Erôs and Insight
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
5 | An
Introduction to Amherst: First-Year Seminars
At 11 o’clock on a sunny morning
late in October, Upton and Zajonc sit
together in Upton’s bright, airy Fayerweather office, going over plans
for today’s class. Upton is reclining in his chair, hands behind his head;
Zajonc, sifting through notes in a folder, is suggesting an important connection
between ideas recently presented in class.
“I want to get at the dynamic interplay between the mathematical and the
metaphysical,” he announces in a habitually calm, modulated voice, referring
to last week’s lecture on astronomy. “In other words, the productive
tension between the theoretical and the experiential—how does that exist
within each of us?” Six weeks into the semester, one comes to expect remarks
like this from Zajonc, who rarely utters a bite-sized thought. Ideas, in both
his and Upton’s view, are less to be consumed (“Okay, got it, next”),
than lived with—their dimensions revealing themselves subtly and gradually,
like a complex piece of music heard again and again.
Upton nods, in full accord. “Exactly. How is this meaningful to these kids,
right now? How does this tension manifest in their own lives?”
Relating abstract ideas back to students’ experience is a recurrent theme,
as Upton and Zajonc both believe knowledge without understanding, without a genuine
passionate connection, is inert (the “insight” without the “erôs”).
How, instead, can ideas become dynamic living entities? How can they actually
change a young person’s life? The discussion continues animatedly until
two minutes before class is to begin. Despite overpacked schedules, the professors
confer regularly to compare notes and make suggestions for each other’s
lectures. The atmosphere is relaxed and collegial, the conversation punctuated
by frequent laughter. The two get along “famously,” according to
Upton, although they work in disciplines that rarely intersect.
Joel Upton’s expertise is in 15th-century Flemish art. His classes in the
Fine Arts Department cover French monastic art and architecture, Dutch and Flemish
painting, and the art and architecture of Europe from 300 to 1500. His most recent
book, Petrus Christus, is a scholarly rehabilitation of the life and work
of the little-known Flemish painter. Arthur Zajonc teaches quantum physics, electromagnetism
and optics, modern physics and relativity. Among his many publications, Catching
the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind, is an exploration
of the scientific and philosophical nature of light.
Together, these long-term Amherst professors from divergent disciplines are challenging
the notion of irreconcilable opposites. Academic orthodoxy habitually separates
art from science, intuition from reason. A paint-spattered art studio and a sterile
lab are viewed typically as separate realms, as distant from each other as Earth
and Mars (with the art studio generally taking the role of Mars.) But Upton and
Zajonc give little credence to established pedagogical practices that, in their
view, diminish the educational experience. A fundamental theme of the class might
be described very simply as different paths leading to the same destination.
Human beings exist in a world of internal and external phenomena—the inner
world of emotion, intuition and creativity; the outer world of objects, measurements
and physical laws. But Upton and Zajonc say that we do not have to choose between
them. Just as the information in a computer does not reside in ones or zeros,
but in the difference between them, Upton and Zajonc hold that real understanding—what
they call “contemplative knowing”—is found in the creative
tension between inner and outer worlds.
Pretty heady stuff for young people just out of high school. Indeed, Erôs
and Insight, normally an upper-level course, is being offered as a First-Year
Seminar for the first time.
“An experiment,” according to Zajonc.
“A leap into the void,” Upton adds, laughing.
Self-Portrait Age 51, 1657, Oil on canvas; 53 X 43 1/2 inches, by Rembrandt
Harmenszoon van Rijn |
And yet the course,
Zajonc stresses, is less an introduction to a body of knowledge than an invitation
to a way of thinking—or, to be more precise, a way of
perceiving. Both believe that ideally this should begin as students embark on
their college career. Sounds like science. It also sounds, intriguingly, like
art.
Several weeks into the semester, Erôs and Insight already has begun to
challenge the dichotomy between a scientist’s way of engaging the world
and an artist’s. Readings and lectures have covered topics ranging from
16th-century astronomer Johann Kepler’s discovery of planetary motion to
Rembrandt’s self-portraits, from Einstein’s theory of relativity
to German poet and artist Goethe’s color theory. Rilke’s sonnets,
which explore the nature of human awareness, consciousness and love, were read
aloud following a discussion of the “science of sight”; a recording
of Gustav Holst’s The Planets helped bring to life Kepler’s theory
of planetary “tones” (harmonica mundi).
All these artists, writers, scientists and thinkers have become, in the vocabulary
of the class, “companions” on the intellectual journey. Students,
rather than soberly recording lists of Important Ideas, are instead entering
the personal worlds of Einstein, Rembrandt and Kepler, the realms that gave birth
to their ideas. They have learned, for example, about Einstein’s passion
for nature and philosophy, his Alpine hikes with friends and their spirited arguments—fueled
by bread, cheese and wine—over the origins of scientific discovery.
‘“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious,”’ Zajonc
read to the class, quoting Einstein. ‘“It is the fundamental emotion
that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.’” The picture
that emerges, of a young scientist passionately engaged with matters of the mind
and heart (insight and erôs), is a far cry from Einstein the white-haired
icon.
In fact, icons of all sorts are toppling this semester. Irrefutable science?
It turns out that science is always refutable. Venerable old masters? Rembrandt
painted himself, in turn, as a callow youth, a wastrel, a weary old man, a naked
soul—each representing an aspect of the painter’s hard-won artistic
and psychological progress. No longer a distant genius from art history’s
attic, Rembrandt has become a vivid, recognizable human. Upton’s teaching
approach, which he calls “beholding,” both elevates and deepens the
visual experience (not just looking “at” but looking “into”).
In an early class, with a slide image of one of Rembrandt’s remarkably
revealing paintings on the wall before his students, Upton said, simply: “Visual
understanding will emerge quietly. Words are not the equivalent of this kind
of knowing. Here, now, you must come face to face with your own being, and that
of Rembrandt, in silence.” For the 30 students in Erôs and Insight,
the artist’s self-portraits have been transformed from yawn-inducing “famous
paintings” (at which one dutifully stops on a museum tour) to a powerful,
compelling summons to look within.
 |
Today, another summons: the class is separating
into sections, one group remaining in the classroom with Upton, the other trooping
upstairs with Zajonc to a light-filled room at the top of Fayerweather. Arranging
themselves in a circle, the students in Zajonc’s section look on curiously
as he shows a mysterious slide image of a purple spot in the middle of a green
field. Is this art? A scientific illustration? An eye exam?
“Look carefully,” Zajonc tells the group, “then close your
eyes. Attend to the image on your inner eye. What do you see?”
“A green circle around the purple one,” someone calls out.
“A brown circle, with yellow around it,” another offers hesitantly.
“A hallway?” a third student volunteers, sounding bewildered.
Zajonc, smiling, introduces the idea of the subjective mechanism of sight—the
complex interaction of light, retina, mind and emotion. After showing another
series of slides that seem to play “tricks” with light and dark,
foreground and background, Zajonc points out the way in which context determines
perception. Or, to put it more simply, the way an object can appear to change
depending on what’s around it. Nods around the circle—this makes
sense, OK, we get it. Everyone has seen those pictures that, for example, reveal
either a vase or a face in silhouette, depending on the viewer. A sense of pleased
relief emanates from the group—at last, an easily grasped idea!
Not so fast. Zajonc is interested not only in a vision experiment that demonstrates
the way we see, but what we think we see. At this, confident looks quickly evaporate
around the circle. The distinction is more than semantic, Zajonc points out,
as the students, trying to follow, wear nearly identical puzzled frowns. Gently,
he guides the group from a consideration of “image”—the way
we look at a picture—to the larger issue of the way we look at the world.
“Attentiveness to our surroundings,” he says, “opens up relationships.
If we see the relationship between an object and its background, we can begin
to understand the relationship between ourselves as individuals and our backgrounds.” In
other words, what we see in others often is predicated on our own experiences
and expectations: the “background” we bring to the world. What if
we were able to change the “color” of that background, shade it differently,
highlight some aspects or downplay others? What if we could see others through
their eyes, with the perspective of their backgrounds? How would that change
the way we feel, act, think?
“Sustaining
contradiction doesn’t mean negating choice... The point is to
make conscious choices that include an awareness
of the many contradictory possibilities.” |
In one moment, the discussion has moved from the scientific (the
laws of light) to the metaphysical (the subjective nature of perception). As
the connection becomes clear, the students become visibly engaged—leaning
forward in their seats, writing furiously in their notebooks, raising their hands
with comments and questions. An animated discussion reveals a strong response
to the concept of subjectivity: how do we become fully aware of our own judgments
and values? How can we distinguish between what is true and what we think is
true? Isn’t
this impossible? Perhaps, and yet Zajonc encourages his students to explore,
rather than resist, the apparent contradiction between fixed laws and the fluid
interpretations human individuals bring to those laws.
“Why?” A student wearing a baseball cap blurts out. The rest of the
students quickly turn their attention to him. “I don’t get it. Why
would you welcome contradiction? Isn’t that just not being able to make
up your mind? Not knowing what you think?”
“How about the rest of you?” Zajonc queries the class. “What
do you think?”
“I don’t think it means not being able to make up your mind,” a
young woman says, choosing her words thoughtfully. “I think it means, well,
sort of accepting that things aren’t simple. There’s always another
opinion. Maybe looking at an idea you never considered before helps you
make up your mind, in the long run.”
“Or maybe,” another student offers, leaning forward in her seat, “it
means there is no final answer to everything. Maybe there are a lot of interrelated
answers, and you shouldn’t fear that.”
Zajonc, nodding encouragingly at the contributions, adds, “Remember that
sustaining contradiction doesn’t mean negating choice. We make choices
every moment. The point is to make conscious choices that include an awareness
of the many contradictory possibilities. With each choice, something is eliminated,
and something else brought into being: we are conscious of it all.”
A slender young man in a leather jacket raises his hand. “But do we get
to final answers that way? Do we get to, you know, the end? Where we’re
done with all the questions?”
Zajonc responds with an enigmatic smile. “There’s a famous mathematical
theorem called the Incompleteness Theorem. It states ‘there are questions
with answers, but they cannot be known in your system of thinking or your context
of understanding. But the act of asking the question—and of enlarging the
context—is the means for discovery.’ We’ll be exploring a few
of these questions next class. Read your handout on Barbara McClintock—a
scientist who was preoccupied with the question: Is reason alone adequate to
describe the mystery of living forms? Oh, and remember, next Monday night, 7:30,
optional open discussion in this room. No agenda, no lecture—bring your
questions and ideas.”
And then class is over. It’s time for lunch, soccer practice, a lab, another
class. Many students, however, linger well past the hour, gathering around Zajonc
in the hopes of asking him one question that, just maybe, no one has asked before.
Continued >>
Rembrandt Self-Portrait: Duke of Sutherland Collection,
on loan to the National Gallery of Scotland
|
