Unconscious processing
I’m curious about something.
I randomly saw this painting in a book and the name of the painter popped up in my brain (and I checked and it really was the painter), and the thing about that is that I don’t know why. I don’t know how I knew and I don’t know why it was so quick and automatic. I “recognized” the painter but I don’t know why I did. We’ll talk about who it is eventually but for now I’m curious to see if anyone else recognizes the painter, with or without knowing how.
There are other paintings by this painter that are what’s called “iconic” – instantly recognizable, and no surprise about it. But to me this one doesn’t particularly look reminiscent of those…but it probably does in some way, or I wouldn’t have known who the painter was. Or maybe I would, if I’d seen it before and remembered without knowing I remembered – the way I know how to type but can’t list the keys in the right position without looking. So I’m curious about all that, so tell me what you see. Don’t say the name for now.
Oh, yes, I guessed the painter. Something about the combination of colors, lines, shadows, and subject matter. There’s definitely a style there.
I got it.
Cool. So it is visually recognizable, I just don’t know enough to pinpoint how.
I had to look up the name because I have a crap memory for that sort of thing but it is the artist came to mind immediately.
I know what you mean about unconscious processing. Years ago, I walked into the living room where my brothers were watching a program on TV. I knew at once that the program was Douglas Adams’s “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” I don’t know how I knew that. I’d never read the book, or any of Adams’s other writings. I didn’t see the title of the TV program; I had come in somewhere in the middle of the episode. No idea how I knew that, but I was right.
I love things like that – so interesting.
I’m afraid I had to cheat, but I did have the one really well known work that I’m familiar with pass through my brain as I was trying to guess. When that other, famouser painting showed up, it was with a little jolt. So not a complete failure, despite the cheat.
Maybe it’s like recognizing someone’s handwriting. We’ve somehow latched on to a way of seeing and portraying things. It’s interesting because there are so many things to it. Colour, gesture, composition, the degree of abstraction, the choice of light and its angle. I don’t think calling it a “style” explains what’s happening in the viewer’s brain. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen the above image, but for whatever reason, the Famous Painting I know still managed to pop up in my head, and I have no idea why.
Weird.
Exactly; same here. I recognized it and I can’t see how.
I guess I don’t know enough about painters; it brings no names to my mind. I’ll show it to my husband. He’s the one who follows artwork around here.
I have that happen with the written word, or sometimes with movies or music, though.
I was wrong, but when I looked it up, I thought, “Oh, of course.”
I couldn’t remember his name* but as soon as I saw the picture and before I read the post I immediately thought that looks like it’s by the bloke who painted ……. I think that some artists have a unique or distinctive style such that if one is familiar with some of their work then one can recognise that style in other work of theirs despite not having seen them before.
In a way, it’s as though for some artists their work is as uniquely identifiable as are the voices of certain singers: who wouldn’t recognise the voice of Elvis Presley, Tina Turner, Edith Piaf or even Feargal Sharkey singing an unfamiliar song? In a similar vein, anybody with an interest in studio or art pottery would instantly recognise a cup or bowl by Dame Lucie Rie: a piece of George Jones majolica: a Barlowe-decorated Doulton pot without the need to look for the signature or makers’ marks. Whether it’s classical music, literature, even car manufacture, there will be composers, writers, makers whose output is instantly recognisable to those with an interest in and some knowledge of the subject.
* although the link for the picture does give it away somewhat.
Like Iknklast, I don’t know enough about painters, but sometimes have it happen with the written word. At least twice on this site I’ve recognized a quoted writer without following the link. I’m sure one was Marina Hyde and I think the other was Alexadria Petri.
I have no idea who painted it, but as for “what I see”… on first glance, I very clearly saw a building flipping me the bird, two-fisted style. I’m sure this says something profound about my subconscious.
I don’t know enough painters either, but something like it happened to me a few days ago: I came across a bit of writing. It was about life in Egypt, and I immediately knew who had written it, even though the name was hidden at the end where I could not see it at first. After reading a few more sentences, I could hear the author’s voice in my head, and I was dead certain. The thing is, I had never seen any writing by her before. She is a television reporter, mostly covering the Middle East, and as it turns out, she writes pretty much like she speaks when she is reporting. And I hear her at least a couple time a week on the news. Evidently, I know her style better than I had realized.
Harald, I recently helped my writing group put together an anthology. My husband volunteered to arrange the pieces. I gave them to him without names. He knew which writer wrote almost all of them; one poem fooled him because it was on a topic that was a strong divergence for that writer, though the voice was the same, and he was confused. I assumed he would know all of my pieces because he reads my writing as I write it, but he didn’t seem to know that way, only by recognizing my voice…and the fact that I know how punctuation works.
Harald – now that’s really striking.
I guessed the artist after several seconds of looking. It’s how the painter sees the light that’s the tell.
Okay I did have a name flash into my head when I saw it, but I assumed it was because he was one of the few painters I knew, and it definitely wasn’t any of the others. My husband gave that name when he saw it.He usually knows.
I had to look it up. I am slightly familiar with the artist’s style, and I wish I could say the name was on the tip of my tongue, but it wasn’t. I don’t think I’ve seen the painting before. It reminds me a bit of the sarcophagus on top of the Steiner-Lobman building here in Montgomery, but only a bit.
Ok so it’s Edward Hopper, and the “iconic” one is Nighthawks. I think J.A.’s “how the painter sees the light” must be what we’re all recognizing.
I feel astounded. That’s who I thought of, but only because the only other painters I known anything about are Dali and Picasso, and this so obviously wasn’t them (or Andy Warhol, but I only know his soup can). Now I can pretend to actually have an art sense.
Ha! Astounded is pretty much how I felt. I do have a little art sense, at least if having stared at (and liked) a lot of paintings counts as that, but really The Nighthawks is the only Hopper I’m familiar with, yet somehow it was clue enough.
Favorite place for staring at paintings: the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Second favorite the National Gallery in London. Third the Tate, also London.
My husband likes to stare at paintings; he goes to the art museum while I find the natural history museum. He can spend some time there without too much difficulty, and I can spend some time at an art museum, but we both relatively quickly want to move on from each other’s preferred museums. So he goes to the art museum, and joins me at the natural history when he’s done…or when it closes, whichever comes first.
I guessed Hopper, but from remembering this one:
https://www.phillipscollection.org/collection/approaching-city
For me, it was the tonality and prominence of the building materials, the geometry, and the shadows. Also a feeling of being alone. This photograph is similar, with the tonality of concrete, and the people are silhouettes. You can zoom into the photo for more detail.
[Photo credit: The Reno Gazette Journal, showing the first train through the ReTRAC project that lowered the tracks through downtown, November 18, 2005]
I got it, but I had to Google to retrieve Hopper’s first name. Of course ‘Nighthawks’ comes to mind first, but any of his daylight paintings have a parallel quality with this one.
I got it, too, and have no idea how.
I love this. Most of us knew who it was right away and most of that set doesn’t know why. I still don’t know why I did. Unless…hmm…maybe it’s a kind of movie set thing. Both suggest a movie set waiting for Humphrey Bogart to appear. A bit 40s, a bit noir-ish – or maybe more than a bit.
But really that’s just restating the question, because it’s easy to say what makes The Nighthawks look like that, but the Williamsburg bridge view, not so much.
I think that’s it, actually, at least in my case. It’s a Warner Brothers movie look. I couldn’t really tell you why the Williamsburg one fits that, except that it’s a style – “Something about the combination of colors, lines, shadows, and subject matter” as What a Maroon said. There are probably shelves full of books about the noir aesthetic in Hopper.
I think there’s amazing stuff going on in both directions when looking at a painting (and my examples are going to be for figurative works, rather than abstracts).
I remember being struck on one visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in a gallery featuring painted sketches by members of the Group of Seven (a group of Canadian painters probably best known for their impressionistic landscape paintings of the Canadian Shield and points north). Anyway, even from across the room, many of the sketches, which were small works painted outdoors, on the spot, usually as studies for larger works done in the studio had captured the light and feel of a place, the sky particularly. Seen close-up, these sketches are often quite crude, but still record and convey a colour and quality of light that brings to mind similar light that I myself have seen. It is amazing that the artists are able to do this using blobs of just the right colour, laid side by side in just the right way. It is also amazing that the viewer is capable of recieving the painters message, transmitted through the skillful choice and usage of blops of pigment. Magic on both ends.
And to do my bit to boost Canadian content, here’s what a Google Image search for Group of Seven gives you:
https://www.google.com/search?q=group+of+seven&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi45cTx0-zvAhUJEqwKHUhZCIkQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1920&bih=880
I didn’t know at first, but would have thought Hopper.
The lighting.
I was unfamiliar with the artist, actually, and this is my first time seeing his pieces, even “Nighthawks”. For me, the two most salient features are white clipping and overwhelming diagonality. It makes everything feel like an overexposed photo at a Dutch angle.
* “Nighthawks”: Clipping in faces, shopkeeper’s attire, interior walls. Diagonals drawn to the right corners, yet the scene opens to the left corners.
* “Chop Suey”: Clipping in faces, tables, floor. Diagonals everywhere, dominated by windows and sills.
* “House by the Railroad”: Clipping in walls, sky. Diagonals everywhere: roofs, roof to roof, and railroad.
* “People in the Sun”: Clipping in floor, balding guy. The whole scene slants as though windblown.
* “Rooms by the Sea”: Clipping in door, floor. Diagonals in door, carpet, light, and shadows.
* “Girl at Sewing Machine”: Clipping in windows, dress. Diagonals in girl’s lean, the mirror-head-machine line, and shadow on wall. Also in the chair back, sewing table, and windows.
All these are available at https://www.edwardhopper.net/
Well that was an art appreciation lesson. Thanks Nullius!