Neil
Would you say you’re artistic, Sam? Can you draw or paint? Do you dance or play music?
당신은 예술적이라고 말할수 있나요? 샘? 그림 그릴 수 있나요? 춤추거나 음악을 연주하나요?
Sam
I play the piano a bit. Yes, I’d say I’m quite artistic. How about you, Neil?
피아노 조금 쳐요. 네 저는 꽤 예술적이라고 말할 수 있어요. 당신은요? Neil?
Neil
Well, if you count playing football as artistic then yes, but basically no – I can’t paint.
글쎄, 풋볼을 예술로 친다면, 네, 그런데 기본적으로는 아니에요 그림 못그려요.
Sam
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?
우리는 왜 몇몇 사람들이 다른 사람들에 비해 예술적인 능력을 타고나는 지에 대해 궁금했습니다. 그래서 이 프로그램에서는 물어볼 것입니다. "예술가들의 뇌는 다른가?"
We’ll hear two expert opinions, and as usual, we’ll learn some useful new vocabulary as well.
우리는 두 전문가들의 의견을 들어보고, 평소처럼 유용한 새로운 표현 또한 배울 것입니다.
So, what do you think, Neil? Are artists’ brains different from other people’s?
그래서 Neil 어떻게 생각해요? 예술가들의 뇌는 다른 사람들의 것과 다른 가요?
Neil
I’m not sure, Sam, but it’s true that many artists behave differently, often in very strange ways.
잘 모르겠어요. sam, 그런데 많은 예술가들이 종종 아주 이상한 방법으로 다르게 행동하는 건 사실이에요.
For example, did you know that Michelangelo worked so hard he never took a bath!
예를들면 미켈란젤로는 열심히 일하고 절대 목욕하지 않았었다는 걸 아나요?
Or that guitar legend, Jimi Hendrix, once set fire to his guitar on stage!
또는 기타 레전드 jimi hendrix 는 무대에서 그의 기타에 불을 지른적 있어요
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?
Sam
I’ll guess he was a) five years old.
Neil
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.
만약 예술가들의 뇌가 다르다면, 그건 그들이 다른 방식으로 세상을 바라볼 수 있다는 것을 의미합니다.
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.
그녀는 예술가들이 그리는 saccades를 측정함으로써, 그들이 어떻게 사물들을 바라보는지 조사합니다.
Here she shares her findings with BBC World Service programme, CrowdScience.
여기서 그녀가 발견한 내용들을 BBC에 공유합니다.
Rebecca Chamberlain
Artists seem to be processing the visual world in a different way to non-artists, particularly when they’re drawing.
예술가들은 비예술가들과는 다르게 시각 세계를 처리하는 것 같습니다. 특히 그림 그릴 때요.
The artist actually takes a more global approach to looking – so they make bigger saccades, bigger eye movements, and shorter fixations on the image.
예술가들은 실제로 보다 거시적으로 접근합니다. 그래서 그들은 더 큰 saccades 와 더 큰 눈 움직임 그리고 더 짧게 이미지에 고정합니다
So, it’s almost like they’re getting much more of a kind of gist level view of the thing they’re looking at.
그래서 그들이 바라보는 것에 대한 대략적인 수준의 관점을 훨씬 더 많이 얻고 있는 것 같습니다.
Sam
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.
Neil
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.
Sam
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.
Arts teacher Mike
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.
Neil
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.
Sam
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.
Neil
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.
몇몇 과학자들은 세번째 가능성에 대해서도 생각합니다. 모든사람들의 뇌는 특정 영역에 집중하고 다른 것들은 무시하는 것으로 작동하고,
빠진 조각들로 일종의 jigsaw 퍼즐을 만드는 것입니다
Maybe all of us – you, me, Mozart and Jimi Hendrix - are just filling in the missing pieces our own way.
Sam
Speaking of Mozart, Neil, it’s time to reveal the answer to your question.
Neil
Right. I asked how old child prodigy Mozart was when he first composed music.
Sam
I said he was five years old… so, was I right?
Neil
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!
Sam
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.
Neil
Processing describes how your brain makes sense of the information it receives.
Sam
The gist of something is a general understanding of it, without the details.
Neil
Tips are useful pieces of advice about how to do something better.
Sam
If you are blown away, you are very impressed or surprised by something.
Neil
And finally, trainable means able to be trained or taught, in American English.