AB STRA C T Along with the development of neuroscience in the last century until today, has arisen the comparison

bet ween our brain function and the work of art. More specifically, the neuroscience of vision compares it with painting. From the point of vie w of our visual sense, what defines our brain function is the visual mechanism. This thesis tries to approach such a mechanism, from the functioning of the art work. Such a functioning, beholds the artist as object of perceptual transformation. Accordingly, the primary defining feature of the methodology of this thesis, is to limit our research into our brain function, to the representations produced by visual artists. Our aim is to dra w a distinction between our area of knowledge and the sciences of vision and brain. This involves the intention of adding something to this sciencess point of vie w. If we ask what contributes the visual art research to the science of vision, we would ans wer it locates the place of knowledge in human life. Namely, it captures the mechanism of our vision as a temporal phenomenon. As happens in the rest of visual studies, is a process that we analize, which relates to the visual function. But while the science of vision is limited to an spacial analysis of this process, visual art, due to the nature of its representations, is constrained to a temporal analysis of it. The framework derived from this analysis, is a theory of human visual function which does not assert the way our brain functions, but an indicative proposal based on the reality of our experience. This means the analytical center of this thesis, will be accompained by actual data, knowledge itself. It is this knowledge from science in general which can be called constraint: the constraint to our brain function is what allows the manifestation of time in our World experience. As our theory of the visual function is the manner we approach this unitary phenomenon, we must talk about the several constraints that define it. The overall framework of our research will emerge from the adoption of t wo complementary perspectives to the theoretical. This perspectives from which to consider the constraints, as the object of our study are the historical and the experimental one. Hence, some issues recur t wo or even three times in the index. The arrangement is as follows: the first part is the historic one, and a knowledge of the constraints is generated from the sensory experience; the second part is the theoretical one, and the constraints are analized using the representations of visual art as the empirical basis, the third part is the experimental one, and a knowledge of the constraints is generated from the making of an image. In a fourth part dedicated to the conclusions, the experimental part foreshado ws our way to accomplish the mechanics of the human visual process. As our area of expertise is painting, this means that painting is the place from which to hold our theoretical construction.