ORIGINS: The Vision
The test of life in a work of art is its power to rouse our senses to a state of responsive happiness which communicates itself to our whole being: this power is the distinctive quality of the work of art.
Dr. Lorenz Eitner (1919-2009), Stanford University
ORIGINS
Preface:
The wind howls across the frozen tundra of the Mammoth Steppes. Another ice age is ebbing, but the world seems perpetually locked in the grips of a hard winter and has been for many long months now. But the harsh deprivations of life are over now, although frequently recanted by old men sitting around the fire and complaining. A lone man moves through the shadows of early morning—a creature of raw survival, his body wrapped in heavy, stiffened hides of reindeer and bison, stitched together with sinew. He is cold; it is a deep, bone-settling chill that has defined every day of his life lately. But he lives in a world of nomadic tribes, that settle for awhile near a stream or in a fertile valley. And, then, they move, following the game, seeking better shelter, or simply a place with more wood for the fire.
His tribe of 20 people or so, respect him, almost idolize him. Bison, reindeer, even horse have been plentiful, and he provides more meat than any of the other hunters. They do not take him for granted. Since her death, his long absences of three, four or even five sleeps are becoming more frequent. The quiet anger refuses to subside. But, today, he is driven by something beyond the hunt.
He has heard whispers of a place where the world is transformed—a sanctuary hidden deep within the earth.
Language is surprisingly developed, and trade amongst the many tribes inhabiting the Steppes flourishes. Some tribes travel hundreds of miles to attend what modern scientists call “Aggregation meetings.” Hundreds attend to trade beads, seashells and . Such jewelry is important. A bracelet or a necklace can instantly identify your tribe to a stranger. Many come to these meetings to find marriage partners; but, all , come to exchange news, tell stories and engage in sacred rituals. Nights, especially in winter are long, quiet and occur in a blanket of impenetrable darkness. It is in the night that animals hunt. Venture just a few feet from a fire and you risk a death that is unspeakable in its horror.
One night, while enjoying the warmth of the fire and drinking mead, a man stood up and circulated around the circle of those seated. In a hushed whisper told a story of a place where our world no longer exists—a sanctuary hidden deep within the earth. There is no death, the images on the walls and ceilings are unchanging, alive for eternity. It is a world very different from our own, he tells the group. To find this place follow the river for four or five sleeps—until it bends. Then, cross the river, go inland for one sleep and, then, find a trail , rutted by the thousands that have visited the cave. look at every hillside and eventually high on a ridge you will see an opening to the cave you seek.
Sleep was difficult that night. The story appeals to him. He seeks answers to questions he never asks, so he travels long distances, often for many sleeps. The desire to be alone often overwhelms him. And so he walks. He travels this area often trading beads and onyx with other clans. He has learned the area well and when he’s told of the landmarks that will lead him to the cave he seeks they all sound faintly familiar. He then does something that he had never done before. He packed provisions and walked into the darkness of early morning. He tells no one.
He walks and even in the danger of darkness it brings him comfort. His senses are alive. He thinks of nothing else but survival. He listens to the birds not for their songs of happiness but of discord. He watches the grass sway in the wind and looks at the clouds, a sudden storm can be deadly. journey is arduous and full of peril but He has no fear of death, and almost welcomes it.
He holds her head in his lap. He can mutter only “no.” Over and over over he says no, hoping this will all end. He looks down at her face, she says simply “I will be be lonely without you.” But I’m here—I will always be with you. I’ll take care of you.
She cannot hear.
he reaches the open-mouth of the cave he seeks in good time. The cave offers some protection from the wind, but as he moves deeper into the cave he finds himself There is no sign that a fire has ever been lit here. Strange when one considers the cold. And although habitable, he is alone. No sign of life.
But he is willing to endure anything—fear of the unknown, exhaustion, the threat of being buried alive—just to reach the secret chambers he had heard of in such haunting detail.
Finally, the tunnel opens. He senses that he standing in a vast space without knowing anything for certain. He lifts his small, spoon-shaped oil lamp above his head. the flame of animal fat guttering and casting long, rhythmic shadows.
Then, what happens next is a biological feat of enormous magnitude. Its resonance will be felt for 17,000 years right up to the present moment. When he lifts his flickering lamp he realizes he is standing before a dense web of creation. Within 50 milliseconds—three times faster than the blink of an eye—his brain engages in an intricate process that always follows the same pattern. Before he can engage the cognitive centers of his brain—which makes out the subject of what he is viewing—his brain prioritizes and evaluates only the formal properties of what he is viewing As he visually scans vast expanses of wall and ceiling, his mind has no interest in the subjects depicted. He is struck instead by phantom-like forms. He sees a sudden, violent sweep of ochre—a line so sure and virtuosic it seems to vibrate. He sees shapes carved out of the stony relief of the wall itself, leaping and receding in the dancing light. He sees vibrant yellows and dense blacks. His mind is an excited confluence of shapes and colors that exert a strange power over him.
In this fleeting instant of time, he is not "thinking." He is being consumed. His nervous system has been seized by line, color, shape, pattern, proportion, balance. In an amazing feat that has stunned modern-day researchers, the brain not only identifies these formal properties but it actually judges their expressive quality: it asks: are they interesting and dynamic or are they mundane? Releasing dopamine he feels the effects throughout his body, his breathing slows, etc. He hasn’t seen a masterpiece, he has experienced a masterpiece. And this experience—transformative, some might say transcendental—has been shared by all that came to the cave before him and the thousands that will come after him. It is a biological event, and it forms modern man’s inheritance from the past. It is the essence of being human. It is in our ORIGINS.
I
n one of the earliest moments of recorded history, a man confronts a masterpiece. What he undergoes next has not changed in the nearly 20,000 years since it took place.
Before he can cognitively construe these phantoms into the animals that are such a large part of his life, his biology has already recognized their majesty.
The cold in his limbs and the memory of the crawl are forgotten. His brain’s reward centers are flooding with dopamine. For the first time in his life of utter deprivation, he feels complete. His senses are finally, inexplicably finding rest and peace inthe perfect, harmonious organization of a art.
This is the birth of the human spirit. This is the "First Gaze." It is a biological homecoming—an unmediated, visceral joy—that would bridge forty millennia, connecting the artist in the cave to the architect of the cathedral and, eventually, to you.
The Vision of ORIGINS
Art is a Sensual Experience
The ORIGINS Institute is a recently founded art sanctuary designed to pioneer a fundamental change in how fine art is exhibited, experienced, and understood in America.
The dominant view of art taught in our universities and promulgated in our museums is that the meaning of art is found in ideas and concepts: its purpose is to hold a mirror up to society, exposing ideological prejudices.
We are directed by a simple, alternative vision that informs everything we do:
Art is, at its very core, a sensual experience.
Everything that is compelling and profoundly meaningful about art is concentrated in the viewer’s experience of the physical composition of the object itself. When the beholder confronts a work directly, the human mind, in “a turbulent confluence of sense impressions and involuntary associations,” receives the authentic and complete message of a work of art.
Quality in art, therefore, can be judged; it is based in a work of art’s formal arrangement and the degree to which it can excite a highly resonant, emotional response in the viewer. This is why we identify objects that possess a virtuosic organization of formal elements as “masterpieces.” These extraordinary works compose the canon of art history, and they alone possess the expressive power to fulfill any work of art’s true intention: “to rouse our senses to a state of responsive happiness which communicates itself to our whole being.” Any ideology, any text, any topic that attaches to art is secondary to this experience and distracts us from the true nature of ourselves and our ORIGINS.
The Crisis of Meaning
The Crisis of Meaning
Today’s art institutions are locked in a profound crisis of meaning, born from a fundamental misunderstanding of art’s very nature.
To press art into the service of political ideology, the contemporary establishment defines art as an intellectual—not a sensual—exercise.
Modern criticism has dismissed for decades the formalist approach advocated by ORIGINS. The argument is that such concepts as “quality in art” or “beauty” are antiquated notions—“Romantic myths” better suited to the 19th century than the 21st. This view maintains that to concentrate on the attractive, physical nature of a work, no matter how engaging its formal composition might be, is to be deceived by its purely superficial charm.
But the transcendental power of the art experience—the sense of completion and universal connection it brings—is simply too profound to ignore. It is primary to art, and it supersedes any secondary narrative that pretends to attach to it—including political and social transformation. This truth is anathema to the modern institutional view of culture. The power to incite social change comes not from the contentment that culture brings, but from the anxiety and urgency of the next political cause.
The public has been relentlessly assaulted with the false assertion that the beholder’s experience of aesthetic beauty is merely an “illusion”—akin to religion. That it weakens the human constitution with empty promises of pleasure and joy. Stripping art of its emotional power, the establishment achieves its real objective: distracting the individual away from the inward journey for transformative experience and toward the “greater good”—the collective’s initiative for radical social change. In the hands of our institutions directing culture, art is debased to simply advocating ideas, relegating the masterpiece to mere illustration, a placard full of sloganeering—a poster for the cause.
The Biology of a Masterpiece
Your brain makes an aesthetic judgment in one-third the time it takes to blink your eyes….[and] communicates this verdict—“extraordinary” or “ordinary”—directly to its pleasure and reward centers. Because this happens at 50 milliseconds, and the cognitive process required for identifying subject matter doesn’t begin until 150 milliseconds, your nervous system triggers an emotional response before the intellect has even had time to identify what it is looking at. The human brain is quite literally “hardwired” for aesthetic experience.
The Biology of a Masterpiece
If we are predisposed to judge aesthetic quality as ORIGINS suggests, can this be grounded in empirical evidence and validated by scientific inquiry?
One of the most profound advances to occur in the visual arts in the last 25 years is the rise of the pioneering field of neuroaesthetics. Using brain imaging and eye-tracking technologies, this field is able to measure the speed and intensity of the human nervous system’s response to visual stimuli.
Breakthrough studies have proven that the human brain makes a judgment about the formal qualities of a work of art—whether they are "extraordinary or ordinary," "profound or generic"—within 50 milliseconds of viewing a work.
Let’s put that into perspective, A single eye blink takes 100 to 150 milliseconds. Your brain makes an aesthetic judgment in one-third the time it takes to blink your eyes.
Significantly, the brain makes its first priority the evaluation of a work of art’s formal properties. Your brain communicates its verdict—“extraordinary” or “ordinary”—directly to its pleasure and reward centers. Because this happens at 50 milliseconds, and the cognitive process required for identifying subject matter doesn’t begin until 150 milliseconds, your nervous system triggers an emotional response three times faster than it can cognitively disentangle subject matter and identify what it is looking at.
Truly masterful compositions—where the formal composition of a work achieves a precise visual tension—evoke massive, immediate spikes in neural activity. Conversely, a poorly composed work triggers a weak, scattered response. Rather than dwelling on the mundane, the brain privileges compositions it judges to be compelling, moving them into deeper neural networks of memory and reflection that we naturally tend to revisit. Even more remarkable is that this all happens pre-consciously, before you even take a conscious breath.
The human brain acts naturally and innately to assimilate, judge and react to aesthetic experience.
This proves what many in the art establishment have resisted to accept: the capacity of human beings to be profoundly moved by physical beauty is a biological, universal constant. Our response to art is involuntary and emotional. It is not driven intellectually; it is not inspired by text. We are activating an ancient, evolutionary mechanism. The brain’s response to visual harmony is ingrained in our biology just as much as our response to a clean water source or a safe shelter.
At ORIGINS, this data dictates how we write about art, advocate for art, present art and how we will build our sanctuary. It directs our exhibition policy, clearing away textual distractions so the object can directly engage the viewer. Equally, it directs our architectural design, using these neurological insights to create a space—through light, scale, and natural materials—specifically engineered to prepare the viewer to confront masterpieces of the world’s cultures.
We no longer speculate at what makes an art sanctuary. We are building one on a foundation of empirical evidence.
The Direct Confrontation
When we enter the physical presence of a masterpiece, our reaction is not an intellectual choice, but an involuntary, deeply embedded evolutionary reflex. Modern science has demonstrated that the human brain makes a pre-conscious judgment about the formal composition of a work of art, triggering an emotional response up to three times faster than the intellect can begin to disentangle subject matter. When confronting a work of art directly, the human brain is hardwired to prioritize the emotional pleasure of pure aesthetic experience over the cognitive demands of subject matter.
All of the ideas that modern researchers find so compelling may be perfectly valid topics for study, but they are all secondary to the direct confrontation with the art object itself.
Whether the work was executed yesterday or three thousand years ago makes no difference.
Whether it emerged from Western traditions or a culture entirely foreign to our own does not matter.
Whether we have read volumes of history and academic theory or absolutely nothing at all changes nothing.
The human brain is indifferent.
The ability to experience art fully through the lens of formalism is universal to all of mankind, When we stand before a work that we judge to be extraordinary and are moved by it, we are engaging in a natural, perfectly human response that is entirely out of our control.
The genesis of art is not located in an intellectual process. The ability to partake of the unmitigated pleasure of art’s physical beauty is involuntary, it is emotional, it is instinctual, and it is part of human biology.
It is in our ORIGINS.
