Event 3- Blog Post

 The Getty Museum is known as a place that has many different forms of artwork from modern art to more historical art; The art that stood out to me the most is the art that showed nudeness or any sort of human sexual behavior because I believe that it is processed in our brains differently than most other things, therefore, connecting the neuroscience of our brain to that of human sexual desires or thoughts when shown nudeness. By focusing on three specific pieces, we can explore how these artworks reflect the anthropology of human sexual behavior and connect these depictions to the scientific processes of neuroscience.

1. "Venus and Adonis" by Peter Paul Rubens

The amorous gaze of Venus not only depicts desire but, together with the repulsion of Adonis, effectively portrays the reality of human sexual relations - the combination of attraction and rejection, which is associated with sexual behavior. Psychological anthropologists and especially evolutionary psychologists have studied the attraction of sexual relations, and its complex interplay with both the pleasure of physical craving and with emotional bonding. From the intensely vulnerable brain connections within which we feel attraction, to the tingling of nerves and hormones in a heartbreak, scholars highlight the uniquely human sensations that are at play in every sexual act. The nakedness of the human body seems to reflect an emotional capacity for sensuality. It goes beyond the mind-body dualism by unashamedly expressing the socialness of perhaps the most concealed bodily function within the species. Accordingly, we witness in artworks such as this one by Rubens, whose canvas is submerged in warm tones, the biological, sensual, and emotional manifestation of sexuality. This increases neural activity, which becomes evident in the artworks themselves, and is representative of how the brain loves, desires, and becomes sexually aroused.

2. "The Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli

Courtesy of the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin The Birth of Venus (1485), if never the genteel masterpiece it came to be, is an endorsement of beauty, love, and sexual attraction in its ideal human form. Venus, the woman without direct family is emerging naked from foam, both unfettered is as anthropologically revealing as it is beautiful. The painting represents a moment of human sexual selection in documenting a set of societal ideas of the brain, the same region that processes perceptions of reward. That response predicts that the photoreceptivity of the human eye for luminance and color, the morphing neural architecture underlying brain perception, might translate across animal beings only when aesthetics and instinct intersect in the neural circuits underlying sexual selection. This means there is a direct link between the artwork and human sexual behavior

3.The Swing by Jean-Honoré FragonardJean-Honoré Fragonard’s 

The Swing (1767) is an erotically charged depiction of flirtation and courtship. Here, the eye of a young woman swings back and forth in an erotic game of cat and mouse. She walks a tightrope between the athletic powers of a ‘middle-aged’ man (left) who pushes the swing and the ‘person of pleasure’ (on the right) her in the bushes. The painting symbolizes aspects of sexual behavior as well as its secret and playful expression and, in this regard, has its use in the anthropological lexicon. When we think in neuroscientific terms, The Swing can be viewed in connection with the limbic system in the brain, which regulates both pleasure and excitement. Light, color, and composition, such as the asymmetrical arrangement of the female riders in The Swing create a sense of movement and anticipation, similar to the activity in the brain when experiencing sexual excitement or anticipatory feelings.

Sources 

Rubens, Peter Paul. Venus and Adonis. The J. Paul Getty Museum. Getty Museum.

Rembrandt. The Rape of Europa. The J. Paul Getty Museum. Getty Museum.

Rubens, Peter Paul. The Return from War: Mars Disarmed by Venus. The J. Paul Getty Museum. Getty Museum.

Vesna, Victoria. “DESMA9 Week 7 Lecture Part 1.” 17 May. 2024.

Vesna, Victoria. “DESMA9 Week 7 Lecture Part 2.” 17 May. 2024. 

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