Zwei Wege zur 'Aufhellung der Finsternisse in der Welt'. Zum untergründigen Wechselverhältnis von Literatur & Malerei bei Thomas Bernhard & Francis Bacon:for subterranean exchange relationship between literature and painting in Thomas Bernhard & Francis Bacon

This chapter undertakes the first examination of the role the fine arts play in Thomas Bernhard’s prose works. Though not as prominent as the role of music, painting and the fine arts play a crucial role in Frost and Alte Meister; these two novels coincidentally also happen to be the first and last novels written by Bernhard. This chapter takes its cue from the positive role awarded to Francis Bacon in the novel Das Kalkwerk. Comparing and contrasting the relation and influence between the art of Bacon and the literature of Bernhard, I am able to demonstrate a number of surprising analogies. Following a brief biographical synopsis, I focus on four aesthetic operations that are crucial to both artists. Using the key terms of ‘middle way’, ‘variation’, ‘vibration’ and ‘mediation’, I am able to uncover surprising similarities between the novels and the paintings. These hidden connections are further confirmed by looking at the two artists’ shared major motifs, namely the slaughterhouse, the scream, the relation between animals and humans, and pain. This bleak outlook on the state of human civilisation that these two major artists of the end of the 20th century share, embodies both a warning and a prophesy for the 21st century.

Accommodative response to electrical stimulation of the sclera of peripheral cornea in cats and porcines

Purpose: We have reported that the changes in the accommodative response to electrical stimulation of the branches of the ciliary nerves in cats. (Miyagawa et al, PLoS One, 2014). We have also reported that no robust accommodative responses to the electrical stimulations of the sclera of peripheral cornea (SSPC) were observed in enucleated porcine eyes (Mihashi et al, VPOptics, 2014). In this study, accommodative responses to SSPC stimulation in cats and porcines were investigated. Methods: Two eyes of two cats under anesthesia and after they were sacrificed were studied. Three enucleated porcine eyes obtained from a local slaughterhouse were also studied. Trains of biphasic pulses (current, 3 mA; duration, 2 ms/phase; frequency, 40 Hz) were applied using a tungsten electrode (0.3mm diameter) from several orientations. Wavefront sensing with a compact wavefront aberrometer (Uday et al J Cataract Refract Surg, 2013) were performed before and 4 s (cat) and 10 s (pig) after the stimulations and wavefront aberrations including spherical errors were analyzed over a 4-mm pupil area. Results: In the first cat under anesthesia, at three out of seven stimulus positions, 0.2 D hyperopic accommodative responses were observed and in two orientations, myopic responses were observed. For the other cat, weak accommodative responses including astigmatic changes were observed. In the sacrificed condition of the second cat, 0.1 D myopic response was observed for one stimulus orientation and the smaller responses were observed at six out of eight stimulus positions. No accommodative responses were elicited for the enucleated porcine eyes. Conclusions: In the anesthetized cats, electrical stimulation of the SSPC induced accommodative responses; the responses were unstable and weaker than the responses by the ciliary nerve stimulations we observed in our previous study. Small accommodative responses were observed after one of two cats had been sacrificed, but no accommodative responses were detected in the enucleated porcine eyes. Further studies are needed to confirm difference in the accommodation functions in the two species.