Lecture: What Art Tells Us About the Brain: The Surreal Paintings of René Magritte

Stiller Auditorium 

“The function of painting is to make poetry visible...to render thought visible.” –René Magritte 

This journey through the paintings of René Magritte will reveal your own visual brain in action: figures suddenly are seen as background, only to reverse places in the next glance; transparency battles with opacity; objects are distorted, not by the hand of the artist, but by your brain’s drive to “make sense out of a scene.” Russell D. Hamer, PhD., is a visual neuroscientist whose current work focuses on the brain mechanisms enlisted when viewing visual art, including higher level interpretative, aesthetic, and emotional processes in the brain.   

Support for lectures was provided by the Gayle and Paul Gross Education Endowment Fund.

Space is limited. Online registration required.

Cost: Museum Admission / Members FREE