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Finally there are several tantalizing pieces of evidence from the world of aesthetics that support a harmonic resonance theory.
Consider the phenomenon of visual ornament, the patterns with which we adorn our clothing, carpets, wallpaper, floors, vases, lamps, and so forth, especially those items of symbolic or ceremonial use in which we place the most value. Although there is a great degree of variation in the arts of different cultures, there is also much that they share in common. In particular, factors such as balance, harmony, symmetry, and periodicity, as well as a elegant simplicity of the component forms, are universal laws of aesthetics, and thus are most likely organic in origin, properties of the mechanism of our brain.
It can hardly be a coincidence that these most general properties of aesthetic preference are also characteristic properties of harmonic resonance: symmetry and periodicity in both simple and compound hierarchical form, as well as simplicity and elegance of the basic repeating elements.
In fact the patterns of ornament observed across cultures appear to be reified manifestations, or ideal exemplars of the Gestalt laws of perceptual grouping, which have been shown to be significant factors in perception. The principles of similarity, proximity, good continuation, closure, symmetry, periodicity, and so on, are characteristic of virtually all human art and decorative design.
These patterns of regularity and spatiotemporal order extend into every dimension of aesthetic and functional activity, including music, rhythm, poetry, dance, and arechitecture.
Further evidence in support of a harmonic resonance theory is seen in the art of Louis Wain. Wain painted generally realistic pictures of cats, like the first one on the left, below. When Wain was inflicted with a progressive psychosis, his paintings "degenerated" into the ornamental paintings shown to the right, below.
The fact that a degenerative psychosis leads to increased pattern and ornament in Wain's art suggests that the periodicity and regularity of the ornamental pattern captures the fundamental representational primitives of the visual mind.
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