The human fascination with patterns and repetition in art extends far beyond Andy Warhol's iconic Campbell's Soup Cans, revealing a fundamental aspect of how our brains process and derive pleasure from visual experiences. New research suggests that the interplay between repetition and variation is central to how we perceive structure, rhythm, and depth across different artistic mediums, offering insights into why certain artworks continue to captivate viewers decades or even centuries after their creation.
Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans, created at the height of abstract expressionism dominated by artists like Kline, de Kooning, and Pollock, represented a deliberate challenge to the prevailing artistic movement. The work was not only blatantly mimetic but chose to mimic a mundane commercial product found in every American supermarket and corner grocery store. While many people immediately think of these iconic soup cans when considering repetition in painting, this represents just one example of how artists have used repetitive elements to create visual impact.
A more subtle but equally powerful example can be found in Gustave Caillebotte's masterpiece "Paris Street; Rainy Day," currently housed in the Art Institute of Chicago. Originally exhibited at the Third Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1877, this painting is probably Caillebotte's best-known work. Art critics typically focus on the incredible verisimilitude of the painting and its photographic quality in capturing an ordinary moment. Sebastian Smee of The Washington Post observed that "Caillebotte compressed different sensations of time and movement into the same picture," noting how a stroll to the farthest visible point could take half an hour while the current predicament of a potential pedestrian collision would play out in seconds.
However, focusing solely on the content of such masterpieces may miss a crucial element of their appeal. When French painter Paul Delaroche first saw a daguerreotype in 1839, he supposedly declared, "From today, painting is dead." His prediction, like reports of Mark Twain's demise, proved premature. The question remains: what keeps photography from replacing painting entirely? The answer may lie not in what paintings depict, but in how they're structured to engage specific areas of the human brain.
Caillebotte's "Paris Street; Rainy Day" activates three key brain regions specially wired for recognition: the fusiform face area (FFA) dedicated to face recognition, the parahippocampal place area (PPA) that responds to environmental scenes like landscapes, and the extrastriate body area (EBA) which selectively responds to images of human bodies and body parts. All three areas light up intensely when viewing this painting, similar to eight centuries of Western painting from Cimabue's Crucifix (1288) through Meissonier's Campaign of France (1864).
What makes Caillebotte's work particularly engaging is its sophisticated use of geometric repetition and variation. When viewed as an arrangement of geometric objects rather than a recognizable street scene, triangles dominate the canvas. The five umbrellas in the foreground and midground are rounded distortions of triangles, each made up of smaller triangles within the larger triangular form. This creates what can be called "visual rhymes" - patterns that reflect similarity between shapes while preserving differences.
The triangle motif extends throughout the composition in multiple ways. Three figures on the left form the points of a triangle, while the building to the left of the dominant couple is triangular in shape. The long rows of balconies running along the building facades create more triangular patterns, and the cupolas on the two buildings to the right are each triangular, forming three points of another triangle when considered together. This repetition of "same/except" relationships - where forms are clearly similar yet slightly varied - allows the brain to perceive both sameness and difference simultaneously.
The cobblestones provide another excellent example of this same/except principle. As they approach the lower left-hand edge of the painting, they become increasingly elongated, creating a ramp effect that invites viewers to step into the scene while enhancing the sense of depth. The facades of visible buildings repeat their windows, parapets, and balconies over and over again, creating additional layers of visual rhythm and structure.
Psychologist Elizabeth Margulis has demonstrated that human beings find repetition pleasurable, and Caillebotte's painting is filled with objects that provide viewers opportunities to construct triangles. This phenomenon is illustrated by the famous Kanizsa triangle illusion, where viewers cannot help but see a white triangle sitting on top of three black discs, even though no triangle actually exists - only three Pac-Man-like objects positioned to suggest triangular form. Caillebotte employs a similar technique, painting objects that induce viewers to construct triangles while making these triangles in same/except pairs.
One often-overlooked element in "Paris Street; Rainy Day" is the lamppost that bisects the composition. Initially appearing to be merely decorative - what Kant might call a "parergon" or ornamental element - the lamppost actually serves a crucial structural function. When digitally removed from the painting, the sense of depth disappears and the foreground fades into the background. Interestingly, historical records show there was no lamppost in that specific location when Caillebotte painted the scene, as that style had been removed from the Place de Dublin years earlier. The artist deliberately included it to enhance the painting's dimensional quality.
This principle of pleasurable pattern recognition extends beyond painting into photography. Lee Friedlander's "Albuquerque, New Mexico" (1972), also in the Art Institute of Chicago's collection, demonstrates how photographers can create visual rhymes using cameras rather than paint. While art historians often interpret this photograph as commentary on modern America's emptiness and disconnection from nature, a formal analysis reveals a more sophisticated visual strategy.
The photograph features a real dog sitting on the sidewalk - the only living creature in the frame - alongside a shadow cast by a street sign that creates a second "shadow dog" on a concrete wall. Both dogs have open mouths and extended tongues, and when the photograph is divided in half, the shadow dog and real dog occupy precisely the same position in their respective halves. This creates another example of same/except repetition, where one dog is real and one is shadow, constructed not with paint like Caillebotte but with careful timing and positioning of camera and subject.
Contemporary artist Roni Horn has made this same/except technique central to her photographic practice. In her series "Becoming a Landscape" (1999-2001), Horn pairs images that appear identical except for tiny differences. Viewers are invited to inspect the photographs carefully to tease out their same/except character - perhaps slightly wider eyes in one portrait, or subtle differences in water splashes between paired images. Horn's work explicitly exploits humans' hardwired ability to detect these small variations, turning the process into an artistic exercise that provides aesthetic pleasure.
The commercial world has recognized the power of this visual strategy. Calvin Klein advertisements have employed similar techniques, creating mirror images with subtle differences to stop viewers from scrolling past by presenting visual puzzles. The hope is that viewers will accept the invitation to solve the same/except puzzle, becoming invested in the image and subsequently more likely to investigate the product being advertised.
One of the most commercially successful examples of this approach is Ormond Gigli's "Girls in the Windows" from 1960, among the highest-grossing photographs of all time with individual prints selling for $15,000 to $30,000. The photograph has generated approximately $12 million through sales of 600 copies and continues selling worldwide. While critics often describe its appeal in terms of glamour, urban grit, and Mad Men-era nostalgia, the photograph's enduring success likely stems from its formal structure as a perfect example of visual rhyme.
The image contains 40 models positioned in 40 windows of a New York building scheduled for demolition. What remains constant are the windows themselves; what varies is each model in her self-selected gown and pose. The photograph functions as a visual representation of multiple rhyme schemes, where windows serve the same structural role as Warhol's soup cans, while the models provide variation like different Campbell's soup labels. This creates dozens of same/except relationships for viewers to discover and process.
The research suggests that works ranging from Warhol to Friedlander, Horn to Gigli derive their lasting appeal from the same cognitive source. Human eyes naturally trace patterns, spot subtle variations, and construct visual rhymes, taking satisfaction in discovering order amid difference. The pleasure derived from solving these visual puzzles represents a key component of aesthetic enjoyment that transcends specific artistic movements or historical periods. This pattern-recognition capability appears to be fundamental to human perception and may explain why certain artistic strategies remain effective across cultures and centuries, offering a scientific basis for understanding the universal appeal of great art.
