COMPOSITIONAL (NON-)FORMULA: VIEWER (RECIPIENT) AND ARTIST (MASTER) AS PHILOMATICS. PART 2.4.1 BRAIN OR HEART: OPTICAL CONCEPTS OF THE KOS SCHOOL

Natal'ya P. Kopceva

UDC 7.013

COMPOSITIONAL (NON-)FORMULA: VIEWER (RECIPIENT) AND ARTIST (MASTER) AS PHILOMATICS. PART 2.4.1 BRAIN OR HEART: OPTICAL CONCEPTS OF THE KOS SCHOOL

Published in Siberian Art History Journal · Volume 5, Issue 3, 2026 · Pages 8–27 · Rubric: current cultural research

Received: 29.09.2026 Accepted: 30.09.2026 Published: 30.09.2026

Authors

Natal'ya P. Kopceva

Federal State Educational Institution of Higher Education "Siberian Federal University" Head of the Department of Cultural Studies and Art History of the Siberian Federal University · Russian Federation · Krasnoyarsk

ABSTRACT

This publication continues a series of scholarly articles addressing the issues of artistic visual communication between the viewer (recipient) and the artist (master), as well as the artist (master) and the artistic material from which the master creates a work of visual art (including fine art). Traveling freely through the intellectual layers of the philosophy of art and culture, aesthetics, theory and history of culture, and art, the study focuses on examining the complex issues of visual thinking, which has a dialectical sensory-rational nature and is embodied in the forms of visual artistic creativity, as well as the artistic perception of visual quality. The second part of the study continues the exploration of the theory of visual thinking in its origins in ancient medical schools. This article examines the significance of the medical and philosophical ideas of the ancient Cosmic School of Medicine (5th–3rd centuries BC) for the development of concepts of vision and visual thinking in the context of philosophy, art theory, and theology. The focus is on two prominent representatives of the school—Hippocrates and Praxagoras—whose teachings laid the foundation for alternative models of the localization of mental functions (including visual thinking and visual perception). Hippocrates, the author of the famous treatise "On the Sacred Disease," advanced the encephalocentrism model, linking vision, thinking, and aesthetic judgment with brain activity, which became the foundation for understanding vision as an active cognitive process. Praxagoras of Kos, in contrast, advanced a cardiocentric concept, placing the center of the soul and the processing of visual images in the human heart. His doctrine of pneuma, circulating through arteries and nerves, influenced physiology and found unexpected resonance in mystical and theological traditions, where the heart was understood as the center of spiritual contemplation. The debate between these two approaches predetermined a centuries-long debate about the relationship between the rational and the emotional in the perception of art and the nature of knowledge. The study's source base includes the Hippocratic Collection, fragments of the works of Praxagoras as transmitted by Galen, Celsus, and Oribasius, as well as modern scholarly publications. It is shown that it was the School of Kos that laid the theoretical foundations that subsequently, through ancient and medieval religious, philosophical, and medical thought, influenced the development of art history, aesthetics, and the psychology of perception, right up to modern neuroaesthetic theories that examine the role of mirror neurons and bodily empathy in the viewer-recipient response to the artistic images of a particular work of art.

KEYWORDS

visual thinking, ancient physiology of vision, psychic pneuma, imagination, artistic image, optics, School of Kos, Hippocrates, Praxagoras, cardiocentrism, encephalocentrism

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JATS XML

Doctor of Cultural Studies, Docent

Julia Zamaraeva

rybka08@bk.ru

Candidate of Philosophical Sciences

Anastasia Kistova

Candidate of Cultural Studies, Docent

Maria Kolesnik

masha_kolesnik@mail.ru

Doctor of Philosophy, Professor

Natal'ya P. Kopceva