2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Experimental Art History based in Neuroscience. Search for the Minds of Viewers of Caravaggio Paintings.

Research Project

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Project/Area Number	19K21605
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Review Section	Medium-sized Section 1:Philosophy, art, and related fields
Research Institution	The University of Tokyo
Principal Investigator	Osano Shigetoshi 東京大学, 相談支援研究開発センター, 特任教授 (70177210)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	亀田達也東京大学, 大学院人文社会系研究科(文学部), 教授 (20214554)
Project Period (FY)	2019-06-28 – 2023-03-31
Keywords	実験美術史 / カラヴァッジョ絵画 / 絵画鑑賞者 / 眼球運動計測 / 脳機能イメージング
Outline of Final Research Achievements	In order to explore the eye movements and brain activity of Caravaggio paintings, two groups of art history students and non-art history students were subjected to 10 Caravaggio paintings, 10 Caravaggio school and 10 Mondrian paintings, which were examined by MRI equipped with an eye movement instrument. (1) When viewing Caravaggio's paintings, activity was observed in such brain regions as amygdala that produce information experiences centered on the faces of human figures. (2) In the comparison between the two groups, the activity of the upper right parietal lobule was high in the first group, the time spent paying attention to the region of interest set by the experimenter in the image was longer, and the first group did also observe the AOI that the second did not view. (3) Characteristic brain activity during the appreciation of Mondrian paintings occurred in the early visual cortex related to color and line, and the gaze pattern was not much different between the two groups.
Free Research Field	美術史
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	本研究によって、モンドリアンの抽象絵画の鑑賞で特徴的な脳活動が第一視角野で起こると追認できた。一方、美術史学生と一般学生の間でカラヴァッジョの人物表現中心の絵画の鑑賞を視線計測および脳活動から比較した結果、共通して前帯状皮質、紡錘状回顔領域、扁桃体という情動経験を生み出す脳部位に活動が見られ、さらに美術史学生では右上頭頂小葉に高い活動があった。これより、カラヴァッジョ絵画の特質として、最初の鑑賞時に鑑賞者一般に強い情動経験を誘発させ、鑑賞に慣れた者にはさらに深い鑑賞へといざなうことが裏づけられた。つまり、カラヴァッジョは自身の作品への鑑賞者の関与を想定し、効果的な仕掛けを施したといえる。