Students, faculty and community members crowded into a standing-room-only Anheuser-Busch Hall on Tuesday evening to listen to Eric Kandel, a neuropsychiatrist and Nobel Prize Winner, lecture about 1900s Modernist Vienna art and the neurobiological science of the mind.

He touched upon the psychological theories of Carl von Rokitansky and Sigmund Freud before explaining how several Austrian artists used their work to represent the human brain.

Eric Kandel, a Nobel Prize-winning neuropsychiatrist, talks in Anheuser-Busch Hall on Tuesday night. Kandel spoke to a packed, standing-room-only crowd about the influences of psychological theories on the creation and enjoyment of art.

Despite receiving a Nobel Prize for his research on memory, Kandel focused on the relationship between psychology and art, ending his talk with a possible neurological explanation for why people enjoy looking at art.

Kandel began by explaining Rokitansky and Freud’s work in The Vienna School of Medicine and Rokitanksy’s impact on Freud.

“He emphasized that because the only way he could find out what’s going on is to look below the surface of the skin, going deep into the body; the truth is often deep within the surface,” Kandel said.

Kandel then explored three key concepts of Freud’s theories: that humans are driven by unconscious mental processes, that adult sexuality and aggression can be traced from childhood, and that all mental events adhere to scientific laws.

“There were certain important aspects of the human psyche that Freud failed to notice…one of these was female sexuality. Freud thought that women did not enjoy sex. He thought that they were envious of the fact that they lacked the penis. And as a result of this, they could not enjoy sex. They had sex because they enjoyed having children and they particularly enjoyed having boy children because they had a penis,” Kandel said, and was met by resounding laughter from the audience.

Freud’s ideas about sexuality were absurd to many, Kandel explained, including artist Gustav Klimt. Klimt had his models take whatever pose they wished and then painted them, often resulting in sexual paintings.

“He depicted female sexuality in sensitive terms that were just extraordinary and really a revolution in western art,” Kandel said. “But even more remarkable than the realization that women have a complete diversified sexual life, he realized that, like men, they confused eroticism with aggression.”

Kandel discussed Klimt’s painting “Judith and the Head of Holofernes” as an example of the belief that women often confuse sexuality and aggression. The painting is based on the biblical story of Judith, depicting her in a post-coital daze holding her lover’s head, which she has just cut off his body.

After discussing some of Klimt’s other paintings, Kandel examined painter Oscar Kokoschka’s works, which depicted child and adolescent sexuality, featuring subjects experiencing sexuality and aggression simultaneously.

“Kokoschka did a number of self portraits and they were very honest. He examined himself as he thought himself to be, and he thought, very much like Freud, that self-analysis is the best way to understand other people’s psyche,” he said.

Finally, Kandel examined the work of Egon Schiele, who was mentored by Klimt. Kandel discussed Schiele’s painting “Lovemaking” to show his exploration of anxiety in depictions of sex. Schiele created over 100 self-portraits, each extremely provocative.

The link between aggression and sexuality in the work of these artists are also present in the brain, Kandel said, explaining that the brain cells for mating and fighting overlap. When activated weakly, these cells are usually used for mating; when activated strongly, they are used for fighting.

Toward the end of his lecture, Kandel aimed to answer the question of why people love art.

“There are two areas that are critical for that; one is the gold frontal cortex…it is recruited by…food, drinking, sex, by addiction, by romantic love and love of art,” he said.

He then explained that the dopamine systems become more activated when people are denied the things they love, which may explain longing for a piece of art one cannot attain.

Sophomore Mia Trachtenberg enjoyed the lecture because of the unique combination of psychological and artistic study.

“I thought it was really cool. I thought it was interesting how he talked about dopamine receptors. I liked his comparisons of art,” she said.

Freshman Angelica Tao also appreciated the interdisciplinary nature of the talk.

“I found the way he combined science and art really interesting and a lot different than what I expected,” Tao said.