Touch and art discussed at symposium

The Hopkins Brain Science Institute (BSi) and the Walters Art Museum held a symposium entitled, Touch-Touch and the Visual Arts: Neuroscience, Art, and Art History on Mar. 5 in Mason Hall. As a collaboration with a current exhibit at the Walters Art Museum, Touch and the Enjoyment of Sculpture: Exploring the Appeal of Renaissance Statuettes, it explored the associations of touch perception with enjoyment of sculpture. Approximately 50 people attended the all day event, which lasted from 8:15 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. Most attendees were Hopkins affiliates.
According to Jeffrey D. Rothstein, the director of BSi and Gary Vikan, director of the Walters Art Museum, in their introduction to the symposium's pamphlet, BSi and the museum "meld[ed] research of how the brain reacts to tactile stimuli and the increased appreciation of tactility."
The symposium featured artists and researchers in several informal lectures. The event discussed many aspects of aesthetics, architecture, art and dance. The symposium began with a welcome by director Vikan and the director of the Interdisciplinary Partnerships of the BSi, Susan Magsaman.
Some of the featured lectures that followed included "The Two Sides of Touch: One Senses, One Feels. . ." by Francis McGlone of Liverpool John Moores University in England; "The aesthetics of touch in the sighted and blind" by Steven Hsiao of Hopkins and "The role of touch in decision making by buyers and scholars of Chinese porcelain" by the Executive Vice President of Sotheby's North America, Henry Howard-Sneyd.
Howard-Sneyd, Sotheby's leading auctioneer globally in the field of Asian Art, discussed the importance of touch as a deciding factor in the evaluation and buying of fine Chinese works. He began his presentation by showing a photograph of a $150 million Hong Kong vase and asked, "Why would someone buy this?"
Howard-Sneyd answered this question through his presentation of different Chinese pieces, ranging from rough, smooth, cool, heavy, even and soft. Touch can create exotic feelings within a buyer or show someone an aspect unable to be understood without touch, Howard-Sneyd said.
"Touch was the reason I fell in love with Chinese art," Howard-Sneyd told the audience.
The lecture elicited a positive response from the audience. People were able to feel the objects Howard-Sneyd was talking about.
"This presentation made me view objects and my own relationship to them in a much different light," Louise Washer, who attended the symposium, said. "As a sculptor, I am drawn to touching and modeling, but now I understand more about the origins of that pull."
The symposium's foundations are rooted in a Walters Art Museum exhibit, Touch and the Enjoyment of Sculpture: Exploring the Appeal of Renaissance Statuettes, which opened earlier this January. It's goal was to create an exhibit where visitors could explore the sense of touch and understand its role in the enjoyment of the visual arts. The museum's exhibit uses copies of small statuettes from the Renaissance period in order to promote exploration of the importance of touch.