Derby, M. orcid.org/0000-0001-7610-1770 (2019) Models of attention. Journal of Contemporary Painting, 5 (1). pp. 135-146. ISSN: 2052-6695
Abstract
In this article the question posed by Yve-Alain Bois via Hubert Damisch in Painting as Model, ‘what is the mode of thought of which painting is the stake?’ (1990) is shifted to what is the mode of attention? Informed by current cognitive and neuropsychological research, paintings combative art history is assessed through the lens of attention. The unravelling of modernist painting is proposed as a conflict between models of attention, and divergent attentional expectations. Modernist values of immediacy, presentness, wholeness are considered conditions of an ideal attentional experience, one that attempts to hold back a partial, fragmented and distracted counter experience of modernity. Painting as Model argued for painting’s specificity, pulling away from a formalism that reduces painting to the visual, and theoretical structures that bypass the made object. This article proposes an attentional-specificity for painting; the limits of attentional capacity, distinctions between focused, distributed and divided attention correlating with the cognitive complexity held by the structural, spatial and material conditions of painting.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Intellect Ltd. This is an author produced version of an article published in Journal of Contemporary Painting. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | aesthetic experience; distributed attention; focused attention; Frank Stella; painting; Painting as Model; Yve-Alain Bois |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 07 Aug 2025 08:33 |
Last Modified: | 07 Aug 2025 08:33 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Intellect |
Identification Number: | 10.1386/jcp.5.1.135_1 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:230176 |