Luminance: What You See, and What You Get

French Impressionist painter Claude Monet has long been adored for his style, his subjects and his color choices. But what most people don’t realize is that sometimes those colors were chosen in order to trick the brain in very sophisticated ways. Art historian Charlotte Eyerman and Harvard neurophysiologist Margaret Livingstone discuss what Monet did in one of his most famous works.  [Produced for PRI‘s “Studio 360“.]

Claude Monet, “Impression, soleil levant” (1872). [Musée Marmottan, Paris]

• “Untitled [Selected Ambient Works, Vol.2 – Track 10]” – by Aphex Twin
• “The Day I Heard” – by Fognode