The work of the artist and the science of vision may seem distantly related as subjects. However, when Leonardo da Vinci wrote that, of all the colours, the most pleasing are the ones which constitute opponents, he was uttering a physical truth about the brain.
Inner vision is the first attempt to relate art to the way in which the visual brainfunctions.
Using a range of examples from artists including Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Magritte, Malevich and Picasso, Semir Zeki takes the reader on an aesthetic tour of the brain. Zeki's book is a delight for its unconventionality, as well as for its non-didatic foray into art history, psychology, photography, and visual neurobiology. Israel Rosenfield, The New York Review of Books ' Inner Vision is the first systematic attempt to explain visual art in terms of science. Without biological foundations, the author believes, theories of aesthetics cannot be complete, much less profound. The Spectator 'Revolutionises the conventional view of the passive eye in favour of a dynamic, generative concept of vision.