In the context of Impression, Sunrise, analyze the Luminance of the Style.
Although it may seem that the Sun is the brightest spot on the canvas, it is in fact, when measured with a photometer, the same brightness (or luminance) as the sky. Dr. Margaret Livingstone, a professor of neurobiology at Harvard University, said "If you make a black and white copy of Impression: Sunrise, the Sun disappears [almost] entirely."Livingstone said that this caused the painting to have a very realistic quality, as the older part of the visual cortex in the brain — shared with the majority of other mammals — registers only luminance and not colour, so that the Sun in the painting would be invisible to it, while it is just the newer part of the visual cortex — only found in humans and other primates — which perceives colour.Other researchers have found that these same luminance properties can cause the Sun to fade from view and that changes in microsaccades underlie this effect.
Margaret Livingstone Harvard University Luminance primate Dr. Margaret Livingstone visual cortex luminance fade from view neurobiology microsaccade