Beauty in the brain: for a neuroscience of art

Abstract

Art renewes itself, but does not progress in the sense in which progressing is defined in science. Both the creation and the appreciation of art are products of the physico-chemical reactions in the brain and, in a more general sense, of the organization of neurons. Evolution of the genome has shaped the transformation of the brain from hominids to Homo sapiens, but the brain of man also evolves epigenetically from birth to adulthood because of its interactions with the environment. Social and cultural factors thus contribute to the evolution and development of the human brain. The post-natal maturation of the brain has an essential role in the appreciation of art: in visual arts, the appreciation process initiates with molecular events in the retina, which transmits information to the thalamus and the cortex, where different areas analyze signals as color, form, spatial organization, depth. Selected brain territories become active when analyzing signals aimed at generating different emotions, the final synthesis being probably made in the frontal cortex or in a more diffuse “Global Neuronal Workspace”. Artistic creation never occurs at random, but follows innate rules: the search for novelty and surprise is constrained by rules which limit the range of options. One important such rule is the quest for the “consensus partium”, i.e. the harmony between the parts of a creation and the whole.