Hello. This is 6 Minute English from
BBC Learning English. I’m Neil.
And I’m Sam.
Would you say you’re artistic, Sam?
Can you draw or paint?
Do you dance or play music?
I play the piano a bit. Yes, I’d say I’m
quite artistic. How about you, Neil?
Well, if you count playing football as artistic
then yes, but basically no – I can’t paint.
We’ve been wondering why artistic ability
comes more naturally to some people than others,
so in this programme we’ll be asking:
are artists’ brains different?
We’ll hear two expert opinions, and as usual,
we’ll learn some useful new vocabulary as well.
So, what do you think, Neil? Are artists’ brains
different from other people’s?
I’m not sure, Sam, but it’s true that many
artists behave differently, often in very
strange ways. For example, did you know
that Michelangelo worked so hard he never
took a bath! Or that guitar legend, Jimi Hendrix,
once set fire to his guitar on stage!
We’ll hear more about the artist’s brain soon,
but first I have a question for you. As you said,
artistic ability comes naturally to some people,
including the famous composer,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart was
considered a child prodigy - a young child with
very great musical talent. So, how old was
Mozart when he composed his first
piece of music? Was he: a) five years old?
b) ten years old? or, c) fifteen years old?
I’ll guess he was a) five years old.
OK, Sam. I’ll reveal the answer later in the
programme. If artists’ brains are different,
it could mean they see the world in unusual ways.
Dr Rebecca Chamberlain is a researcher in
the neuroscience of art. She investigates how
artists see the objects they are drawing by measuring
saccades – the rapid movements our eyes make
as they jump from one thing to another. Here she
shares her findings with BBC
World Service programme, CrowdScience.
Artists seem to be processing the visual world
in a different way to non-artists, particularly
when they’re drawing. The artist actually takes
a more global approach to looking – so they
make bigger saccades, bigger eye movements,
and shorter fixations on the image. So, it’s almost
like they’re getting much more of a kind of
gist level view of the thing they’re looking at.
Rebecca’s experiments seem to confirm that
artists’ brains work differently because of their
processing of the visual world – the way
their brains make sense of information.
Interestingly, processing also means the act
of developing pictures from photographic film.
When they draw, artists make bigger, quicker
eye movements so they are able to see the
whole picture, something also known as
the gist – the overall, general impression of
something without focussing on the details.
If you ‘get the gist’ of what someone is saying,
you understand the overall meaning of what
they say, but not the details.
The second expert to answer our question
about the artistic brain is Mike, a BBC World
Service listener from Malawi. Mike is
a self-taught painter who creates large,
colourful pictures in his studio.
According to him, artistic ability isn’t something
you’re born with - it can be learned, as he explained
to BBC World Service’s, CrowdScience.
I had this other student… he was really
at the zero, like, he could not draw – at all.
So, I gave him some tips, and in a month,
he was really good – he was like really surprised,
blown away, he never expected it.
So, there are some things that are trainable,
it’s like a bike. In my case, I learned how to do
those things without anyone telling me,
you know like, if you are drawing the face,
the human face, the distance between your eyes
is the same as one of your eyes.
Mike gives tips to his students – helpful
pieces of advice about how to do something,
in this case, to paint. After getting Mike’s
tips, one of his students really improved and
started painting much better. Mike was
blown away – an informal way to say very
impressed or surprised.
Like learning to ride a bike, Mike thinks that
painting is trainable – a word from American
English meaning that it can be taught
or trained. For him, this is proof that
artists’ brains are not so different after all.
So, there we have it – two different options,
but no final answer to our question.
Still, some scientists think there may be
third possibility: everyone’s brain works
by focussing on some areas and ignoring others,
making a kind of jigsaw puzzle with
missing pieces. Maybe all of us – you, me,
Mozart and Jimi Hendrix - are just filling in
the missing pieces our own way.
Speaking of Mozart, Neil, it’s time to reveal
the answer to your question.
Right. I asked how old child prodigy Mozart
was when he first composed music.
I said he was five years old… so, was I right?
Your answer was correct! Mozart was five
when first wrote music, and by the age of six
he had performed in front of the
Emperor of Austria – twice!
Now there’s an artistic brain!
OK, Neil, let’s recap the vocabulary from
this programme, starting with child prodigy -
a young child, like Mozart, with
a great talent in something.
Processing describes how your brain
makes sense of the information it receives.
The gist of something is a general
understanding of it, without the details.
Tips are useful pieces of advice about
how to do something better.
If you are blown away, you are very
impressed or surprised by something.
And finally, trainable means able to be
trained or taught, in American English.
Once again, our six minutes are up.
It’s goodbye for now!
Goodbye!