to a
certain portrait because we are intensely social and empathic creatures and our brain is
programmed to experience and express emotions.
When we look at a portrait we are experiencing for a moment the emotional life of the
person in the painting. We are able to recognize emotional states and respond to them. this
social capability makes possible not only our response to works of art and our ability to
communicate that response to others, but permits also our ability to enter the mental state of
another person.
Observing the emotional state of another person in art we automatically and
unconsciously activate in our brain a representation of that emotional state (including bodily
responses).

When we look at these powerful portraits, we automatically imitate subtle movements of

their faces - unconscious mimicry (Ulf Dimberg, professor of psychology at Uppsala
University, Sweden).

Dimberg found that when a person is shown the facial expression of an emotion, even
briefly, it elicits small contractions in the person’s facial muscles that simulate the expression
he or she has just observed. Moreover, social psychological studies have found that
unconscious mimicry tends to evoke a sense of rapport and perhaps even friendliness
toward the person being imitated.
Studies of Dimberg about this:
-Facial Reactions to Facial Expressions (1982)
- Unconscious Facial Reactions to Emotional Facial Expressions (2000)

ANDRÉ
So as we already know this phenomena it’s about the emotional contagious and so this are
some examples of paintings and cartoons that can provoke our imitation of their
expressions (Crying Girl and the painting of happiness).

Roy Lichtenstein: Crying Girl (1964)

 Happiness Needs No Money, Gideon
Fasola- 2015

Chris Frith gives a particularly simple example of the mimicry process that we gonna
apply at the class.
Frith affirm that are an easy way to feel happier even if there isn’t a smiling face and that
way is, when we want to feel happier we hold a pencil between your teeth (withdrawing your
lips)---(and then all class try) -- this forces into a smile so we feel happier. On the other hand
if we want to feel miserable we hold the pencil between our lips.
This thing it was also applied at an experiment by … that try to see the influence of the
pencil between the teeth and the lips when it was present a neutral face to see if the
interpretation of the participants was different for the same neutral image.

Half-Hour Portrait, Jessica Miller - 2014

Rodrigo stars to introduce the other phenomena: truth in art

2. Truth in art: Exaggeration of the reality (Kandel, 2012)

One of the phenomena that attract people to see the work of art is to see the truth even if
this truth is complex or not beautiful. And the authors conclude that the same truth can be
beautiful and ugly and they try to understand why our response to art is so different, and why
are we genuinely fascinated by a work of art that expose for example death. And the answer
is that art enriches our lives by exposing to us new ideias, feelings and situations that we
never experienced before, so art serves like a chance to experience things and emotions
with our imagination. So the beautiful and the ugliness doesn’t really matter, because it’s so
much beyond that; it doesn’t define our appreciation in a work of art, a certain work of art
can be ugly (aesthetic) and we can’t stop staring at him, because is so real and it’s the truth.

Some examples of works of art that represent the truth:

Gustav Klimt, Life and Death (1910-15)

Survival of the fattest - Jens Galschiot and

Lars Calmar (2002)

(symbol of the unbalanced resources of

the world)

Imran specified the exaggeration of this reality as a phenomena and starts something
like that: as we see in the last picture (the sculpture- Survival os the fattest) this
phenomena is not only about the truth in art but also the exaggeration of this truth to
show the reality that we all live.
Exaggeration reality:

Exaggeration: to accentuate a reality (hyper-realism) to transmit a stronger emotion. Some

artists use hyper-realism to immerse the audience more intensely in emotions.
An example strongly used in painting is the accentuation of ugliness: artists will increase the
features of old age in order to evoke the proximity of old age with death:
blacken the eyes
green the skin
make the eyes more globular
put dark circle under them
accentuate wrinkles
make bones more visible

This exaggeration of ugliness is sometimes only a simple realistic representation but seems
exaggerated because it goes against the habits in terms of art: a representation of a
shocking reality (thinness, poverty, opulence...) can be interpreted under the guise of
exaggeration because shocking. It is also a way for the observer to make the show more
emotionally bearable.
The artist strives to be realistic, is perceived as hyper-realism exaggerating the features and
the spectator interprets him as exaggerating to simplify his emotions.

It is safe to assume that in a consciousness devoid of knowledge, observing a painting

representing the awful Shoah could be perceived as an imaginary work, because it is too
contradictory to the norms of humanity, as an imaginary work in order to make it bearable.
Illustration of phenomena