The Versatile Master Artist

When the main research area was mentioned, the old professor’s tone became noticeably excited, ”This is a very significant research advancement.”

”Could you explain it to me?”

”Well, it’s quite complex to elaborate, especially since you don’t have a professional background—”

Ahem!

Vice Principal Hunter coughed heavily.

”Alright, let me simplify it for you. The cerebral cortex related to vision has a total of 160 different functional areas. Neuroscientists attempt to find the region in the brain most strongly associated with aesthetics. The mOFC is that region, most responsive when humans appreciate art and experience visual stimuli.”

”In other words, in the eyes of scientists, it’s the module used to define ’beauty.’

Anna said softly.

”That’s right! What makes a piece of work attractive, and what doesn’t, the stimulated degree of the inner orbital frontal cortex can tell us the answer.”

”One of our colleagues did a survey. He sampled different volunteer groups, displaying 16 sets of different images on a computer screen. It turned out that while viewing oil paintings, the corresponding region in their cerebral cortex was activated. For one of the art students, viewing Ingres’s ’The Source’ even elicited a stronger brain response than images of naked women, what does this imply?”

The old professor said vehemently, ”This implies that in his neural network, the artistic stimulus of oil paintings surpasses the physiological stimulus of opposite-sex nudity.”

”In other words, when discussing the artistry of painting, we basically discuss the specific chemical substances and neurotransmitters induced by visual stimuli that cause active responses in the cerebral cortex at the molecular structure. The University of California even established a neuroaesthetic research program because of this. Do you get it?”

”Personally, I believe artworks possess an inherently complex and inscrutable transcendental philosophy, and the aesthetic stimulus we appreciate is embedded with a unique soul link between the painter and the audience, not merely interpretable by secretions of chemicals,” Miss Elina paused.

The girl grazed her eyes across the various brain MRI images on the computer screen, speaking with interest, ”Of course, I respect your scientific perspective, please continue.”

Be it Anna, her aunt, her ancestors, or Sir Brown.

They may differ in art concepts, but people from these circles grew up in environments and received education filled with an empathetic understanding of art.

Aesthetic ability is a tool granted by God for humans to communicate with the Celestial Kingdom through mortal souls.

Scientific rational interpretations might be reasonable.

But if the bodily tremors experienced during the appreciation of beautiful art pieces are equated to the sensations of wiring electrodes onto a lab mouse’s brain,

Indeed, it severely lacks aesthetic appeal.

Of course, Anna found it quite interesting hearing this interpretation based on the cerebral cortex for the first time.

”Transcendental philosophy, soul connection, humph, why don’t you go believe that God truly exists?” the old professor hummed indifferently.

Ahem ahem!

Vice Principal Hunter coughed so intensely that his tonsils almost came out, frantically hinting with his eyes on the side.

”I don’t know whether God exists, but I would definitely believe that when artists are creating great works, the Muse Goddess descends upon them, endowing the two-dimensional image with genuine life, unlike a doodle by merely a stroke of genius of one or two painters.”

Anna wasn’t offended, just laughed and said.

”Getting back to the main topic, does this prove that Detective Cat’s works do therapeutically treat autism effectively, right?”

”You can say so. You might know that patients with high paraplegia are called people imprisoned inside a bodily prison due to their limited physical functions. But compared to people with spinal injuries, autistic children are more like the ones confined inside their bodies. What confines them isn’t atrophied muscles, but a numb brain.”

”So medical experts want to stimulate them using art or music, establishing perception with the outside world.”

”Autistic patients are very numb to external stimuli, or rather, they only react to specific visual objects, but these are hard to find. The new edition of ’Little Prince’ illustrations happens to be such objects.”

”Can’t other fairy tale books do?”

”They can, but without such a remarkable effect.” The old scholar praised, ”If you understand the markers and data on the MRI images, you’ll know. If the response effect of an ordinary fairy tale book is compared to ripples made on the lake surface by blowing a mouthful of air, then ’Little Prince’ is akin to tossing a stone in it. We observed similar images when playing some symphonies. Therefore, classical music used to be our research focus. But now effects of ’Little Prince’ surpass those of Mozart.”

”Understood.”

Anna nodded, ”So illustrations by Detective Cat do provide good therapeutic effects for patients.”

”Hmm... but I must make it clear to you. The most interesting part about the new edition of ’Little Prince’ is that it can stimulate the brain of the child patient at a very low cost. After all, whether it’s Mozart’s music or ’Little Prince’s illustrations, they’re not crafted for any individual case, nor is their original creation intended to treat autism. We’re exploring a low-cost universal treatment method—”

Poor social skills can also be an advantage, honesty.

If an emotionally intelligent person fluent in social dances faced a wealthy sponsor, naturally, the scientific project leader would boast about their project to the brim.

But the old scholar hesitated for several seconds.

In the end, he still said honestly, ”...so with your financial capacity, if you can donate 5 million Euros to the university, rather than buying a ’Little Prince’ for the children or sending them to participate in some experimental therapy in our medical school, it would be better to send them to a rehabilitation institution like Kennedy Medical Center. There, an entire art team collaborates with psychologists to provide customized services for patients, and such individualized rehabilitation plans would be more effective.”

”If I invite Detective Cat to create some illustrations under a psychologist’s guidance for a specific patient, will the effect be better than sending them to a private rehabilitation center?”

Hearing the girl’s crisp voice over the phone.

The person in charge fell silent.

Inviting Detective Cat... he still underestimated these rich people’s whimsy.

Since ’Little Prince’ is effective, custom illustration therapy tailored for each patient is effective too.

Indeed, the combination of the two should yield the best results.

”Or let us put it more directly, can you give me a clear conclusion? Which one truly plays the key role in unlocking the patients’ defenses, the ’Little Prince’ book, the Painting Knife Painting technique, or Detective Cat the illustrator?”

Miss Elina asked straight to the point.

The person in charge continued to remain silent.

That’s also the most bewildering part in the research for the old scholar currently.

Painting Knife Painting, Little Prince, Detective Cat.

Logically, this question could be resolved overnight by controlling variables and designing several control groups for experimentation.

The actual operations are similar. He and his student easily ruled out ’Little Prince’ from the options.

In the fairy tale domain, it is rather overly mature and profound.

Though low in reading barrier, it’s not the typical bedtime story like ’Snow White’ read to children.

Whether it’s the text of ’Little Prince’, or the original illustrations by Saint-Exupéry, the young autistic patients aren’t much interested.

Only the dozens of illustrations in the new fairy tale book have the capacity to activate their cerebral cortex to react.

That is indeed the credit of Painting Knife Painting.

Thinking about it, the answer seems quite reasonable. Such creamy paint texture and bright, striking visual effects are originally the most visually stimulating patterns to the brain.

The problem is, like witchcraft, it seems only Detective Cat’s Painting Knife Paintings have such good effects.

This doesn’t make sense!