Seven Little Known Birds of the Inner Eye

by Mulk Raj Anand

  As the onlooker contemplates a painting, his nervous organism, in a flash of lightning, registers many sensations, even in the first one or two seconds. Beyond the dickeybird, the other birds of his inner faculties carry messages from one to the other, so that, ultimately, he has an aesthetic experience.

  The available evidence about the responses of animals, birds and insects shows that, in some respects, they are more sensitive than human beings. For instance, birds have vision that is about one hundred times more acute than ours, and they can also sense magnetic fields. With their compound eyes, bees can detect the direction of the sun's rays and thus buzz about by "celestial navigation"; bats can hear supersonic sounds; and snakes are sensitive to the slightest temperature changes.4 Man, however, is superior in so far as he has evolved a brain, the seat of reason, called in Hindu philosophy "the lotus of a thousand petals" because of its intricate connections with the nervous system (see Fig. 49, p. 105). The brain coordinates most of the responses of the senses, like a pilot station directing us from its cavity towards the vision afforded by the imagination or the release of the body-soul.

  Man has fewer instincts than animals, but his instincts are vital. In man the earlier instincts and emotional patterns have come to be directed by a purposiveness deeply rooted, through years of evolution, in the very protoplasmic stuff of which he is made.

  Some men are neither highly evolved nor highly self-evolving. Some are more sensitive than others, as their whole organism has been perfected by heredity, or by physical and mental exercise, to take in more than ordinary mortals. The philosophy of yoga suggests ways in which the dormant energies of the serpent power, stimulated by exercises, can be welded together and released through active contemplation.

  And yet it is fascinating to see that even in ordinary ways the average human being far surpasses the animals, whose behaviour is often as precisely patterned as that of Pavlov's dogs. Man is invariably directed from inside, by powerful urges, desires, pulls, aspirations and longings, when he confronts the simplest outside experience or stimulus. He is no tabula rasa, on whom the environment is merely registered. The curiosity of the cells in him to look, to see, to absorb and to know is the drive to attain a singular goal of unity within the total organism.

  Above all, man is inventive, working with his intuition and imagination on the dim tracings of what has happened before, through which he synthesises the new experience with the old, often without knowing how or why.

  Walter Gropius, the architect and founder of the Bauhaus art school, has drawn attention to some of the subconscious reactions which influence man's outlook. He has also pointed out some ways in which objects, in their different relations to space, create optical illusions on the retina.5

  The distortion of images is occasioned by the curvature of the retina, thus complicating the associations of our space-perceiving senses and creating optical illusions. The awareness of these optical illusions is always helpful to the artist. For instance, in modern abstract art the illusion of movement is often attained by the interplay of convex and concave forms.

  6. Optical illusion: figure in horizontal-striped bathing suit looks slimmer.

  7. Irradiation phenomenon: black figure looks smaller.

  Gropius notes that stripes and the contrast between light and dark can produce very odd optical effects. "The girl in the bathing suit looks more slender in horizontal than vertical stripes" (Fig. 6). Another optical phenomenon is that called "irradiation": a bright figure on dark background looks bigger than a black figure on a bright background (Fig. 7).

  Gropius suggests further that our eyes close automatically if a car coming from the opposite direction stirs up mud or slush, even when the windows of our car are up. If we look down from the balcony of a twenty-storey building, we feel giddy even if there is a railing to protect us from falling. But if the same railing is covered with cardboard or paper, and gives support to the eye, giddiness often disappears through the illusion of safety.

  People often feel lost or Lonely in wide-open spaces. This feeling is identified as agoraphobia, the dread of open spaces, sometimes felt by sensitive people crossing a large open square.6 And the loss of the human sense of balance when one looks down from great heights is a familiar phenomenon, as attested, for example, by the visitors to India's Kutub Minar in Mehrauli, who want to descend immediately, once they look out from the top of this minaret. The dizzy height of the Kutub Minar makes one lose contact with the earth. The head often swirls and one may even feel bilious, as if in an airplane (Fig. 8). Gropius confirms this when he says that "people get lost in a space the size of which is not in keeping with the human scale."

  If, however, in a vast area some vertical planes were created on that open space, like wings on a stage, such as shrubs or fences or walls, the illusion of safety would be reinstated, and the dread would disappear, for the eyes of the person groping in space could find a frame of reference to act as a psychological support. When the eyes hit a solid in the field of vision they register its outline just as radar does.7 This is confirmed by the experiments in the paintings of Irene Rice Pereira, who has also analysed the historical breakthrough of man from one-, two-and three-dimensional space areas to the expanding universe.8 And so our eyes, which are the instruments of our organism and our subconscious, deceive us in many ways. This happens at any time when the human being is not directing the personality with a deliberate will to concentrate in active contemplation, or to allow deeper awareness by relating to the inner life of a work of art.

  The deceptive phenomena can be illustrated by a number of distortions easily created from the curvature of the retina, by delicate dissociations of the space-perceiving senses, if we twist and turn the basic stimuli received by the eye. In this way, abstraction, simplification and distortion can be understood as quite simple artistic means by which it becomes possible to express soul-body experiences beyond the habitual three-dimensional space areas of common sense.

  8. Kutub Minar, Mehrauli, India.

  Artists have frequently resorted to the clever interplay of various elements of structure to create the illusion of mobility. The Kailasa Temple in Ellora, south-central India, cut from the giant rock on three sides, has been given the appearance of a moving cloud (Fig. 9). The Cubists generated movement by superimposing multiple planes in their pictures.

  The important considerations in all optical illusions are space-time relations, judged in terms of human scale. In all ancient civilisations, the human frame has served as a yardstick. Le Corbusier has rightly emphasised the Modulor as the basis of all architecture, since the human being symbolised in the Modulor is the measure of all structures, of where man lives and moves and has his being. The silhouettes of giant temples like Khajuraho, Puri, Konarak, Bhuvaneshvar (Fig. 10) and Mahabalipuram were obviously intended to communicate the majesty of the invisible power dominating the vast space, so that people seeing the huge hulk of such a temple would feel awe and reverence for the gods. The approach to the garbha griba, or the inner sanctum of the temple, is made intimate by the narrow doorway in the small room. The abundant carvings on the outer wall surfaces, as well as inside, direct the optical vision to seek the course of memory, sensation, hope, fear, purpose, which may have already risen to the surface through alliance with the grace of the curves, the excitement of the angles, the gestures of the chisel and the harmony of the composition.

  9. Kailasa Temple, Ellora, India.

  10. Bhuvaneshvar Temple, India.

  An object painted in brown wax seems heavier than if it were coloured grey or white or yellow. A life-size sculpture on a high pedestal, standing against the bright sky, looks smaller than the same sculpture in the artist's studio because, against the open space of the sky, light nibbles away at its sides. (This phenomenon is scientifically called "irradiation,") Therefore, carvers often make figures more than life size, to compensate for this illusion.

  Thus, in communicating visual experiences, the dickeybird often p
lays tricks. Not only is this true about contours but also about colours. Colours affect the eye vitally, because some of them heighten the tempo of our bloodstream more than others. Contrasts, or relativity of opposites, keep the human being alert and alive as they create tension or repose. Colours, or lighting, make walls advance or recede. Dimensions can thus seem different from actual measurements.

  Bharata's Natya Shastra,9 compiled in pre-Christian India, had already analysed the association of colours with moods. Brown signified sringara, or eroticism. White conveyed hasya, or joviality. Grey reflected karuna, or pathos. Red stimulated raudra, or fury. The fair complexion was for the hero. Black stood for terror. Indigo suggested the odious. Yellow stimulated adbhuta or wonder at the marvellous.

  The medieval Indian Ragmala paintings suggest musical modes by organising symbolic colours and figures. For it is known that colours do not exist in isolation. Not only have they relations to palpable geometry, but they have relationships with other colours in a composition through the vibrations they create, and thus relate themselves to the experience of the onlooker. In the painting of the Todi Ragini the colours are supposed to awaken animals, birds and flowers when this musical mode is sung in the early morning (Frontispiece).

  In his analysis of the actual functioning of the optical nerves, Professor C. V. Raman10 has revealed that all the primary and secondary colours are present in the retina itself and begin to work with the impact of light on the eyes. He has also shown how, in the entire range of the visible spectrum, a change of a percent in the photon energy is sufficient to give a perceptible change of colour.

  The study of the constitution of the retina and the way it functions has further revealed many facts about the visual experience which had hitherto been unexplained.

  Professor Raman notes;

  . . . by screening the eye from all external illumination for a short period, which need not exceed a few minutes, it is possible greatly to increase the sensitivity of the retina to light. This improvement may be made spectrally selective, in other words, restricted to any desired part of the spectrum, by using an appropriately chosen colour-filter and holding it before the eye for a suitable interval of time. Accordingly, when the filter is removed and a brightly lit white surface is viewed by the observer, he sees on it a picture of his own retina, which exhibits the selective responses of its different areas to the parts of the spectrum which had been screened off by the filter before the arrival. The picture, of course, is fugitive. But it may be recalled as often as desired by putting back the filter and then removing it from the eyes.

  If the filter is dyed with methyl-violet, extraordinary effects are noted:

  Quite spectacular effects are observed when the filter employed is a gelatine Him, on glass stained lightly with methyl-violet. The filter appears a purplish-blue by transmitted light. Holding it before the eye for a few seconds and then removing it, the observer sees on the screen an enormously magnified image of his own fovea as a disk of light which is green in colour, and at the centre of it a bright spot of the same hue, which is the pit or depression in the fovea known as the foveola. If the filter is held for a somewhat longer time before it is removed, the fovea is much brighter and then appears surrounded by a halo of gold-yellow hue some five or six times larger in diameter, but less luminous than the fovea itself. The fovea with the foveola at its centre is at the point on the screen at which the observer has fixed his vision before removing the filter. If he shifts his gaze, they also move, thereby showing clearly that what is seen on the screen is a projected image of the observer's own retina.

  These laboratory tests of the identification of visual pigment have been designed to prove that "our perception of light and colour is made possible by the presence in the retina of certain pigments which possess the power to absorb light and to transfer the energy thus absorbed immediately to the sensory receptors, thereby enabling us to perceive the absorbed energy as light."

  Professor Raman has thus analysed the impact of light on the retina of the human eye and outlined new ideas about the process of seeing and recognizing colours. He suggests that the phenomena of vision must be based on the quantum theory.

  Colours affect moods, not only according to ancient beliefs, but in the light of modern researches. Some of the effects of colour are outlined in a magazine article about Howard Ketchum, a New York designer and "colour engineer."11 Ketchum is convinced, on the basis of his design experience, that colour can affect people's emotions, their energy levels, their pulses, appetites and brains, as well as their perceptions of distance and temperature, weight and sound. Violet, he finds, is depressing, while yellow is an invigorating colour "conducive of conviviality, increased brain activity and a sense of well being." Retarded children do well in classrooms painted yellow, while normal children have trouble taking naps in yellow-walled nurseries. Blue is relaxing, so much so that old people may become "blue thirsty"; reactions to red stimulate the pulse and appetite, and even the brain. From a distance of twenty feet a red chair will seem a foot closer than a blue one. If orange covers are placed on furniture or orange curtains hung at the windows of a green-walled room, the room temperature will seem to rise. Fund-raising appeals in light blue-green envelopes are more effective than the identical letters in white envelopes. If a twenty-pound box is painted dark blue it will seem heavier than a light yellow one of exactly the same weight. In a white booth, a telephone bell will sound louder than the same bell ringing in a booth with purple walls. And a peach eaten in the dark will seem less flavourful than the identical peach tasted in the light.

  Colours in the retina, acting under the impact of light, always relate back to our metabolism. Hence Wassily Kandinsky talks of "hot" and "cold" colours,12 "shrill" or "soft" colours and "exciting" or "soothing" colours, and Paul Klee asserts that, as colours are seen to be psychophysical energies, they can be measured. They have "weight." They are "light" or "heavy." They are "tense" or "relaxed." They are "charming" or "ugly." They drip-drop in the "listening eye."13

  But the dickeybird does no more than receive colours with some discrimination from the retina, and transfer the image to the inside, where further responses begin to take shape. For, though the human eye is a marvellously sensitive organ, it still cannot measure colour or tone exactly, but gives a rough reckoning of outer phenomena. Thus colours, which are nothing but variations of light, exert influence through the qualities and quantities of light; the moods, the responses and the emotions of the onlooker and everything in perception ultimately relate themselves to the total attitude of the body-soul towards colour. For the material body and the goal-seeking living stuff of which it is composed are the true measure of the universe. The data coming into the observer's eyes are processed in the retina and in the other parts of the organism. These data are related to innate mental characteristics, experiences, moods and insights, in fact to ail the possible combinations of elements. Apart from the illuminant, the aspects of the objects viewed are important, and then the qualities and nature of the observer determine the rest. Colours have now been found to be curative and productive, not merely decorative. Research in clinics in Moscow and Leningrad has yielded data that sessions in colour therapy are useful in the treatment of psychic disorders and eye diseases.14 Paintings, sculptures, poems, symphonies and abstract systems of mathematics are all formed out of the interactions of organic purposefulness from within man, face-to-face with the outside world.

  In the realm of creative art, as Walter Gropius has said, "Our body is the scale unit which enables us to establish a finite framework of relationship with infinite space."15 The most primitive view of the infinite is that of the child. As he lies in bed, he looks at the moving clouds and he discovers pictures of giants, animals, demons, gods in the floating mass of fleecy insubstantiality. The sky seems endless, even though the infant has been told that God sits somewhere beyond the sky on his throne in heaven, dispensing justice to all. The stars at night are incomprehensible, shining brig
htly far away. The child wonders if life exists there. Only when he is aware that his puny frame is next to his mother, as against the vast void, does he feel secure. Often he hugs his mother in fear of the loneliness that seems to project itself from empty space.

  The child's cries also have a relationship to his insecurity. He hears when he plays with a rattle, but he also learns to connect the sight of the basic colours in the "listening eye," What the retina is to the reception of images in the eye, the cochlea is to the reception of sound in the ear—and they are organically related. As with vision, so in hearing. Professor Raman has put forward the hypothesis that, as the photons are a kind of radiation, so is sound a form of energy.16 This is an accurate confirmation of the Tantric philosophy which traces ail images to the vibrations below the lumbar ganglion, from the primitive cry to the spiritual sound "aum," sung in prayer, often to the beat of a drum to awaken the serpent power of ultimate rhythm.

  As I have said earlier, the ancient Hindus had a hunch about the relationship of various musical sounds to colours, and a series of Ragala paintings of musical modes were made according to mythical formulae. The basic problems of sound, pitch and quality were studied in connection with the drum instruments, mridangam and tabla, and the tones were analysed. The results show awareness of the intimate connection between sight and sound.17