The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present Kindle Edition

The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present Kindle Edition
Author: Eric Kandel ID: B0050DIWV6

Done.
File Size: 8642 KBPrint Length: 636 pagesPublisher: Random House; 1st edition (March 27, 2012)Publication Date: March 27, 2012 Sold by: Random House LLC Language: EnglishID: B0050DIWV6Text-to-Speech: Enabled X-Ray: Enabled Word Wise: Not EnabledLending: Not Enabled Enhanced Typesetting: Not Enabled Best Sellers Rank: #73,738 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #8 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Art > Art History > Schools, Periods & Styles > Modern #8 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Counseling & Psychology > History #25 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > History
This is a splendid book both on the workings of the brain and how it can be exemplified in the art of Vienna 1900. This was after all the place and time that led to modernity making Vienna one of the pre-eminent capitals of the world. One is swept up in the feeling of being privy to the birth of the new understanding in medicine and art as it took place in Vienna 1900 in its most intense unfolding and this description is extended to later work, predominantly at US universities, often by people who derived from the Viennese school of thinking through emigration.
The work follows the tradition of the bridge-builders between the seemingly opposed subjects bringing new insights from brain-science in understanding art. It shows, in academic detail, the brain as a network that finds pleasure in the acquisition of knowledge in either field. It is rather comprehensive and learned at that.

The book is cerebral but very readable; in fact I read it in a Marathon session in preparing for a trip to New York to the Golden Adele, this Mona Lisa of the Fin de Siècle. You don’t need the trip though; there are wonderful reproductions in the book of interesting work to be analyzed. You need also not read all the academic detail, there is much to enjoy by taking glimpses or by looking at shorter summaries and graphs.

In the first part we learn, in an especially engrossing section, about the general atmosphere in Vienna during its golden time, its coffee-house and theater culture, its literary, musical and salon life but another forward force was the influence of Europe’s premier Medical School of the time in Vienna that established such routines as stethoscope or auscultation. It was the understanding of its research that urged the artists and scientists to look further below the surface.
*****
"In conversation with Paul Holdengräber, Eric Kandel will discuss the book already praised by Oliver Sacks as ‘a tour-de-force that sets the stage for a twenty-first century understanding of the human mind’ in all its richness and diversity."
*

My relation with the Viennese milieu started with my father telling me about the dream city, the reincarnation of late antiquity Alexandria, where I was born after WWII. He took his postgraduate studies in Vienna University before it was annexed by Hitler. Sam, my younger brother was fascinated with Klimt, few of his frescos still hanging on my house walls. But I was a fan of Mozart and Freud, and later I encountered the magical worlds of Dr. Kandell; thanks to the intellectual tours of Charlie Rose.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, Vienna, the pride of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire – was considered the cultural capital of Europe, by my dad and many, with its unique atmosphere and sophisticated charm. Vienna embraced a versatile mix of musicians, scientists and artists, who met in cafes and spent the evenings in sparkling salons, or gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held to amuse one another and enjoy fine taste and broaden their knowledge through conversation.

They used liberal discussions, of novel ideas that may have led to inventive conclusions, with influential results in psychology, brain science, and innovation of literature, and art. Sigmund Freud, Gustav Klimt, among many others began exploring a charming new territory: the then mystical unconscious.
"But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light." — Ephesians 5:13 (NKJV)

The Age of Insight is a hard book to categorize. Professor Kandel’s stated purpose is to demonstrate how a knowledgeable scientist can write clearly about science so that the interconnections between art and science can be exposed to those who know only about the art. As such, this book is more about informing those interested in the humanities than those whose interest is in science. As a necessary part of his method, there’s a circumscription around a narrow set of artists and literary figures rather than an attempt to make a universal statement. To have attempted otherwise would have made a hefty book into a multi-volume tome that few would read.

As someone who reads a lot of art history, history of science, and current research on mental processes, I was impressed by the conception of the book and how deftly it was carried out in ways that deepened my appreciation for subjects I have long been familiar with. I was grateful for these new perspectives. I found the book to be enjoyable for the most part. If I got to a part that was too elementary for what I wanted to absorb, I just skipped quickly through until I got to weightier material. I didn’t have to do that very often.

This book would be a wonderful gift to a budding artist or writer . . . or to an art historian in training. I’m sure that many wonderful shows could be mounted that would take advantage of the information here in ways that would delight museum and gallery goers.

Although the book will seem flawed to some, I think it succeeds in its purpose of proposing a new way to write about art and science.
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