importance of art in human life essay

How Art Makes Us More Human: Why Being Creative is So Important in Life

Art is an important part of life, as it helps us to explore our creativity and express ourselves in unique ways. Art is more than just a form of expression - it’s a way of understanding the world and our place in it. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the psychological, social, and cognitive benefits of creating art and how it can bring joy and purpose to our lives.

What is art?

Art is a form of expression that values creativity and self-expression. It can take many forms, from paintings and sculptures to photography and even digital art. Art has the power to move us, to make us feel something, and to tell stories. Art can be used as a way of connecting with ourselves and with each other, and its power lies in its ability to inspire, create joy, and provoke thought. Art is an expression of the human experience, and its value lies in its ability to bring people together.

The connection between art and emotion

The value of art lies in its ability to evoke emotion. Whether you’re looking at a painting, watching a performance, or listening to music, art allows us to experience a range of emotions from joy to sorrow and everything in between. Art can help us make sense of our own emotions and gain a better understanding of how other people are feeling. It can even bring us closer together as it enables us to feel connected with the artist, even if we have never met them. When we interact with art, it can often spark a dialogue, creating a feeling of understanding and empathy within us.

One way in which art can be especially powerful is when it reflects our personal experiences and values. By connecting with a piece of art that speaks to our values, we can often feel a strong emotional connection with it, enabling us to recognize ourselves in the work and appreciate its beauty and meaning.

The link between art and mental health

Art can be an incredibly powerful tool in helping us to manage our mental health and well-being. Studies have found that art can reduce stress, increase self-esteem, and improve our ability to cope with difficult emotions. Art provides a safe space for us to express our thoughts and feelings, allowing us to connect with ourselves on a deeper level.

One of the main ways that art benefits mental health is through its ability to help us process and make sense of our emotions. Art enables us to externalize our inner struggles, allowing us to make sense of them in a new way. By engaging in creative activities, we can gain insight into our own feelings, giving us the opportunity to recognize patterns and reflect on them in a non-judgmental manner. This can help us to gain a better understanding of our emotions and allow us to find healthier ways of managing them.

Art can also help to decrease symptoms of depression and anxiety. Studies have found that engaging in creative activities such as painting, drawing, or sculpting can reduce symptoms of both depression and anxiety. It also can increase positive moods and overall life satisfaction. In addition, engaging in art can give us a sense of control over our lives, providing us with the opportunity to express ourselves without fear of judgment.

Finally, creating art can provide a sense of purpose and accomplishment, helping us to feel connected to something larger than ourselves. Art gives us a way to channel our energy into something meaningful, allowing us to have a tangible outcome at the end of our creative journey. The act of creation itself can be incredibly empowering, giving us the confidence to take on new challenges and set goals for ourselves.

Overall, engaging in art has been proven to have a positive impact on mental health. Through its ability to help us process emotions, decrease symptoms of depression and anxiety, and provide us with a sense of purpose and accomplishment, art has the power to truly transform our lives.

The benefits of creating art

Creating art can be an immensely rewarding experience that has both psychological and physical benefits. It can provide a sense of purpose, satisfaction, and accomplishment. Art can also help reduce stress, build self-confidence, and improve problem solving skills.

Art can be used to express feelings and emotions, helping to better understand and cope with difficult experiences. It can also be used to relieve anxiety, improve mental health, and enhance positive self-image. Additionally, engaging in creative activities encourages creative thinking, which can foster innovation and creativity in other areas of life.

Creating art can also improve physical well-being. It has been linked to reducing chronic pain and boosting the immune system. It can also help with motor coordination, providing relief for conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome. Furthermore, it can help with hand-eye coordination, increasing dexterity and making everyday tasks easier.

Finally, creating art is a great way to relax and unwind after a long day. It can provide an outlet for pent-up emotions and help to restore a sense of balance and wellbeing. Even if your work is not immediately appreciated, it’s important to remember that art is subjective and it should be created for yourself, not for the approval of others.

The power of art in storytelling

Storytelling is a powerful tool for communication, and art is an important part of this process. Through art, we can express ourselves in ways that words alone cannot do justice to. Art allows us to show the emotion behind our stories, to add nuance and depth to our tales, and to create visuals that can leave a lasting impression.

Stories told through art have a special power. Whether it's through painting, drawing, sculpture, or even film, art has the potential to bring our stories to life in a way that words simply cannot do. With art, we can bring our characters and stories to life in vivid detail, making them more vivid and alive than if we were to tell the story with just words. We can also add layers of symbolism and meaning to our stories which can make them more meaningful and powerful.

Art has been used as a storytelling device for thousands of years. Ancient cultures used drawings and sculptures to tell their stories, and today, the tradition continues with all forms of visual arts. From street art to museum installations, art is used to tell stories of cultures, histories, beliefs, and emotions. By using art to tell stories, we can move people emotionally and capture their attention in a unique way.

In today's world, where we are bombarded with information from all sides, it can be hard to stand out. Art gives us the chance to do that in a powerful way. By creating art, we can tell stories that resonate with people, inspiring them and showing them something new. The power of storytelling through art is immense and should not be underestimated.

The importance of art in education

Art plays an important role in education, as it encourages creative thinking and provides a platform for students to express their feelings and ideas. It can also be used as a form of communication, allowing students to interpret and create meaning from what they observe. Additionally, the visual representation of art helps children to develop skills such as analyzing information, forming arguments, and making connections.

In the classroom, art can help to introduce new concepts, convey complex topics, and build relationships between students. By incorporating art into lesson plans, teachers are able to engage students in learning and make the material more interesting. Art also helps students to identify patterns and practice critical thinking skills by exploring how elements interact to create a bigger picture.

Furthermore, art allows for students to practice collaboration, problem-solving, and social interaction. Through group projects, students can work together to plan, organize, and execute a project from start to finish. This helps to teach kids essential teamwork skills while also giving them the opportunity to explore their individual strengths and weaknesses.

Overall, art is an integral part of education that helps students develop important skills and encourages creative expression. It is an important tool for teaching and can be used in various ways to make learning more engaging and meaningful.

The role of art in social change

The power of art in creating social change is undeniable. It has been used throughout history as a tool to inspire, educate, and challenge the status quo. Art can be used to bring attention to injustices, advocate for different perspectives, and to create positive cultural shifts.

One example of how art has been used to inspire social change is through protest art. This type of art is often seen at protests and marches, or used to create powerful visuals for political campaigns. Protest art can be anything from signs and banners to sculptures, graffiti, or public installations. It can also take the form of music, film, theater, and literature. By combining art and activism, people are able to communicate their message in an effective way that captures the attention of the public.

Another example of how art can be used to create social change is through digital media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. These platforms allow anyone with an internet connection to share their creative works and connect with other like-minded individuals. Art has been used on these platforms to raise awareness about important issues, tell stories that inspire change, and even challenge oppressive systems.

Finally, art can be used to help those who are oppressed find strength and resilience. Art provides a platform for those who are marginalized to tell their stories and express their experiences in a safe space. Through art, people are able to connect with each other and find solidarity in the face of adversity.

Art plays an important role in social change and is an invaluable tool for anyone looking to create positive impact in the world. Whether it’s used to create powerful visuals for a protest or to tell stories that inspire action, art has the power to bring people together and spark meaningful conversations about important topics.

Art is essential for all our lives

No matter who you are or where you come from, art plays a vital role in helping us make sense of our lives and the world around us. Art helps us to express our emotions, to communicate our thoughts and feelings, and to explore the depths of our imaginations. By engaging with art, we can discover more about ourselves and the world around us, and cultivate empathy and understanding.

• Cultivate News

Recent Posts

March Volunteer of the Month: May Southavilai

Press Release: Announcing 2024 ArtPrize Education Partnership

Volunteer of the Month: Aude Shattuck

Why Is Art Important? – The Value of Creative Expression

The importance of art is an important topic and has been debated for many years. Some might think art is not as important as other disciplines like science or technology. Some might ask what art is able to offer the world in terms of evolution in culture and society, or perhaps how can art change us and the world. This article aims to explore these weighty questions and more. So, why is art important to our culture? Let us take a look.

Table of Contents

• 1.1 The Definition of Art
• 1.2 The Types and Genres of Art
• 2.1 Art Is a Universal Language
• 2.2 Art Allows for Self-Expression
• 2.3 Art Keeps Track of History and Culture
• 2.4 Art Assists in Education and Human Development
• 2.5 Art Adds Beauty for Art’s Sake
• 2.6 Art Is Socially and Financially Rewarding
• 2.7 Art Is a Powerful (Political) Tool
• 3 Art Will Always Be There
• 4.1 What Is the Importance of Arts?
• 4.2 Why Is Art Important to Culture?
• 4.3 What Are the Different Types of Art?
• 4.4 What Is the Definition of Art?

What Is Art?

There is no logical answer when we ponder the importance of arts. It is, instead, molded by centuries upon centuries of creation and philosophical ideas and concepts. These not only shaped and informed the way people did things, but they inspired people to do things and live certain ways.

We could even go so far as to say the importance of art is borne from the very act of making art. In other words, it is formulated from abstract ideas, which then turn into the action of creating something (designated as “art”, although this is also a contested topic). This then evokes an impetus or movement within the human individual.

This impetus or movement can be anything from stirred up emotions, crying, feeling inspired, education, the sheer pleasure of aesthetics, or the simple convenience of functional household items – as we said earlier, the importance of art does not have a logical answer.

Before we go deeper into this question and concept, we need some context. Below, we look at some definitions of art to help shape our understanding of art and what it is for us as humans, thus allowing us to better understand its importance.

The Definition of Art

Simply put, the definition of the word “art” originates from the Latin ars or artem , which means “skill”, “craft”, “work of art”, among other similar descriptions. According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, the word has various meanings; art may be a “skill acquired by experience, study, or observation”, a “branch of learning”, “an occupation requiring knowledge or skill”, or “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects”.

We might also tend to think of art in terms of the latter definition provided above, “the conscious use of skill” in the “production of aesthetic objects”. However, does art only serve aesthetic purposes? That will also depend on what art means to us personally, and not how it is collectively defined. If a painting done with great skill is considered to be art, would a piece of furniture that is also made with great skill receive the same label as being art?

Thus, art is defined by our very own perceptions.

Art has also been molded by different definitions throughout history. When we look at it during the Classical or Renaissance periods , it was very much defined by a set of rules, especially through the various art academies in the major European regions like Italy (Academy and Company for the Arts of Drawing in Florence), France (French Academy of Fine Arts), and England (Royal Academy of Arts in London).

In other words, art had an academic component to it so as to distinguish artists from craftsmen.

The defining factor has always been between art for art’s sake , art for aesthetic purposes, and art that serves a purpose or a function, which is also referred to as “utilitarianism”. It was during the Classical and Renaissance periods that art was defined according to these various predetermined rules, but that leaves us with the question of whether these so-called rules are able to illustrate the deeper meaning of what art is?

If we move forward in time to the 20 th  century and the more modern periods of art history, we find ourselves amidst a whole new art world. People have changed considerably between now and the Renaissance era, but we can count on art to be like a trusted friend, reflecting and expressing what is inherent in the cultures and people of the time.

During the 20 th  century, art was not confined to rules like perspective, symmetry, religious subject matter, or only certain types of media like oil paints . Art was freed, so to say, and we see the definition of it changing (literally) in front of our very own eyes over a variety of canvases and objects. Art movements like Cubism , Fauvism, Dadaism, and Surrealism, among others, facilitated this newfound freedom in art.

Artists no longer subscribed to a set of rules and created art from a more subjective vantage point.

Additionally, more resources became available beyond only paint, and artists were able to explore new methods and techniques previously not available. This undoubtedly changed the preconceived notions of what art was. Art became commercialized, aestheticized, and devoid of the traditional Classical meaning from before. We can see this in other art movements like Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism, among others.

The Types and Genres of Art

There are also different types and genres of art, and all have had their own evolution in terms of being classified as art. These are the fine arts, consisting of painting, drawing, sculpting, and printmaking; applied arts like architecture; as well as different forms of design such as interior, graphic, and fashion design, which give day-to-day objects aesthetic value.

Other types of art include more decorative or ornamental pieces like ceramics, pottery, jewelry, mosaics, metalwork, woodwork, and fabrics like textiles. Performance arts involve theater and drama, music, and other forms of movement-based modalities like dancing, for example. Lastly, Plastic arts include works made with different materials that are pliable and able to be formed into the subject matter, thus becoming a more hands-on approach with three-dimensional interaction.

Top Reasons for the Importance of Art

Now that we have a reasonable understanding of what art is, and a definition that is ironically undefinable due to the ever-evolving and fluid nature of art, we can look at how the art that we have come to understand is important to culture and society. Below, we will outline some of the top reasons for the importance of art.

Art Is a Universal Language

Art does not need to explain in words how someone feels – it only shows. Almost anyone can create something that conveys a message on a personal or public level, whether it is political, social, cultural, historical, religious, or completely void of any message or purpose. Art becomes a universal language for all of us to tell our stories; it is the ultimate storyteller.

We can tell our stories through paintings, songs, poetry, and many other modalities.

Art connects us with others too. Whenever we view a specific artwork, which was painted by a person with a particular idea in mind, the viewer will feel or think a certain way, which is informed by the artwork (and artist’s) message. As a result, art becomes a universal language used to speak, paint, perform, or build that goes beyond different cultures, religions, ethnicities, or languages. It touches the deepest aspects of being human, which is something we all share.

Art Allows for Self-Expression

Touching on the above point, art touches the deepest aspects of being human and allows us to express these deeper aspects when words fail us. Art becomes like a best friend, giving us the freedom and space to be creative and explore our talents, gifts, and abilities. It can also help us when we need to express difficult emotions and feelings or when we need mental clarity – it gives us an outlet.

Art is widely utilized as a therapeutic tool for many people and is an important vehicle to maintain mental and emotional health. Art also allows us to create something new that will add value to the lives of others. Consistently expressing ourselves through a chosen art modality will also enable us to become more proficient and disciplined in our skills.

Art Keeps Track of History and Culture

We might wonder, why is art important to culture? As a universal language and an expression of our deepest human nature, art has always been the go-to to keep track of everyday events, almost like a visual diary. From the geometric motifs and animals found in early prehistoric cave paintings to portrait paintings from the Renaissance, every artwork is a small window into the ways of life of people from various periods in history. Art connects us with our ancestors and lineage.

When we find different artifacts from all over the world, we are shown how different cultures lived thousands of years ago. We can keep track of our current cultural trends and learn from past societal challenges. We can draw inspiration from past art and artifacts and in turn, create new forms of art.

Art is both timeless and a testament to the different times in our history.

Art Assists in Education and Human Development

Art helps with human development in terms of learning and understanding difficult concepts, as it accesses different parts of the human brain. It allows people to problem-solve as well as make more complex concepts easier to understand by providing a visual format instead of just words or numbers. Other areas that art assists learners in (range from children to adults) are the development of motor skills, critical thinking, creativity, social skills, as well as the ability to think from different perspectives.

Art subjects will also help students improve on other subjects like maths or science. Various research states the positive effects art has on students in public schools – it increases discipline and attendance and decreases the level of unruly behavior.

According to resources and questions asked to students about how art benefits them, they reported that they look forward to their art lesson more than all their other lessons during their school day. Additionally, others dislike the structured format of their school days, and art allows for more creativity and expression away from all the rules. It makes students feel free to do and be themselves.

Art Adds Beauty for Art’s Sake

Art is versatile. Not only can it help us in terms of more complex emotional and mental challenges and enhance our well-being, but it can also simply add beauty to our lives. It can be used in numerous ways to make spaces and areas visually appealing.

When we look at something beautiful, we immediately feel better. A piece of art in a room or office can either create a sense of calm and peace or a sense of movement and dynamism.

Art can lift a space either through a painting on a wall, a piece of colorful furniture, a sculpture, an ornamental object, or even the whole building itself, as we see from so many examples in the world of architecture. Sometimes, art can be just for art’s sake.

Art Is Socially and Financially Rewarding

Art can be socially and financially rewarding in so many ways. It can become a profession where artists of varying modalities can earn an income doing what they love. In turn, it becomes part of the economy. If artists sell their works, whether in an art gallery, a park, or online, this will attract more people to their location. Thus, it could even become a beacon for improved tourism to a city or country.

The best examples are cities in Europe where there are numerous art galleries and architectural landmarks celebrating artists from different periods in art history, from Gothic cathedrals like the Notre Dame in Paris to the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Art can also encourage people to do exercise by hiking up mountains to visit pre-historic rock art caves.

Art Is a Powerful (Political) Tool

Knowing that art is so versatile, that it can be our best friend and teacher, makes it a very powerful tool. The history of humankind gives us thousands of examples that show how art has been used in the hands of people who mean well and people who do not mean well.

Therefore, understanding the role of art in our lives as a powerful tool gives us a strong indication of its importance.

Art is also used as a political medium. Examples include memorials to celebrate significant changemakers in our history, and conveying powerful messages to society in the form of posters, banners, murals, and even graffiti. It has been used throughout history by those who have rebelled as well as those who created propaganda to show the world their intentions, as extreme as wanting to take over the world or disrupt existing regimes.

The Futurist art movement is an example of art combined with a group of men who sought to change the way of the future, informed by significant changes in society like the industrial revolution. It also became a mode of expression of the political stances of its members.

Other movements like Constructivism and Suprematism used art to convey socialist ideals, also referred to as Socialist Realism.

Other artists like Jacques-Louis David from the Neoclassical movement produced paintings influenced by political events; the subject matter also included themes like patriotism. Other artists include Pablo Picasso and his famous oil painting , Guernica (1937), which is a symbol and allegory intended to reach people with its message.

The above examples all illustrate to us that various wars, conflicts, and revolutions throughout history, notably World Wars I and II, have influenced both men and women to produce art that either celebrates or instigates changes in society. The power of art’s visual and symbolic impact has been able to convey and appeal to the masses.

Art Will Always Be There

The importance of art is an easy concept to understand because there are so many reasons that explain its benefits in our lives. We do not have to look too hard to determine its importance. We can also test it on our lives by the effects it has on how we feel and think when we engage with it as onlookers or as active participants – whether it is painting, sculpting, or standing in an art gallery.

What art continuously shows us is that it is a constant in our lives, our cultures, and the world. It has always been there to assist us in self-expression and telling our story in any way we want to. It has also given us glimpses of other cultures along the way.

Art is fluid and versatile, just like a piece of clay that can be molded into a beautiful bowl or a slab of marble carved into a statue. Art is also a powerful tool that can be used for the good of humanity good or as a political weapon.

Art is important because it gives us the power to mold and shape our lives and experiences. It allows us to respond to our circumstances on micro- and macroscopic levels, whether it is to appreciate beauty, enhance our wellbeing, delve deeper into the spiritual or metaphysical, celebrate changes, or to rebel and revolt.

Take a look at our purpose of art webstory here!

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the importance of arts.

There are many reasons that explain the importance of art. It is a universal language because it crosses language and cultural barriers, making it a visual language that anyone can understand; it helps with self-expression and self-awareness because it acts as a vehicle wherein we can explore our emotions and thoughts; it is a record of past cultures and history; it helps with education and developing different skill sets; it can be financially rewarding, it can be a powerful political tool, and it adds beauty and ambiance to our lives and makes us feel good.

Why Is Art Important to Culture?

Art is important to culture because it can bridge the gap between different racial groups, religious groups, dialects, and ethnicities. It can express common values, virtues, and morals that we can all understand and feel. Art allows us to ask important questions about life and society. It allows reflection, it opens our hearts to empathy for others, as well as how we treat and relate to one another as human beings.

What Are the Different Types of Art?

There are many different types of art, including fine arts like painting, drawing, sculpture, and printmaking, as well as applied arts like architecture, design such as interior, graphic, and fashion. Other types of art include decorative arts like ceramics, pottery, jewelry, mosaics, metalwork, woodwork, and fabrics like textiles; performance arts like theater, music, dancing; and Plastic arts that work with different pliable materials.

What Is the Definition of Art?

The definition of the word “art” originates from the Latin ars or artem , which means “skill”, “craft”, and a “work of art”. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary offers several meanings, for example, art is a “skill acquired by experience, study, or observation”, it is a “branch of learning”, “an occupation requiring knowledge or skill”, or “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects”.

Isabella studied at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English Literature & Language and Psychology. Throughout her undergraduate years, she took Art History as an additional subject and absolutely loved it. Building on from her art history knowledge that began in high school, art has always been a particular area of fascination for her. From learning about artworks previously unknown to her, or sharpening her existing understanding of specific works, the ability to continue learning within this interesting sphere excites her greatly.

Her focal points of interest in art history encompass profiling specific artists and art movements, as it is these areas where she is able to really dig deep into the rich narrative of the art world. Additionally, she particularly enjoys exploring the different artistic styles of the 20 th century, as well as the important impact that female artists have had on the development of art history.

Learn more about Isabella Meyer and the Art in Context Team .

Cite this Article

Isabella, Meyer, “Why Is Art Important? – The Value of Creative Expression.” Art in Context. July 26, 2021. URL: https://artincontext.org/why-is-art-important/

Meyer, I. (2021, 26 July). Why Is Art Important? – The Value of Creative Expression. Art in Context. https://artincontext.org/why-is-art-important/

Meyer, Isabella. “Why Is Art Important? – The Value of Creative Expression.” Art in Context , July 26, 2021. https://artincontext.org/why-is-art-important/ .

Similar Posts

Realism Art – A History of Realism and the Realism Art Movement

Iconoclasm – Looking at the History of Icons in Iconoclasm Art

Functional Art – Explore the Interesting World of Utilitarian Art

New Objectivity Art – Explore German Post-Expressionism

Naïve Art – Discover the Style of the Naïve Painting Art Form

Naturalistic Art – Capturing the World’s Imperfections Through Art

It’s great that you talked about how there are various kinds and genres of art. I was reading an art book earlier and it was quite interesting to learn more about the history of art. I also learned other things, like the existence of online american indian art auctions.

I just love your article…I am an art teacher from Papua New Guinea – a developing country in Oceania (South Pacific). I was enthralled after reading your article and wish to hear more from you. I come from a country where art and culture are embedded in our tribal peoples from generation.

Hi John, thank you very much for your feedback, it’s great to see that art is something that works all around the world!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

The Most Famous Artists and Artworks

Discover the most famous artists, paintings, sculptors…in all of history! 

MOST FAMOUS ARTISTS AND ARTWORKS

Discover the most famous artists, paintings, sculptors!

Importance of Art in Human Life

Art is an all-embracing notion that plays the most important role in the development of the mankind. Art is a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities. Art is a diverse field and includes artistic imprints in many forms which may include the creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media. Architecture is often included as one of the visual arts; however, like the decorative arts. The first forms of arts were found on walls of ancient caves in the forms of stone works as well as painting. So we can guess that painting was the first way of art. Painting is the most understandable way of art because it gives us the most full and vivid impression. Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature, and other media such as interactive media are included in a broader definition of art. A poem, a painting, a sculpture created by the artist gives joy to him while he is in the act of creation; it gives him joy again after a lapse of time, when he imaginatively recreates or relives the original moment of creation and also gives a great sense of pleasure to the person who observes that art carefully.  

Art is a way to express many things. It's a way to deal with feelings that cannot be expressed through typical means like conversation or words. Art gives a way to express your emotions. Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences, but in modern usage, the fine arts, where aesthetic considerations are paramount, are distinguished from acquired skills in general, and the decorative or applied arts. Today in the 21 st century the dimensions of arts have changed a lot as compared to the past. These days art is not only just a way of expressing your ideas but also has been used to send some kind of information or message to the masses. Art can be used for politics and social agendas such as editorial cartoons and paintings directed at political or religious figures. Art can inspire and allow people to see things from different perspectives.

Art comforts man through poems, literature, songs, drama, and cinema. Art lovers can spend their whole life working for art. Art serves to fulfil the desire of man to transcend the death and decay to which all earthly things are subject. Art consoles man to help him imagine what is desired but is not immediately available for use. Art takes you to another world where you interpret everything by your emotions. It enables him to live a double life without the torture and morbidity of schizophrenia. The importance of art is related to the nature of our human-built environment, and whether we create it to be a comfort or a torment. To understand the place of art and beauty in contemporary culture, you need to turn to historic forms of art.

History of Art

To understand the true meaning of art we have to begin from the historic period from where the concept of real art started, though in the modern century art has taken a commercial turn still never the less there are those who still respect art in its original form. The most precious achievements and monuments of mankind, whether it is a pyramid or any building from historic view, are man's attempts to eternalize memories of some important historic event or symbolize the loss of near and dear ones who were initially lost forever. We may safely say that art is a by-product of man's self-love and a fond hope to live forever in a world beyond this world. It would not be wrong to say that art is both a means as well as an end. It is a means for the artist to transcend the limitations of time and space and to partake of pleasures not found in the day to Creation of art has been often compared with the process of birth and death.

Sculptures, cave paintings, rock paintings etc. from the Upper Paleolithic dating to roughly 40,000 years ago have been found, but the precise meaning of such art is often disputed because so little is known about the cultures that produced them. Also, it becomes really difficult to interpret all the work that was done during olden times. Many great traditions in art have a foundation in the art of one of the great ancient civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, China, Ancient Greece, Rome, as well as Inca, Maya, and Olmec. Each of these centres of early civilization developed a unique and characteristic style in its art. Because of the size and duration of these civilizations, more of their art works have survived and more of their influence has been transmitted to other cultures and later times. Some also have provided the first records of how artists worked.

In the east, Islamic art's rejection of iconography led to an emphasis on geometric patterns, calligraphy, and architecture. Further east, religion dominated artistic styles and forms too. This was an important phase of religious art development. India and Tibet saw an emphasis on painted sculptures and dance, while religious painting borrowed many conventions from sculpture and tended to bright contrasting colours with emphasis on outlines. Various dance forms and considerable development in the field of music was witnessed during this period. Woodblock printing became important in Japan after the 17th century. The western Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century saw artistic depictions of physical and rational certainties of the clockwork universe, as well as politically revolutionary visions of a post-monarchist world.

The late 19th century then saw a host of artistic movements, such as academic art, Symbolism, impressionism, and fauvism among others. This period saw a great rise in artistic movements. The history of twentieth-century art is a narrative of endless possibilities and the search for new standards, each being torn down in succession by the next. Thus the parameters of Impressionism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, etc. cannot be maintained very much beyond the time of their invention. Increasing global interaction during this time saw an equivalent influence of other cultures into Western art, such as Pablo Picasso being influenced by African sculpture. The west has had huge impacts on Eastern art in the 19th and 20th centuries, with originally western ideas like Communism and Post-Modernism exerting a powerful influence on artistic styles.

The Importance of Art in Human Life

It is usual human nature to admire the beauty around us which may include natural as well as man-made resources like hills, rivers, natural beauty and beautiful buildings respectively. We are often awe-struck when we see a beautiful painting, or read a beautiful poem, or listen to soothing music and we get an inner feeling of happiness and calmness when we come across these things. We commonly associate art in terms of a painting or a sculpture we see in a museum or an art gallery, nonetheless, art is everywhere around us in many forms and holds a significant value in our lives. The word ‘Art’ is, however, most commonly associated with pieces of work in a gallery or museum, whether it’s a painting from the Renaissance or a modern sculpture. Art has much more diverse forms than this classification. However, there is so much more to art than what we see displayed in galleries. The truth is, without being aware of it, we are surrounded by art and use it on a continual basis. Most people don’t realize how much of a role art plays in our lives and just how much we rely on art in all of its forms in our everyday lives.

It is difficult to describe the word art in literal terms, but broadly we understand the art to be a form to express one’s feelings through any object or medium like paper, music, colours, technology, magic, photography etc. different artists use different mediums to express their inner feelings. It could be abstract, realistic, naturalistic, conceptual, and inspirational. It is agreeable that we are surrounded by Art and also rely on it in our daily routine. When we enter someone’s home, it is difficult to stop ourselves to appreciate the way the living room is decorated. You would find rhythm and harmony in the way furniture is placed; photographs adorn a wall, paintings hung above the sofa or any particular show-piece placed in a corner or centrepiece on a coffee table etc. however the importance of art in human life is worth consideration. Art may play an important role in our lives in one way or the other which includes:

• Art and Music:  Art plays a great role in our lives which can be easily understood by the fact that every one of us has a television and a music system in our house and everyday use both, and which is a great application of the work of art. We daily listen to music by various artists and watch different movies and television shows where different artists perform. Music is the form of art that can make life extremely joyful and can have a huge effect on our mood. Music at times can have a soothing effect that may help you to forget all your tensions and worries. In the workplace, in particular, music is something that can help people set the mood for what they are about to do. If you have something hard or difficult to work on or are feeling tired, an energetic song will likely wake you up and add some enthusiasm to the situation. On the other hand, the movies and daily soaps that we watch are also a work of art.
• Preserving Culture:  Another importance of art is that it preserves our culture. Ancient monuments and other artistic claims including scripts, music forms, dance forms and designing patterns are all included in our cultural heritage. When we see these cultural preserving we come to know about our proud past and also would help coming generations to realize their roots. Hence art also serves to carry our cultural messages to generations.
• The Joy of Art:  At times we may wonder why all of these things are so important to our daily lives and that we could have easily survived just fine with essential items that were non-artistic. You may think that we could have easily found out an alternative. That is just the reason why art is so valuable! While art may not be vital to fulfilling our basic needs, it does make life joyful. Whenever you go to a hill-station and gaze at the tremendous natural beauty you are not able to forget that experience for many days. When you look at a painting or poster you’ve chosen to hang on your living room wall, you feel happy. The sculpture or figurines on the kitchen windowsill create a sense of joy. These varieties of art forms that we are surrounded by all come together to create the atmosphere that we want to live in, which is personable to us.
• Inspirational Art:  Not just entertainment and cultural perseverance, art can also be a great source of inspiration. You can easily find inspirational art, such as posters that are often found in workspaces to encourage employees to continue being productive. There is now an increasing amount of companies using art in their offices, as well as playing background music, as it is proven to actually work in making end results far better quality. Also, you may find inspirational songs that are being made for teams participating in a high voltage match, which is also a form of inspirational art. There may be a piece of art that you own that you personally find motivational. A lot of people find music in the gym to be inspirational for them to work out.

Conclusion It could be concluded that the importance of Arts in our lives is quite recognized to a greater level. Art is everywhere, influencing us on a daily basis, whether we realize it or not. With the art that we are surrounded by, whether it’s a painting, music or even videos can have a huge impact on our mood and emotions. Our concentration towards art is increasing day by day and people have started appreciating art in a serious manner. Nowadays Art and Craft Education are encouraged in schools for children as it provides a platform for the young ones to express and explore their imagination. Everywhere you go art is evident. Research and Statistics confirm that this education helps resolve a lot of problems and enhances critical thinking skills. Not all children are academically good, hence encouraging them to discover the artist in themselves might help them grow in life and excel in many other fields and may prove out to be an excellent career opportunity for them.  

Articles on Education

Page Views: 92863

Updated On: 18-Sep-2018

Education India, Colleges, Universities, Courses, Exams, Schools

Don't have an account? Sign Up .

New to Target Study? Sign Up to get started.

Already have an account? Sign In .

Forgot password? Submit your email address and we'll send you a link to reset your password.

Already registered? Sign In

Modal title

• Entertainment
• Environment
• Information Science and Technology
• Social Issues

Home Essay Samples Art Visual Arts

Why Is Art Important For Human

*minimum deadline

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below

• Pablo Picasso
• Andy Warhol
• Claude Monet
• Diego Rivera

Related Essays

Need writing help?

You can always rely on us no matter what type of paper you need

*No hidden charges

100% Unique Essays

Absolutely Confidential

Money Back Guarantee

By clicking “Send Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails

You can also get a UNIQUE essay on this or any other topic

Thank you! We’ll contact you as soon as possible.

Arts on the Brain

Emory undergrads experience & explore!

How does art affect us?

It’s no secret that art can impact lots of people’s lives in very meaningful and deep ways. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” can attest to this much at the very least. Whether you think art is paint on a canvas or scenes from the nature that surrounds you, what we as a society deem art has an impact on us all.

Art is actually part of what historians deem necessary for a group of people to be considered a society! Art, along with writing, cities, government, religion, and social structure, is the very basis of life as we as humans have known it for millennia. So, it shouldn’t be surprising that art has both a mental and physical effect on the human being. 

To begin, music can have a significant effect on concentration. A lot of research has gone into its ability to help people hone their concentration, and theories such as the Mozart effect suggest that this effect extends to even spatial awareness. Physically, dancing is something that most people universally feel compelled to do when hearing a catchy beat. However, there is a physical effect besides dancing that not everyone feels: goosebumps. Studies suggest that 50% of all people experience this phenomena (Salimpoor, Benovoy, Larcher, Dagher, Zatorre, 2011), and is a result of excitement from music. It was found that dopamine production was very high while participants were listening to music, and this could suggest why music has been such a large part of cultures across the ages. 

Visual art can produce a lot of the same effects that music does. General feelings of happiness and calmness can be found and utilized via art therapy. Many people use these benefits of art to quell distress and solve problems in their own lives, and part of this effect is suggested to be caused by being involved in something tangible (Malchiodi, 2012). Tangibility is something that isn’t often seen when dealing with mental issues. Most all of our mental issues stem from the chemicals within us that dictate how we view situations and the reactions we have in regards to them, and while it may be possible to visualize how these chemicals work, you cannot mold your reactions and chemical outputs like you can mold a block of clay or paint a piece of canvas. Control is something that many who are struggling with internal battles such as mental illness or grief are desiring to achieve, and art therapy and other physical-emotional therapies can help achieve a more tangible version of this.

The picture I’ve included displays the ventral striatum, which has also been shown to be activated and produce dopamine when shown art via a study at Emory (Eastman, 2011). When shown a photograph versus an artistic rendition of the subject, participants were seen to have much more activity in the ventral striatum while looking at the art. This part of your brain is very close to the midbrain and plays a role in the decision making vs reward system. So, looking at art may actually be a reward from our brain’s point of view!

Overall, art is an essential part of the human experience. Even if it doesn’t play a big role in someone’s personal life, art shapes the world around us and almost everything we experience when we interact with others. Art impacts what’s on the T.V. when you turn it on, it impacts what you see in textbooks on ancient civilizations (be it cave paintings, classical works, or folk art), it impacts what comes on on your radio and what reaches the tops of the charts on your streaming services. Art impacts us all, whether it makes you sad, happy, or anywhere in between. 

Eastman Q. 2011 Jan 6. Viewing Art Activates Brain’s Reward Circuits.

Malchiodi CA. 2012. Handbook of Art Therapy, Second Edition.

Salimpoor VN, Benovoy M, Larcher K, Dagher A, Zatorre RJ. 2011. Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature Neuroscience 14:257–262.

3 Comments Add yours

I love the subject of you blog post! I find it fascinating that humain beings are related by art. You do not need to speak the same language as the artist to understand his work. However, it is very personal at the same time since everyone has their own interpretation of what they see. It is also true art can become very useful for our everyday life, with Art Therapy for example. We can see the emotional impact it can have on humain beings.

Katie, fascinating ideas! I totally agree with what you explained about how art has a significant impact on our lives even if many of us don’t think about it usually. Art, as a way of expression,. should be taken more seriously as it is inseparable from our daily life. We can see art almost everywhere around us and in almost everything we do. I liked how you introduce and literate the ideas on that. I am inspired in many ways!

I really like your post. The concept and definition of art is very broad and obscure, but it is also what makes it so interesting. Ranging from visual, to auditory, to a combo of both, or even though, art can mean a lot of things, yet they are hoping to communicate a message or feeling through the works. I think what is important, like what you mentioned in the end, is to realize the essential role of all forms of arts in our lives and appreciation the impacts they bring.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

National Endowment for the Arts

• Grants for Arts Projects
• Challenge America
• Research Awards
• Partnership Agreement Grants
• Creative Writing
• Translation Projects
• Volunteer to be an NEA Panelist
• Manage Your Award
• Recent Grants
• Arts & Human Development Task Force
• Arts Education Partnership
• Blue Star Museums
• Citizens' Institute on Rural Design
• Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network
• GSA's Art in Architecture
• Independent Film & Media Arts Field-Building Initiative
• Interagency Working Group on Arts, Health, & Civic Infrastructure
• International
• Mayors' Institute on City Design
• Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge
• National Folklife Network
• NEA Big Read
• NEA Research Labs
• Poetry Out Loud
• Save America's Treasures
• Shakespeare in American Communities
• Sound Health Network
• United We Stand
• American Artscape Magazine
• NEA Art Works Podcast
• National Endowment for the Arts Blog
• States and Regions
• Accessibility
• Arts & Artifacts Indemnity Program
• Arts and Health
• Arts Education
• Creative Placemaking
• Equity Action Plan
• Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
• Literary Arts
• Native Arts and Culture
• NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships
• National Heritage Fellowships
• National Medal of Arts
• Press Releases
• Upcoming Events
• NEA Chair's Page
• National Council on the Arts
• Leadership and Staff
• What Is the NEA
• Publications
• National Endowment for the Arts on COVID-19
• Open Government
• Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
• Office of the Inspector General
• Civil Rights Office
• Appropriations History
• Make a Donation

Why The Arts Matter

Recent Blog Posts

Stay Connected to the National Endowment for the Arts

The Value of Art Why should we care about art?

One of the first questions raised when talking about art is simple—why should we care? Art in the contemporary era is easy to dismiss as a selfish pastime for people who have too much time on their hands. Creating art doesn't cure disease, build roads, or feed the poor. So to understand the value of art, let’s look at how art has been valued through history and consider how it is valuable today.

The value of creating

At its most basic level, the act of creating is rewarding in itself. Children draw for the joy of it before they can speak, and creating pictures, sculptures and writing is both a valuable means of communicating ideas and simply fun. Creating is instinctive in humans, for the pleasure of exercising creativity. While applied creativity is valueable in a work context, free-form creativity leads to new ideas.

Material value

Through the ages, art has often been created from valuable materials. Gold , ivory and gemstones adorn medieval crowns , and even the paints used by renaissance artists were made from rare materials like lapis lazuli , ground into pigment. These objects have creative value for their beauty and craftsmanship, but they are also intrinsically valuable because of the materials they contain.

Historical value

Artwork is a record of cultural history. Many ancient cultures are entirely lost to time except for the artworks they created, a legacy that helps us understand our human past. Even recent work can help us understand the lives and times of its creators, like the artwork of African-American artists during the Harlem Renaissance . Artwork is inextricably tied to the time and cultural context it was created in, a relationship called zeitgeist , making art a window into history.

Religious value

For religions around the world, artwork is often used to illustrate their beliefs. Depicting gods and goddesses, from Shiva to the Madonna , make the concepts of faith real to the faithful. Artwork has been believed to contain the spirits of gods or ancestors, or may be used to imbue architecture with an aura of awe and worship like the Badshahi Mosque .

Patriotic value

Art has long been a source of national pride, both as an example of the skill and dedication of a country’s artisans and as expressions of national accomplishments and history, like the Arc de Triomphe , a heroic monument honoring the soldiers who died in the Napoleonic Wars. The patriotic value of art slides into propaganda as well, used to sway the populace towards a political agenda.

Symbolic value

Art is uniquely suited to communicating ideas. Whether it’s writing or painting or sculpture, artwork can distill complex concepts into symbols that can be understood, even sometimes across language barriers and cultures. When art achieves symbolic value it can become a rallying point for a movement, like J. Howard Miller’s 1942 illustration of Rosie the Riveter, which has become an icon of feminism and women’s economic impact across the western world.

Societal value

And here’s where the rubber meets the road: when we look at our world today, we see a seemingly insurmountable wave of fear, bigotry, and hatred expressed by groups of people against anyone who is different from them. While issues of racial and gender bias, homophobia and religious intolerance run deep, and have many complex sources, much of the problem lies with a lack of empathy. When you look at another person and don't see them as human, that’s the beginning of fear, violence and war. Art is communication. And in the contemporary world, it’s often a deeply personal communication. When you create art, you share your worldview, your history, your culture and yourself with the world. Art is a window, however small, into the human struggles and stories of all people. So go see art, find art from other cultures, other religions, other orientations and perspectives. If we learn about each other, maybe we can finally see that we're all in this together. Art is a uniquely human expression of creativity. It helps us understand our past, people who are different from us, and ultimately, ourselves.

Reed Enger, "The Value of Art, Why should we care about art?," in Obelisk Art History , Published June 24, 2017; last modified November 08, 2022, http://www.arthistoryproject.com/essays/the-value-of-art/.

Is there such a thing as Bad Art?

Yes, but it's complicated

What is Artistic Composition?

Geometry and the Subconscious

The Elements of Art

Eight tools, infinite expression

By continuing to browse Obelisk you agree to our Cookie Policy

50 Most Famous Paintings by Salvador Dali

21 most famous frida kahlo paintings, the world of banksy: 50 iconic artworks of banksy, subscribe to updates.

Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

By signing up, you agree to the our terms and our Privacy Policy agreement.

What is Art? Why is Art Important?

What is art? – The dictionary definition of art says that it is “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination , especially in the production of aesthetic objects” (Merriam-Webster). Art is essential to society as it stimulates creativity , reflects culture, fosters empathy, provokes thought, and offers a medium for expression. It enhances society’s intellectual and emotional understanding of the world.

But the thing about art is that it’s so diverse that there are as many ways to understand it as there are people.

That’s why there are scholars who give their special definition of the word, such as the one penned by this famous Russian novelist, which goes:

“Art is the activity by which a person, having experienced an emotion, intentionally transmits it to others” – Leo Tolstoy

During his life, Tolstoy was known to write based on his life experiences, such as his most famous work, “War and Peace,” which used much of his experience during the Crimean War.

Whether or not his definition of art is the best, the point is that people look at art based on how they have experienced it.

What is Art?

There are many common definitions of art as per many books by famous artists and authors . Few to quote:

• any creative work of a human being
• a form of expressing oneself
• resides in the quality of doing; the process is not magic
• an act of making something visually entertaining
• an activity that manifests beauty ( What is Beauty in Art? )
• the mastery, an ideal way of doing things
• not a thing — it is a way (Elbert Hubbard)
• the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known
• discovery and development of elementary principles of nature into beautiful forms suitable for human use (Frank Lloyd Wright)

Why is Art Important?

Probably, the most prominent theory which best explains – Why is art important – is from Van Jones, which subtly provides a great response to What is art?

Van Jones presented a graph that accurately represents the interaction between the four aspects of society and its different members.

Consequently, Vones depicts why art is important to our society.

The graph (below) represents our society.

Society is driven by the powerful elites, the dependent masses, the government, cultural producers, and artists

On the left, you have action, and on the right, ideas; elites are at the top, and the masses are below. There’s an inside act and an outside act.

On the inside, there’s big money: elites are spending millions of dollars to influence politicians and policymakers. The inside act has the power to influence policy creators.

On the outside, we at the grassroots set our expectations and needs so that the elected candidates pass laws that give us power. Masses reflect what society wants (heart)

The left side, “action,” often means quantifiable policy changes. The right side, “ideas,” can be harder to see. We are not necessarily talking about concrete things here, but rather, a “headspace.”

Academic institutions and think tanks, which are not always involved in the immediate policy wins, are significant in creating a culture of thought

While the left side, “action,” continues to produce quantifiable policy changes and new laws, the right side, “ideas,” can be hard to quantify its outcome. Although “head” talks about theories and academics, it fails to contribute significantly to policymakers.

Artists come into the play here at this moment

Artists are represented here on the side of ideas, in the “heart space.”

Art is uniquely positioned to move people—inspiring us, inciting new questions, and provoking curiosity, excitement, and outrage.

Artists can strengthen the will and push people to act. They do not think like policymakers or academics people.

Artists think from their heart – big, revolutionary, and visionary ideas.

This is why artists are able to move people to action, thus creates a significant cultural and political contributions.

This is what makes art powerful.

Impact of Art on Politics, Culture, and People

Art is essential in society because it is an essential ingredient in empowering people’s hearts.

When activists show images of children suffering from poverty or oppression in their campaigns, this is the art of pulling the heartstrings of society’s elite and powerful to make changes.

Similarly, when photographers publish photos of war-torn areas, it catches the attention of the masses whose hearts reach out to those who need help.

When an artist creates great music and movies, it entertains people worldwide. This is art, making a difference in society.

A very modern example of art in action is street art. When the famous Italian street artist Blu created the mural in Kreuzberg , it sparked a lot of solid and different reactions rooted deeply in the differences between East and West Berlin.

Who would have thought that a wall painting depicting two masked figures trying to unmask each other could elicit such strong reactions?

Now, the issue behind this mural is a different matter to discuss. But whether or not the effect of the mural was good, it cannot be denied how a well-crafted piece of art can have a significant impact on society.

Art is also a remarkable mode of depicting culture from all over the world

When you see a Zen garden in Sydney or San Francisco, you know that it’s a practice that originated from China.

Likewise, when you see paper swans swarming a beautiful wedding ceremony, you know that this is origami, an art from Japan.

When you see films featuring Bollywood music and dancing, you know that it’s a movie from India. Art can take cultural practices from their origins and transport and integrate them into different parts of the world without losing their identity.

There, these art forms can entertain, create awareness, and even inspire foreigners to accept these cultures, no matter how strange or alien they may seem.

And that’s precisely what John Dewey implies in Art as an Experience:

“Barriers are dissolved; limiting prejudices melt away when we enter into the spirit of Negro or Polynesian Art. This insensible melting is far more efficacious than the change effected by reasoning, because it enters directly into attitude.”

This is especially important in our highly globalized world.

Art has played an essential role in helping fight against intolerance of different cultures, racism, and other forms of unjust societal segregation.

With immigration becoming a trend, the world’s countries are expected to be more tolerant and accepting of those who enter their borders.

Art helps make that happen by making sure that identities and their cultures are given due recognition around the world.

Art stimulates creativity and innovation.

Art inspires creativity and innovation beyond boundaries, encouraging imagination, lateral thinking, and risk-taking. The process of creating art involves experimentation and novel ideas, which can influence progress in various industries.

Art also challenges perceptions and assumptions, encouraging critical thinking and open-mindedness, which are essential for innovation. By presenting alternative realities or questioning the status quo, art inspires individuals to think differently and to approach problems from unique angles.

Furthermore, the aesthetic experience of art can lead to epiphanies and insights.

The beauty or emotional impact of a piece of art can trigger ideas and spark the imagination in ways that logical reasoning alone may not. This can lead to breakthroughs in creative and scientific endeavors, as individuals draw inspiration from the emotions evoked by art.

Art plays a subtle yet significant role in our daily lives.

For instance, when a child takes part in a school art project, they are given a variety of materials to create a collage. As they construct a 3D model of an imaginary winged vehicle with multiple wheels, the textures and shapes inspire them. This hands-on exploration of materials and forms sparks the child’s interest in engineering and design, planting the seeds for future innovation.

The above example illustrates how art can engage young minds, encouraging them to think creatively and envision innovative solutions beyond conventional boundaries.

In essence, art fuels the creative fire, providing the sparks that can ignite the next wave of innovation in society.

Great Art elicits powerful sentiments and tells meaningful stories

Art can take the form of film, music, theatre, and pop culture , all of which aim to entertain and make people happy. But when films, songs, or plays are made for a specific audience or purpose, the art begins to diversify.

Films, for example, can be made to spread awareness or cultural appreciation. Songs can also be composed in a way that brings out certain emotions, give inspiration, or boost the morale of people.

During the Victorian period in England, women started to make a name for themselves with classic artworks such as Elizabeth Sirani’s “ Portia Wounding Her Thigh ”, a painting that signifies the message that a woman is now willing to distance herself from gender biasedness.

The painting’s subject depicts an act of a woman possessing the same strength as that of a man. “Portia” represents surrender because she isn’t the same type of woman known in society as weak and prone to gossip.

One of the revolutionary works in history that ultimately opened the doors of art to women in general showed the power of women in art

There are also works of art that illicit intellectual solid discourse – the kind that can question norms and change the behavior of society.

Sometimes, still, art is there to reach out to a person who shares the same thoughts, feelings, and experiences as the artist.

The truth is that art is more than just a practice – it is a way of life. Art is more than just a skill – it is a passion. Art is more than just an image – each one tells a story.

The fact that art is quite connected to human experience makes it unsurprising that we have always made it part of our ways of living.

This is why ancient and present-day indigenous groups from all over the world have a knack for mixing art and their traditional artifacts or rituals without them knowing, which in fact one of the fundamental reasons why art is essential.

Why is Art so Powerful?  Why is art important to human society?

Perhaps the most straightforward answer to this question is that art touches us emotionally.

Art is influential because it can potentially influence our culture, politics, and even the economy. When we see a powerful work of art, we feel it touching deep within our core, giving us the power to make real-life changes.

In the words of Leo Tolstoy:

“The activity of art is based on the capacity of people to infect others with their own emotions and to be infected by the emotions of others. Strong emotions, weak emotions, important emotions or irrelevant emotions, good emotions or bad emotions – if they contaminate the reader, the spectator, or the listener – it attains the function of art.”

In sum, art can be considered powerful because of the following reasons, among others:

• It has the power to educate people about almost anything. It can create awareness and present information in a way that could be absorbed by many quickly. In a world where some don’t even have access to good education, art makes education an even greater equalizer of society.
• It promotes cultural appreciation among a generation that’s currently preoccupied with their technology. It can be said that if it weren’t for art, our history, culture, and traditions would be in more danger of being forgotten than they already are.
• It breaks cultural, social, and economic barriers . While art can’t solve poverty or promote social justice alone, it can be a leveled playing field for discourse and expression. The reason why everyone can relate to art is that everyone has emotions and personal experiences. Therefore, anyone can learn to appreciate art regardless of social background, economic standing, or political affiliation.
• It accesses higher orders of thinking . Art doesn’t just make you absorb information. Instead, it makes you think about current ideas and inspire you to make your own. This is why creativity is a form of intelligence – it is a unique ability that unlocks the potential of the human mind. Studies have shown that exposure to art can improve you in other fields of knowledge.

The truth is that people have recognized how influential art can be.

Many times in history, I have heard of people being criticized, threatened, censored, and even killed because of their artwork.

Those responsible for these reactions, whether a belligerent government or a dissident group, take these measures against artists, knowing how much their works can affect the politics in a given area.

In the hands of good people, however, art can be used to give back hope or instill courage in a society that’s undergoing a lot of hardships.

The Transformative Power Of AI Generated Art

AI-generated art is powerful due to its speed, creativity, accessibility, and ability to augment human creativity.

AI can generate complex images quickly, allowing for rapid experimentation and iteration, which fosters innovation.

By learning from vast datasets, AI can blend and mimic styles, creating entirely new artistic expressions. This technology democratizes art creation, enabling even those without traditional artistic skills to produce visually compelling images.

AI’s ability to customize and generate an infinite variety of images makes it invaluable in industries like advertising, gaming, and entertainment, where unique content is in constant demand.

Rather than replacing human artists, AI often enhances their creativity, acting as a tool for inspiration and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

The scalability and collaborative potential of AI further amplify its power, making it a transformative force in the modern creative landscape.

Art is a powerful form of therapy .

Some say art is boring . But the fact remains that art has the power to take cultural practices from where they are from and then transport and integrate them into different parts of the world without losing their identity.

Art helps make that happen by making sure that identities and their cultures are given due recognition around the world. Thus, it is essential to reflect upon – Why art is critical – which, in fact, provides you the answer to – What is art?

This is why we at The Artist believe that art is a form of creative human expression, a way of enriching the human experience.

NFTs: The Future of Art

Now, the world of art is shifting towards a digital and alternative world. And NFT is becoming a game-changing variable in the future of art .

What is NFT artwork?

An NFT , which stands for “non-fungible token” can be defined as a digital file that can be simply and easily transferred across a blockchain network.

Many people around the world are seeking out these digital assets to sell and trade in their everyday market trading, since these items are able to be traced, have value and oftentimes also have considerable rarity for collectors.

While artistic works are certainly a part of the NFT market , a variety of different players are getting involved through gaming systems, avatars, and even entire virtual worlds.

Such tokens have a wide variety of usage and while for many these are out of reach, for serious investors NFTs can prove to be a profitable source of income.

The Intersection of Art and Generative AI: Transforming Creativity

The intersection of art and generative AI is redefining the boundaries of creativity in unprecedented ways. By leveraging advanced algorithms and machine learning techniques, generative AI can analyze vast datasets of existing art, recognize patterns, and produce entirely new works that push the limits of human imagination. This collaboration between human creativity and machine precision allows for the exploration of artistic possibilities that were previously unattainable. Artists can now experiment with different styles, forms, and concepts in a more fluid and dynamic manner, leading to the creation of hybrid art forms that blend tradition with innovation.

Moreover, generative AI is democratizing the art world by making high-level artistic creation accessible to a broader audience. Individuals without formal training in art can use AI tools to generate compelling and intricate pieces, thus breaking down traditional barriers to entry. This democratization fosters a more diverse and inclusive art community, where various perspectives and ideas can flourish. As AI continues to evolve, it is likely to further transform the creative process, enabling new forms of expression and offering artists unique opportunities to engage with their audiences in more interactive and immersive ways.

Art plays a significant role in society by acting as an educational equalizer, fostering cultural appreciation, bridging cultural and social divides, and stimulating higher orders of thinking and creativity.

Art and its definition will always be controversial.

There will always be debates about what art is and what is not.

But no matter what the definition may be, it has been around us for as long as humans have existed (i.e. cave paintings, hieroglyphics).

Whether or not we are aware of it, we allow art to affect our lives one way or another, and the reasons why we make art are many!

AI art is now as important as traditional art in today’s society. It expands the definition of creativity and challenges our understanding of artistic expression. As conventional art reflects the culture, emotions, and ideas of its time, AI art captures the technological advancements and digital experiences of the modern era. It allows for exploring new styles, mediums, and concepts that might be inaccessible through conventional means. AI art also democratizes the creative process, making art creation more inclusive and accessible to people who might not have traditional artistic skills. In a society increasingly shaped by technology, AI art serves as a bridge between the human experience and the digital world, offering fresh perspectives and contributing to the ongoing evolution of art.

We use the arts for our entertainment, cultural appreciation, aesthetics, personal improvement, and even social change. We use the arts to thrive in this world.

So, share your thoughts – What does art mean to you? Art plays a subtle yet significant role in our daily lives. For instance, when a child takes part in a school art project, they are given a variety of materials to create a collage. As they construct a 3D model of an imaginary winged vehicle with multiple wheels, the textures and shapes inspire them. This hands-on exploration of materials and forms sparks the child’s interest in engineering and design, planting the seeds for future innovation. This example illustrates how art can engage young minds, encouraging them to think creatively and envision innovative solutions beyond conventional boundaries.

The article contains sponsored affiliate links from Amazo n to val uable resources.

Passionate experimenter with a heart for art, design, and tech. A relentless explorer of the culture, creative and innovative realms.

Related Posts

Most significant piece of art of 20th century, who’s andy warhol 7 famous andy warhol artworks, 16 comments.

Pingback: 7 Functions of Art That Make Us Empathetic Human Beings

Pingback: A world full of colors | Ashley's blog

Pingback: The importance of art and fashion. – BlissfulReject

Pingback: Art is Important – {thy smile is quite toothy}

Pingback: Arts influence society, change the world - The Feather Online

Hello there! This is my first comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and tell you I genuinely enjoy reading your posts. Can you recommend any other blogs/websites/forums that cover the same topics? Thanks a lot!

Agreed with the summation, that art is a tricky thing to define. Shall we leave it at that and let the artist get on with it?

Hello! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my previous room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this page to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thank you for sharing!

I got this web site from my pal who informed me on the topic of this website and at the moment this time I am browsing this website and reading very informative articles or reviews at this place.

Very good article! We will be linjking to this particularly great content onn our website. Keep up thhe great writing.

Every day we Delhiites shorten our lives due too choking air. This blog was extremely useful!

Great! Thank you so much. Keep up the good work.

Amazing! This has helped me out so much!

I do consider all the concepts you have introduced for your post. They are really convincing and can certainly work. Nonetheless, the posts are too quick for novices. Could you please extend them a little from subsequent time? Thanks for the post.

I love this! It was so interesting to read this!

Appreciating the commitment you put into your website and detailed information you offer. It’s good to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same unwanted rehashed information. Excellent read!

I’ve bookmarked your site and I’m including your RSS feeds to my Google account.

Leave A Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

College of Liberal Arts

Winter 2020, college of liberal arts magazine, art is an essential part of the human experience.

by Shelby Skumanich

E xpression through mark-making, gesture, and color is a core part of being human. From the oldest cave paintings on the Iberian Peninsula to a child’s first marks with a crayon, art-making is one of the many means of expression that humans engage with to understand and interpret the world around them. Visual art reaches beyond written and spoken language to access the emotional and psychological inner world of both the maker and the viewer. By creating this dialogue, there is a place to experience the richness and nuance of one’s inner life, foster emotional intelligence, and support mental health.

“Art education is a great way to get kids to explore their own interests and introduces them to the larger world around them,” says Jennifer Lammey, CSU art education alumni and visual arts teacher for the St. Vrain Valley School District. “It creates a safe place to learn about themselves and be creative without a lot of pressure. Art-making naturally raises questions, and it helps kids to find answers to them creatively. It also helps them explore issues, whether it's identity or race or environmental issues, and gives them a visual language to talk about those issues.”

When individuals have a way to express themselves, their community benefits from their well-being. Having access to visual art and experiencing the creation of art helps humans contextualize their experiences and connects them to others through the expression of shared identity. Creating these connections and mutual understanding through art supports interpersonal connection, increases empathy, and facilitates healthy relationships between individuals and society.

Early art education is fundamental to the development of these emotional and psychological skills. The Art Education program in the Department of Art and Art History engages with art departments in local school districts through community-based art education to help young people practice these important skill sets. Community-based art education is when the teacher acts as a facilitator and mediator between the students and the community in which they live. It  is a collaboration between students and their teacher, and the curriculum is usually tailored to the students' needs. This can take the form of organized community art programs to improve art skills or outreach programs to empower special groups of people.

“Community-based art education encourages learners to make connections between their art education in a classroom setting and its application in the community beyond school, with demonstrable examples of how the arts impact responsible citizenship,” says Patrick Fahey, associate professor of art education. “There are many approaches to work in and effect change in the community. Such approaches promote contextual learning about local art and culture, at the same time helping the community and highlighting the needs of marginalized citizens.”

CSU art education students craft meaningful educational experiences that positively impact primary and secondary students in the Fort Collins community and beyond through programs like BRAINY (Bringing Arts Integration to Youth) and Family Day.

“Through the efforts that we made on BRAINY, we hope to create an inclusive and positive community for people of any race, ethnicity, or social class to have the equal right to make art together at the museum. This helps our students and participants to know how to work with diversity and be included in diversity,” says Claire Chien, assistant professor of art education.

Students and families participate in BRAINY and Family Day, hosted by the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art. Photos from 2019 events.

BRAINY is a program of the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art that provides hands-on experience in all aspects of art, and supports ongoing, active art education in K-12 classrooms. By bringing children to a university campus, BRAINY demonstrates the role arts play in our community and culture. University students from the Department of Art & Art History and the School of Music, Theatre, & Dance develop programming that engages students from Title I schools in northern Colorado who may not otherwise have access to the visual and performing arts.

Family Day is another valuable program at the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art. It is a free, open to the public, bilingual event offered in English and Spanish where art education students give tours to K-12 students and their families and facilitate art-based activities. Since its inception, the museum has brought more than 1500 Family Day participants into the museum to experience the museum’s collection and the University Center for the Arts, thereby contributing to the health of Colorado’s Front Range community.

“As an academic museum, the CSU community is at the core of all that we do,” says Lynn Boland, Gregory Allicar Museum director and chief curator. “But our community programming is where everything we do comes together, and I think the museum's BRAINY and Family Day programs may be where that shines the brightest. Seeing CSU students, faculty, and staff all coming together to engage, educate, and inspire children and families is, for me, the perfect embodiment of the role of a museum at a land-grant university, serving as a community gateway.”

By giving K-12 students tangible experiences of art and museums, especially those from low-income families or other communities who would otherwise not have access to art and art museums, these students engage with art-making as an accessible, tangible, and essential part of the human experience. Art connects people to their communities by contextualizing their experiences and seeing themselves reflected back.

“Programs like BRAINY show that art really is for everyone,” Jennifer Lammey continues. “We ask them ‘what do you notice? What do you see?’ By focusing on the kids’ experience of art and allowing them to lead the conversation, it fosters a spark for art and makes it more accessible.”

More Stories

• Our company Why Choose Us? About the Company As seen on TV Our Artists Our Facilities Our Team Annual Scholarship Program $500 for Unboxing Video
• Our paintings Testimonials Samples Of Quality Inside Our Studio Recent Works Certificate of Authenticity Buy a Gift Card
• Our customers The Art Lover and Home Decor Interior Designers Retailers and Wholesalers Photographers Corporate Arts 1st Art Gallery 20 Years of excellence
• Other Resources Portrait Orders Wizard Stylized Art Wizard Costumed Art Wizard Art Advisory Service - FREE Price Table Request a Painting Request a Portrait
• Live Chat - Available 24/7 [email protected] WhatsApp +1-888-417-8278 +44-203-289-6448 020-3289-6448 HELPFUL LINKS 100% Satisfaction Guarantee How to Choose the Best Photo? Frequently Asked Questions How to Place an Order?

• 500 Most Popular Paintings
• Popular Artists

• Toll Free: [email protected] +1 310 982 7822 LIVE CHAT
• Art Styles chevron-right 🌅 Impressionism 🏰 Renaissance 📚 Academic Classicism 🕯 Baroque 😱 Expressionism 🐪 Orientalism 🌹 Romanticism ✨ Pointillism 🏛 Neo-Classical All Styles
• Art Subjects chevron-right Architecture Animals Christianity Trees Nude Landscapes Statues Black Art Pop Art All Subjects
• Categories chevron-right 👩 Female artists 📜 Artists A to Z ️🎓 Art University 🗺️ Art Tours 🌈 Browse by Color White color paintings Light-Gray color paintings Dark-Grey color paintings Black color paintings Yellow color paintings Yellow-Green color paintings Green color paintings Blue-Green color paintings Blue color paintings Blue-Violet color paintings Violet color paintings Red-Violet color paintings Red color paintings Red-Orange color paintings Orange color paintings Yellow-Orange color paintings
• Museums chevron-right Victoria and Albert Museum The Hermitage Museo del Prado Musée du Louvre Metropolitan Museum of Art Hungarian National Gallery Hamburger Kunsthalle Galleria degli Uffizi Bibliothèque Nationale All Museums
• Collections chevron-right 🦵 Famous Nudes 👑 Victorian Art Old Masters 🏰 16th and 17th Century European Paintings Paintings 🏠 The Whitehouse 🖌 Portraits of Artists 👀 Artist Revealed All Collections

• Request a Quote
• Testimonials
• All Samples Of Quality
• Artists Samples chevron-right Van Gogh Klimt Monet Renoir Da Vinci Homer Bierstadt Turner Sargent Browse All Samples
• Movement Samples chevron-right Impressionism Realism Romanticism Baroque Hudson Post-Impressionism Academic-Classicism Neo-Classical Rococo Browse Samples By Category
• Reproductions Homepage
• Excellent TrustScore 4.9

• How it Works
• Portrait Samples chevron-right 👰 Wedding Portraits 💏 Couples Portraits 👩Individual Portraits 👶 Children Portraits 👪 Family / Group Portraits 👪 Parents & Children Portraits 👴 Grandparents & Grandchildren Portraits 🐶 Dogs Portraits 🐱 Cats Portraits 👨‍👩‍👦 3 Generations Portraits 🏠 Landscape/Architecture 🐾 Multiple Pets Portraits 🐕 People & Pets Portraits All Portrait Samples
• Samples By Medium chevron-right 🖌️️️ Oil Portrait 🎨 Acrylic Portrait 🔥 Charcoal Portrait All Portrait Samples
• Pricing & Timing
• Portraits Homepage

• Samples of Quality
• Stylized Art Homepage

• Costumed Art Homepage

Items in Your Cart

Frame Type:

Total Amount:

Checkout using your account

Checkout as a new customer.

Creating an account has many benefits:

• See order and shipping status
• Track order history
• Check out faster

Why is Art Essential For The Human Experience?

Art is an essential aspect of human culture, and it has been present in various forms throughout history. From ancient cave paintings to modern art installations, art has captivated and intrigued people for centuries. But why do we need art? What is the purpose of art in human life? In this article, we will explore the philosophical inquiry into the value and purpose of art.

How Can Art Enrich Our Lives In Various Ways?

Art can add value to human life in many different ways. Firstly, art can inspire us to think and feel deeply about our lives and the world around us. Through art, we can explore different perspectives, ideas, and emotions that might be difficult to express through other forms of communication. Art can also educate us, by telling stories about historical events, cultural traditions, and social issues. By learning through art, we can broaden our understanding of the world and deepen our empathy for others.

Additionally, art can entertain us, by providing us with an enjoyable and engaging experience. Whether it is through music, dance, theater, or visual art, art can offer us a break from our daily routines and bring joy and pleasure into our lives. Art can also challenge us, by pushing us out of our comfort zones and exposing us to new ideas and perspectives. Through challenging art, we can develop our critical thinking skills and expand our horizons.

Furthermore, art can play a crucial role in cultural identity and social change. Art can express cultural values and traditions, and serve as a means of preserving and celebrating cultural heritage. Art can also be a powerful tool for social and political activism, by raising awareness about issues such as inequality, oppression, and injustice. Through art, we can engage in meaningful dialogue about the most pressing issues facing our society today.

What is the Purpose of Art in Human Life?

The purpose of art is a question that has puzzled philosophers, artists, and art enthusiasts for centuries. While there is no one answer to this question, there are various theories and perspectives that attempt to shed light on the nature of art and its purpose in human life.

One perspective is that art is a form of communication. Through art, we can express ourselves and communicate our thoughts, emotions, and experiences to others. Whether it is through painting, sculpture, literature, or music, art can provide a means of connecting with others on a deeper level. Art can also act as a mirror, reflecting back to us our own experiences and helping us to understand them more deeply.

Another perspective is that art helps us make sense of the world around us. Through art, we can explore and understand complex concepts and ideas that might be difficult to grasp through other means. Art can also offer us a way of coping with the uncertainties and challenges of life, by providing us with a space to reflect, contemplate, and process our experiences.

Furthermore, art can have a spiritual or existential aspect to it. Art can help us to connect with something larger than ourselves, whether it is a higher power, the universe , or the collective unconscious. Through art, we can explore questions of meaning, purpose, and existence, and find a sense of transcendence or awe.

While there are many different perspectives on the purpose of art, one thing is clear: art has the power to transform and enrich our lives in countless ways. Whether it is by inspiring us, educating us, entertaining us, challenging us, or providing us with a sense of meaning and purpose, art plays an essential role in human life.

Art's Impact on Human Life: Inspiring, Healing, and Transformative

The impact of art on human life is undeniable. Art can inspire us to think and feel deeply, and to engage with the world around us in new and meaningful ways. It can also have a significant impact on our mental health and well-being, by providing us with a sense of purpose and meaning, and by helping us cope with difficult emotions and experiences.

Art can also have a powerful impact on society as a whole. By reflecting and critiquing social norms and values, art can serve as a catalyst for social and political change. It can also promote cultural understanding and appreciation, by highlighting the diversity and richness of human experience.

Exploring The Future of Art in the Digital Age

As technology advances and the world becomes increasingly interconnected, the future of art is both exciting and uncertain. Some worry that traditional forms of art, such as painting and sculpture, will become obsolete in the digital age. However, others believe that technology will open up new possibilities for artistic expression and that the future of art is bright.

One thing is certain: the demand for high-quality art will always be strong, and there will always be a need for skilled artists and artisans. 1st Art Gallery, which specializes in oil painting reproductions , is committed to supporting the arts and promoting artistic excellence. Our team of professional artists and art historians is dedicated to creating and preserving works of art that inspire and captivate people around the world.

In conclusion, art is a vital aspect of human life that has the power to enrich and transform us in countless ways. Art can inspire, educate, entertain, challenge, and even heal us. It can help us make sense of the world around us, connect with others, and explore profound questions of existence and meaning.

Moreover, art can have a significant impact on society, by promoting cultural understanding and appreciation, raising awareness about social and political issues, and serving as a catalyst for change.

In a world that is often driven by materialism and consumerism, art reminds us of the beauty and complexity of the human experience. It challenges us to think deeply and critically, explore new perspectives, and connect with others on a deeper level.

Therefore, we should continue to value and support the arts and recognize their essential role in human life.

• Master Painters throughout History
• Introduction to Art Styles
• Exploring Painting Techniques

Please check your inbox for a confirmation message with your personal coupon code.

It’s available for 48 hours!

Home — Essay Samples — Arts & Culture — Art History — Art Appreciation: Understanding the Importance of Art

Art Appreciation: Understanding The Importance of Art

• Categories: Art History Artwork

About this sample

Words: 747 |

Published: Jan 30, 2024

Words: 747 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Background information on art appreciation, understanding the elements of art, analyzing artwork, historical and cultural context, emotional and intellectual response, contemporary art appreciation.

• Burton, J. (2019). Art Appreciation and the Perception of Risk. Risk Analysis, 39(10), 2145–2153. https://doi-org.libproxy.smu.edu.sg/10.1111/risa.13353
• Kim, S., & Kim, J. (2019). Aesthetic experiences and art-related emotions in art museum visitation. International Journal of Culture and Mental Health, 12(2), 165-176. doi: 10.1080/17542863.2017.1415361
• Taylor, J. (2018). Understanding the Art Museum Experience: An Analysis of Museum Visitor Experience Evaluation Forms. Visitor Studies, 21(2), 153–169. https://doi-org.libproxy.smu.edu.sg/10.1080/10645578.2018.1474847

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below:

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr Jacklynne

Verified writer

• Expert in: Arts & Culture

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 451 words

7 pages / 3208 words

2 pages / 1078 words

2 pages / 1321 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Art History

In John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men, foreshadowing plays a significant role in building the tension and creating a tragic conclusion. From the very beginning, Steinbeck employs this literary device to forecast the future [...]

The Old English epic poem Beowulf has long fascinated scholars and readers alike with its vivid portrayal of heroic feats, epic battles, and complex themes. Among the many striking features of this medieval masterpiece is the [...]

Modernism in the 1920s was a time of great change and innovation in the arts, literature, and culture. Artists and writers in this period were determined to break free from traditional forms and conventions, and to explore new [...]

In the realm of academia, final exams hold a significant position as a culmination of students' learning, allowing educators to evaluate their understanding and knowledge. This essay aims to critically analyze the role of final [...]

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon evoke a romantic picture of lush greenery and colorful flowers cascading from the sky. The grandeur of their sight must have been awe-inspiring, the magnificence, what a sight to behold. Oh! If [...]

What is music? When looking for the definition of music you’ll stumble across a lot of different definitions, everyone has their own definition of what music is to them. A better question to ask probably would’ve been what is [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

National Museum of African American History & Culture

• Plan Your Visit
• Group Visits
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Accessibility Options
• Sweet Home Café
• Museum Store
• Museum Maps
• Our Mobile App
• Search the Collection
• Initiatives
• Museum Centers
• Publications
• Digital Resource Guide
• The Searchable Museum
• Exhibitions
• Freedmen's Bureau Search Portal
• Early Childhood
• Talking About Race
• Digital Learning
• Strategic Partnerships
• Ways to Give
• Internships & Fellowships
• Today at the Museum
• Upcoming Events
• Ongoing Tours & Activities
• Past Events
• Host an Event at NMAAHC
• About the Museum
• The Building
• Meet Our Curators
• Founding Donors
• Corporate Leadership Councils
• NMAAHC Annual Reports

The Importance of Visual Art

Visual art is a fundamental component of the human experience reflecting the world and the time in which we live. Art can help us understand our history, our culture, our lives, and the experience of others in a manner that cannot be achieved through other means. It can also be a source of inspiration, reflection, and joy.

Visual Art and the American Experience is a testament to the power of art and its connection to our national heritage. Through the exploration of various themes, eras, and artistic styles, the exhibition will serve as a lens through which we can learn about the history of American art and the African American experience.

Subtitle here for the credits modal.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Introduction to prehistoric art, 20,000–8000 b.c..

Laura Anne Tedesco Independent Scholar

August 2007

To describe the global origins of humans’ artistic achievement, upon which the succeeding history of art may be laid, is an encyclopedic enterprise. The Metropolitan Museum’s Timeline of Art History , covering the period roughly from 20,000 to 8000 B.C., provides a series of introductory essays about particular archaeological sites and artworks that illustrate some of the earliest endeavors in human creativity. The account of the origins of art is a very long one marked less by change than consistency. The first human artistic representations, markings with ground red ocher, seem to have occurred about 100,000 B.C. in African rock art . This chronology may be more an artifact of the limitations of archaeological evidence than a true picture of when humans first created art. However, with new technologies, research methods, and archaeological discoveries, we are able to view the history of human artistic achievement in a greater focus than ever before.

Art, as the product of human creativity and imagination, includes poetry, music, dance, and the material arts such as painting, sculpture, drawing, pottery, and bodily adornment. The objects and archaeological sites presented in the Museum’s Timeline of Art History for the time period 20,000–8000 B.C. illustrate diverse examples of prehistoric art from across the globe. All were created in the period before the invention of formal writing, and when human populations were migrating and expanding across the world. By 20,000 B.C., humans had settled on every continent except Antarctica. The earliest human occupation occurs in Africa, and it is there that we assume art to have originated. African rock art from the  Apollo 11 and Wonderwerk Caves contain examples of geometric and animal representations engraved and painted on stone. In Europe, the record of Paleolithic art is beautifully illustrated with the magnificent painted caves of Lascaux and Chauvet , both in France. Scores of painted caves exist in western Europe, mostly in France and Spain, and hundreds of sculptures and engravings depicting humans, animals, and fantastic creatures have been found across Europe and Asia alike. Rock art in Australia represents the longest continuously practiced artistic tradition in the world. The site of Ubirr in northern Australia contains exceptional examples of Aboriginal rock art repainted for millennia beginning perhaps as early as 40,000 B.C. The earliest known rock art in Australia predates European painted caves by as much as 10,000 years.

In Egypt, millennia before the advent of powerful dynasties and wealth-laden tombs, early settlements are known from modest scatters of stone tools and animal bones at such sites as Wadi Kubbaniya . In western Asia after 8,000 B.C., the earliest known writing , monumental art, cities , and complex social systems emerged. Prior to these far-reaching developments of civilization, this area was inhabited by early hunters and farmers. Eynan/Ain Mallaha , a settlement in the Levant along the Mediterranean, was occupied around 10,000–8000 B.C. by a culture named Natufian. This group of settled hunters and gatherers created a rich artistic record of sculpture made from stone and bodily adornment made from shell and bone.

The earliest art of the continent of South Asia is less well documented than that of Europe and western Asia, and some of the extant examples come from painted and engraved cave sites such as Pachmari Hills in India. The caves depict the region’s fauna and hunting practices of the Mesolithic period. In Central and East Asia, a territory almost twice the size of North America, there are outstanding examples of early artistic achievements, such as the expertly and delicately carved female figurine sculpture from Mal’ta . The superbly preserved bone flutes from the site of Jiahu in China, while dated to slightly later than 8000 B.C., are still playable. The tradition of music making may be among the earliest forms of human artistic endeavor. Because many musical instruments were crafted from easily degradable materials like leather, wood, and sinew, they are often lost to archaeologists, but flutes made of bone dating to the Paleolithic period in Europe (ca. 35,000–10,000 B.C.) are richly documented.

North and South America are the most recent continents to be explored and occupied by humans, who likely arrived from Asia. Blackwater Draw in North America and Fell’s Cave in Patagonia, the southernmost area of South America, are two contemporaneous sites where elegant stone tools that helped sustain the hunters who occupied these regions have been found.

Whether the prehistoric artworks illustrated here constitute demonstrations of a unified artistic idiom shared by humankind or, alternatively, are unique to the environments, cultures, and individuals who created them is a question open for consideration. Nonetheless, each work or site superbly characterizes some of the earliest examples of humans’ creative and artistic capacity.

Tedesco, Laura Anne. “Introduction to Prehistoric Art, 20,000–8000 B.C.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/preh/hd_preh.htm (August 2007)

Further Reading

Price, T. Douglas. and Gary M. Feinman. Images of the Past . 5th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2006.

Scarre, Chris, ed. The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies . London: Thames & Hudson, 2005.

Additional Essays by Laura Anne Tedesco

• Tedesco, Laura Anne. “ Blackwater Draw (ca. 9500–3000 B.C.) .” (originally published October 2000, last revised September 2007)
• Tedesco, Laura Anne. “ Wadi Kubbaniya (ca. 17,000–15,000 B.C.) .” (October 2000)
• Tedesco, Laura Anne. “ Fell’s Cave (9000–8000 B.C.) .” (originally published October 2000, last revised September 2007)
• Tedesco, Laura Anne. “ Jiahu (ca. 7000–5700 B.C.) .” (October 2000)
• Tedesco, Laura Anne. “ Lascaux (ca. 15,000 B.C.) .” (October 2000)
• Tedesco, Laura Anne. “ Mal’ta (ca. 20,000 B.C.) .” (October 2000)
• Tedesco, Laura Anne. “ Pachmari Hills (ca. 9000–3000 B.C.) .” (October 2000)
• Tedesco, Laura Anne. “ Hasanlu in the Iron Age .” (October 2004)
• Tedesco, Laura Anne. “ Eynan/Ain Mallaha (12,500–10,000 B.C.) .” (October 2000; updated February 2024)

Related Essays

• African Rock Art
• Chauvet Cave (ca. 30,000 B.C.)
• Lascaux (ca. 15,000 B.C.)
• Neolithic Period in China
• Prehistoric Stone Sculpture from New Guinea
• African Rock Art: Game Pass
• African Rock Art: Tassili-n-Ajjer (?8000 B.C.–?)
• African Rock Art: The Coldstream Stone
• Apollo 11 (ca. 25,500–23,500 B.C.) and Wonderwerk (ca. 8000 B.C.) Cave Stones
• Blackwater Draw (ca. 9500–3000 B.C.)
• Cerro Sechín
• Cerro Sechín: Stone Sculpture
• Eynan/Ain Mallaha (12,500–10,000 B.C.)
• Fell’s Cave (9000–8000 B.C.)
• Indian Knoll (3000–2000 B.C.)
• Jiahu (ca. 7000–5700 B.C.)
• Jōmon Culture (ca. 10,500–ca. 300 B.C.)
• Mal’ta (ca. 20,000 B.C.)
• Pachmari Hills (ca. 9000–3000 B.C.)
• Ubirr (ca. 40,000?–present)
• Valdivia Figurines
• Wadi Kubbaniya (ca. 17,000–15,000 B.C.)
• X-ray Style in Arnhem Land Rock Art
• 8th Millennium B.C.
• Agriculture
• Archaeology
• Central and North Asia
• Eastern Mediterranean
• Iberian Peninsula
• Literature / Poetry
• Musical Instrument
• Mythical Creature
• North Africa
• North America
• Painted Object
• Personal Ornament
• Prehistoric Art
• Relief Sculpture
• Sculpture in the Round
• South America
• Wall Painting
• Wind Instrument

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Front Hum Neurosci

What Is Art Good For? The Socio-Epistemic Value of Art

Aleksandra sherman.

1 Department of Cognitive Science, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Clair Morrissey

2 Department of Philosophy, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Scientists, humanists, and art lovers alike value art not just for its beauty, but also for its social and epistemic importance; that is, for its communicative nature, its capacity to increase one's self-knowledge and encourage personal growth, and its ability to challenge our schemas and preconceptions. However, empirical research tends to discount the importance of such social and epistemic outcomes of art engagement, instead focusing on individuals' preferences, judgments of beauty, pleasure, or other emotional appraisals as the primary outcomes of art appreciation. Here, we argue that a systematic neuroscientific study of art appreciation must move beyond understanding aesthetics alone, and toward investigating the social importance of art appreciation. We make our argument for such a shift in focus first, by situating art appreciation as an active social practice. We follow by reviewing the available psychological and cognitive neuroscientific evidence that art appreciation cultivates socio-epistemic skills such as self- and other-understanding, and discuss philosophical frameworks which suggest a more comprehensive empirical investigation. Finally, we argue that focusing on the socio-epistemic values of art engagement highlights the important role art plays in our lives. Empirical research on art appreciation can thus be used to show that engagement with art has specific social and personal value, the cultivation of which is important to us as individuals, and as communities.

“What art does is to coax us away from the mechanical and toward the miraculous. The so-called uselessness of art is a clue to its transforming power. Art is not part of the machine. Art asks us to think differently, see differently, hear differently, and ultimately to act differently, which is why art has moral force.” — Jeanette Winterson (Winterson, 2006 )

Introduction

Traditionally, discussion of the nature of the arts and their role in our daily lives and communities lay within the purviews of criticism, art history, and philosophy. Within the last century, there has been a growing interest by psychologists and more recently, neuroscientists, to scientifically investigate art experiences and appreciation. Broadly, questions central to this investigation include:

• What happens when we experience a work of art? Specifically, what are the perceptual, emotional, and cognitive processes mediating our responses to art?
• Can one account for variations in taste? And if so, how does one's psychology and biology contribute to those preferences?
• What is common about the experiences one has across different forms of art? What is distinct?
• Are our responses to art universal or culturally and historically situated?
• Are art experiences pleasurable and how is the response distinct from other pleasurable experiences?

To scientifically investigate these questions, psychologists often ask viewers to rate the aesthetic appeal of an artwork, to rate their preferences for it compared to other artworks, and to indicate their emotional responses to various works. Typical questions might include: how much do you like the artwork; how aesthetically pleasing is the artwork; and how emotionally moving is the artwork? Researchers might then analyze the extent to which ratings reflect the formal features of that artwork—e.g., how balanced the composition is, how prototypical the depictions are, or perhaps how much the statistical structure within the image parallels natural scene statistics. As such, psychologists have identified a variety of formal features that seem to influence aesthetic and preference scores, including symmetry, color, contrast, aspect ratio, prototypicality, natural scene statistics, and complexity (e.g., Berlyne, 1971 ; McManus, 1980 ; Taylor et al., 1999 ; Shortess et al., 2000 ; Graham and Field, 2008 ; Schloss and Palmer, 2011 ). Similar questions have been explored in other domains of art including music and literature (e.g., Rentfrow and Gosling, 2003 ; Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 ). Furthermore, many researchers have demonstrated that individual differences, be they stable or transient, can influence preferences and judgments. For instance, culture and experience (e.g., Reber et al., 2004 ; Bullot and Reber, 2013 ), expertise and knowledge (e.g., Winston and Cupchik, 1992 ; Silvia, 2006 ) and current emotional state (e.g., Eskine et al., 2012 ) shape judgments. Additionally, individual differences in perceptual capacities, such as visual-object working memory (VOWM) are associated with preferences for formal features such as visual complexity within visual artworks (Sherman et al., 2015 ). These findings aim to illustrate the importance of accounting for the between and within subject variability in preferences, emotional responses, or beauty judgments.

A complementary approach, neuroaesthetics, is concerned with investigating the neurobiological substrates of aesthetic experience. For example, studies employing fMRI often task participants with making aesthetic or emotion-related judgments, and have demonstrated that art appreciation activates a distributed network in the brain subserving three core neural systems: sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and meaning-knowledge. Important regions linked to aesthetic evaluation and preference for art include areas related to domain-specific processing such as the visual system for visual art (e.g., the lingual gyrus, middle occipital lobe), memory recognition (e.g., fusiform gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus), higher-order conceptual integration (e.g., anterior temporal lobe), emotion and reward (e.g., the anterior insula, caudate/striatum), valuation (e.g., anterior and ventromedial prefrontal cortices), and more recently metacognition (e.g., structures within the default mode network such as posterior cingulate cortex) (for reviews and meta-analyses, see Di Dio and Gallese, 2009 ; Brown et al., 2011 ; Chatterjee and Vartanian, 2014 ; Vartanian and Skov, 2014 ).

Notably, although the aesthetic sciences broadly concern themselves with explaining art appreciation 1 , what can be gleaned from the above findings is that they have, up to this point, primarily investigated experiences of the aesthetic. That is, scientists have privileged investigating individual judgments of beauty or preference, many times ignoring socially-relevant outcomes of art appreciation or the social context of art creation and art appreciation. This is the the case within both the psychological and neuroaesthetics literatures. For example, neuroaesthetics research typically uses art (paintings, music, poetry, dance performance) as a stimulus to determine the neural mechanisms associated with preference, beauty, sublimity, and pleasure-based responses (e.g., Blood and Zatorre, 2001 ; Kawabata and Zeki, 2004 ; Vartanian and Goel, 2004 ; Jacobsen et al., 2006 ; Ishizu and Zeki, 2011 ; Lacey et al., 2011 ; Brattico, 2015 ).

Empirically investigating art appreciation in this way, however, risks conflating the arts with aesthetics. That is, it risks reducing the study of the nature of the arts to their ability to cause a particular feeling of disinterested joy or pleasure in a beholder. This reduction is reflected in (i) the way neuroaesthetics frames and understands art—namely, as an object that one contemplates and experiences in a disinterested manner, (ii) in the focus researchers place on measuring judgments related to beauty, liking, and pleasure as primary “outcomes” of the art experience, and (iii) in the contexts in which aesthetic experience is studied, often in labs on computers, removed from social and historical contexts, and in the visual arts, over short viewing times rarely exceeding 15 seconds.

The prevailing use of these measures and contexts implies that what defines an art experience is the pleasure caused by interacting with something aesthetically pleasing, and that the primary scientific task is describing the perceptual and emotional processes related to, or which constitute, a moment of liking or joy. Such a reduction limits the range of human experiences and capacities identified as appropriate objects of scientific investigation in this field. Moreover, “able to cause aesthetic experience” is a philosophically dubious conception of the nature of the arts, and can be particularly problematic in cases where “beauty” or “disinterested pleasure” is not a productive theoretical framework for evaluation of an artwork, as in some modern and contemporary art forms (e.g., see Carroll, 2012 for review). Similar methodological critiques have been presented within music as well as other domains of art (e.g., Sloboda et al., 2001 ; Brown and Dissanayake, 2009 ). For instance, within the domain of music, much of the research investigates individuals' cognitive and emotional responses to passively listening to a musical piece (as well and the perceptual features that prompt such a response) discounting the social functions of the work.

Frameworks from the history of philosophical aesthetics and contemporary methodological discussion within empirical aesthetics can be particularly instructive for psychologists and neuroscientists interested in investigating the arts. As indicated above, philosophical attempts to define the nature of art by appeal to the kind of experience often studied by aesthetic science have been criticized for failing to fully capture or appreciate the social, cultural, or historical situatedness of the art-object or the person whose experience is being studied. Some empirical contextualist theories take a similar stance, recommending scientific investigations that go beyond the “basic exposure” mode of art appreciation, noting that the kind of knowledge one would gain from perceptual exploration removed from historical understanding is “shallow at best” (Bullot and Reber, 2013 ). Rather, psychology must embrace an enriched understanding of art appreciation by investigating how, for example, an individual causally reasons about the observable features and attributions of an artwork, “mindreads” or attempts to cognitively model the artist and her intentions, experiences discovery or understanding-based emotions, and generates theories about the relevant content, form, and function of the artwork (Bullot and Reber, 2013 ).

Relatedly, we suggest that the current scientific research on art appreciation discounts what many would consider the very essence of art: its communicative nature, its capacity to encourage personal growth, its ability to reveal deep aspects of the human condition, to challenge preconceptions, to help us reconceptualize a question we are grappling with, and to provide clarity on ambiguous concepts or ideas. A host of philosophical, art-historical, and critical theories of the nature of the arts, art appreciation, and artistic creative practice suggest a more general theoretical shift away from the project of empirically studying art-objects by focusing on individuals' phenomenological experiences, and toward one which recognizes that individual psychological experiences or habits are shaped by engaging with the arts as part of our communities and social fabrics (e.g., see Carroll, 2012 for review). For instance, some philosophers and scientists alike have claimed that the arts, broadly conceived, have moral value, suggesting that engaging with art can be potentially transformative, for it encourages us to consider the welfare and good of other people, enhancing both our moral compass and self-knowledge (e.g., Nussbaum, 1990 ; Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 ).

Our primary goal here is to argue that a systematic scientific study of art appreciation must explain the potentially broad-ranging and diverse social outputs of arts engagement, and thus, must go beyond measurements of aesthetic pleasure or liking. We advocate for the need to embrace an expanded empirical research program characterized by reframing the arts as socio-epistemically valuable —that is, specifically useful for gaining knowledge and insights about oneself and society. Importantly, we suggest that an empirical research program that recognizes the arts as social practices (which we expand in Section Arts-Appreciation as Socio-epistemically Valuable) can potentially unify prior research and more clearly specify the types of investigations needed to achieve a fuller understanding of art appreciation.

For instance, information-processing accounts of art appreciation aim to understand the relationship between inputs (e.g., formal features, transient individual differences like emotional or mood states, and more sustained individual differences in personality, culture, historical contexts, or expertise), processing mechanisms unfolding related to the art experience (e.g., the psychological and neurobiological substrates of perceptual, cognitive, and emotional processes, or disruptions to one's self-schema), and outputs (e.g., appraisals/judgments of liking, epiphany/transcendence, self/other-understanding; well-being). Fitting to our art-as-social-practice view, we suggest that researchers might begin to investigate the information-processing system through the lens of socially-related outputs, such as self and other understanding, rather than through the lens of aesthetic outcomes of art (see Table ​ Table1). 1 ). That is, how do brain structures like the default mode network, which is recruited during art appreciation, contribute to socio-epistemic outcomes of art appreciation like self-understanding? This focus may reveal the need to develop experimental approaches better suited to evaluating the nature of the arts which recognize how creative practices and appreciation are cultivated socially, over long periods of time, and sustained both at the community and the personal level.

Factors influencing art appreciation.

An information processing account of art appreciation denoting self and other referential processing as well as the immediate and longitudinal socio-epistemic outcomes. Note that this table lists factors and processing mechanisms relevant to art appreciation but does not highlight the temporality or connectivity between the factors. For a review of models that differ on these dimensions, see Pelowski et al. ( 2016 ) .

Below, we start by framing the arts as social practices that are embodied, enactive, and communicative. Although our art as social practice organization is not in contrast to information processing accounts, it importantly allows us to focus empirical evaluations on the cluster of skills that are developed through art appreciation. Among these skills, we focus specifically on those we refer to as socio-epistemic, and demonstrate that self- and other-understanding are both socially relevant and meaningfully cultivated through sustained art engagement.

Arts-appreciation as socio-epistemically valuable

We begin by situating arts engagement, and specifically art appreciation, as a communicative, dialogic, dynamic, and transformative practice rather than as passive contemplation of beautiful, pleasurable, or otherwise aesthetically interesting objects. We argue that an “art as social practice” framing like this raises more relevant, interesting, and psychologically rich questions about the arts than does the traditional framing of art appreciation as reducible to aesthetic experience.

The arts as social practices

In Art Rethought: The Social Practices of Art (2015), Wolterstorff argues that we should adopt MacIntyre's account of social practices as a framework for understanding the nature of the arts (Wolterstorff, 2015 ). MacIntyre ( 1984 ) defines social practices as:

…coherent and complex form[s] of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended (p. 187).

As forms of human cooperative activity, they exist within social groups, both large and small, and persist through time. Consider, for example, the social practice of portraiture, a genre of painting which depicts a human subject, often in which the face is the main theme. This genre has existed historically across many, varied communities, and the genre develops and is shaped by the cultural, economic, and moral commitments of various social groups, in addition to the artistic styles and technological developments within these communities. “Painting a portrait” is done with respect to norms, standards, and expectations of the genre that are, in an important sense, public. Moreover, these norms and standards constitute criteria for having created an excellent portrait. That is, we can individually and collectively deliberate and debate about whether some particular artwork is a portrait, or is a good portrait. Furthermore, accomplishments such as ‘mastering the ability to depict a complex emotional expression in a two-dimensional medium’ (Leonardo DaVinci's Mona Lisa ), or ‘successfully communicating the cruelty of poverty and dignity of poor people by rendering sympathetically and beautifully the humanity of someone who is poor’ (e.g., Dorothea Lange's, Migrant Mother ), are goods that can only be achieved through the practice of portraiture. Finally, the genre, itself, develops throughout time, within different communities. There are innovations in portraiture with respect to artistic style and with respect to technology. Consider, for example, how Henri Matisse's Green Stripe (Portrait of Madame Matisse) both radically departs from and conforms to the norms of the practice, or how the invention of photography changes and informs the meaning of “creating a portrait.” Matisse's innovation and the development and use of photography for artistically depicting human faces, both enrich our understanding of the aims of art and the possibilities of human experience.

By following this emphasis on the arts as practices, we mean to shift attention to art creation and art appreciation as activities “we do,” from the conception of art appreciation as passive reception of perceptual information from art-objects. In doing so, we do not commit ourselves to any particular theory or definition of art, be it the institutional view (Danto, 1964 ; Dickie, 1974 ), which holds that artworks are artifacts that have been identified as such by persons appropriately situated with respect to “the artworld,” 2 or the historical (Levinson, 1979 ) or narrative views (Carroll, 1988 ), which hold that artworks can be identified by relationships to existing artworks. Instead, we follow these traditions, and others in anthropology and sociology (e.g., Becker, 1982 ; Dissanayake, 1990 ; Gell, 1998 ; Harrington, 2004 ), in their recognition that both arts appreciation and art creation, whatever they may be, are culturally situated within human communities 3 . We contend that this very foundational and basic recognition is largely absent or significantly downplayed in current empirical work, and it is this sense of social—longstanding practices, embedded in the fabric and life of communities—that is foundational to our proposed framework.

The arts and socio-epistemic skills

One model for how to understand art appreciation as active engagement in a practice can be found in Kieran ( 2012 ). There, he argues that art appreciation is an intrinsically valuable skill that allows one to cultivate “excellences of character,” because practiced arts engagement allows one to better imagine and critically examine not only aesthetic qualities of artworks, but also “artistic originality, emotional expression, insight and moral understanding.” (p. 23) This notion of skill has a few different features that matter a great deal to an expanded empirical research program: (1) art appreciation is learned through sustained practice, suggesting its intrinsic relationship to the culture and community, or, at least, to other people; (2) is a capacity that is developed over non-trivial lengths of time; and (3) may be relevant to other domains, as skills can be transferable.

Drawing from other philosophical literature on art appreciation, we see a focus on what we refer to as socio-epistemic skills. Included in this category may be capacities like good judgment, richer sensitivity to detail, or, following Hume, “delicacy of imagination, good sense, comparative experience, and freedom from prejudice” (Kieran, 2012 , p. 23). What makes these skills social is their relationship to one's ability to better understand oneself and other people, and to potentially revise one's own moral, political, or social commitments 4 . Although the mechanism for enhanced understanding of self and others is not fully theorized in the philosophical literature, it is often taken to be developing a kind of sensitivity to detail, context, or nuance (e.g., Murdoch, 1970 ; Nussbaum, 1990 ; Carroll, 1998 ).

Empirical research complements the philosophical framework above by helping us understand the mechanisms that underwrite the particular socio-epistemic skills of other-understanding and self-understanding 5 . We choose to highlight self-understanding and other-understanding because they align well with what many think of art appreciation as doing: helping them see others and the world from a different point of view, altering their perspectives, and helping them to understand more about themselves (e.g., what moves them, or what makes them uncomfortable). At the same time, we do not mean to commit to any specific or direct causal pathways between cognitive processes, art appreciation, and other- or self-understanding. Rather, we mean to identify this as an open area of much needed investigation.

Before turning directly to this discussion, we also note that embracing this theoretical shift toward understanding the arts as social practices would allow us to explain how art appreciation is partially constitutive of living a flourishing human life. A longstanding empirical program has been to connect the arts (both appreciation and creation) to happiness, well-being, or flourishing. For instance, Cuypers et al. ( 2012 ) demonstrate through a large-scale population study that both art appreciation and art creation are associated with increased well-being (as measured by perceived health, life satisfaction, and anxiety and depression scores). Philosophical conceptions of eudaimonia contend that a flourishing human life centrally involves, at least, the use of skills or excellences of character the development of which are intrinsically rewarding, and the exercise of which are, thereby, pleasurable. Thus the shift we are recommending does not discount previous research, but rather, locates and explains the liking, preference, and pleasure responses to art-objects as well as the experience of being moved, as important aspects of the skill-based conception of art appreciation. This also allows us to strengthen arguments for the value of the arts that does not embrace crass instrumentalism, but rather, is capable of explaining the central role of the arts in human life (Kieran, 2012 ). Moreover, regardless of whether one is committed to the broader eudaimonistic theory of well-being, or the claim that the development of human excellences and skills is central to that flourishing, those who hold that art appreciation is capable of developing the capacities and related skills of other-understanding and self-understanding are making empirical claims that empirical aesthetics can evaluate. To that end, a complete model of aesthetic appreciation will also need to contend with these claims and find a place for these socio-epistemic “outputs” in their models.

In the sections that follow, we use philosophical discussions to frame and suggest two lines of empirical inquiry within this theoretical orientation of the arts as social practices. The first, self-understanding, discussion of which is nascent in both the psychological and philosophical literatures, asks whether and how art appreciation as a practice can lead to a richer understanding and appreciation of one's own moral values, commitments, and conception of who and what one is. The second, other-understanding, more fully developed in both literatures, asks whether and how art appreciation as a practice can lead to a better understanding of the emotional and cognitive states of others, and the potential moral and social value of such an understanding. We conclude with a discussion of how such a research program may be envisioned and developed moving forward.

Art engagement as a path to self-understanding

As discussed above, in this section we attempt to lay a foundation for a line of inquiry into how self-understanding may be enhanced by engaging in practices of art appreciation, as part of our suggestion that conceptualizing the arts as social practices would be an appropriate and fruitful framework for psychologists and neuroscientists to embrace.

Philosophical conceptions of the relationship between art appreciation and self-understanding

In philosophy, the term “self-knowledge” often refers to knowledge of one's own mental states—that is, knowledge of our own beliefs, thoughts, or sensations. In contrast, “knowledge of the self” can refer to knowledge or understanding of one's “self” and its nature. Following Gertler ( 2015 ), we may include under this heading four different debates about our understanding of ourselves, as selves: the nature of self-identification (i.e., one's ability to distinguish one's self from others); whether self-awareness is a mechanism for grasping the nature of the self; whether self-awareness is a means to grasping one's personal identity over time; and, whether and what sort of self-understanding is necessary for rational or moral agency.

Insofar as engagement with the arts is able to enhance some notion of self-understanding, it fits most comfortably within this final debate: the sort of self-understanding necessary for rational or moral agency. Martin ( 1985 ), providing one way of enriching this “necessary for agency” conception, claims that self-understanding is an achievement . He explains that developing a “justifiable and meaningful perspective on our lives” often calls for “appropriate adjustments in attitude, emotion and conduct,” and realizing these things is something that we work for, or that we strive to accomplish. (p. 2) Relevant to this kind of self-understanding is what we may refer to as “self-identity”—“individuals' subjective senses of who they are—their own self-images” (Martin, 1985 , p. 5). Further, we may consider the heart of self-identity as a set of commitments or values—be they intellectual, artistic, moral, or religious—that organize individuals' behavior, attitudes, and beliefs. Someone who has proper self-understanding not only recognizes and affirms her central commitments and values, but also acts and feels according to these commitments and values. In this way self-understanding is a socio-epistemic skill because one's ability to recognize and act on her central values (e.g., feel and act compassionately) concerns a social ability. The content of the values or commitments substantially refer to other people, institutions, histories, and communities, and the attitudes and behaviors indicated are learned and exhibited within communities and relationships.

Philosophers who defend the view that art appreciation is a form of moral understanding can inform our conception of how art appreciation may enhance self-identity and self-understanding. A particularly influential view is Noël Carroll's clarificationism (Carroll, 1988 ). Unlike the sciences, which allow individuals to acquire new propositional knowledge, Carroll argues art appreciation is capable of deepening our existing knowledge, something he refers to as “understanding.” Carroll suggests that the narrative arts, in particular, encourage us to apply our moral knowledge and emotions to a specific case, which aids in the development of our capacity to manipulate, refine, or clarify what we know, and to then intelligibly apply that knowledge. Carroll uses the example of Crime and Punishment to explain this point. It would be absurd to claim that the reader learns the truth of the proposition “murder is wrong” from her reading of the novel. In fact, it may be that a reader would already need to have this bit of propositional knowledge in order to make sense of the novel in the first place. Yet, engagement with the novel can be a source of moral understanding and self-development. Engagement may help give shape to, clarify, or deepen one's understanding of the horror of killing, and of the nature or importance of guilt, redemption, and moral character. Moreover, insofar as these moral beliefs and values are part of the central commitments and values that constitute your self-identity, engagement with the novel can help you know yourself better.

That art is a context for deepening understanding rather than gaining propositional knowledge is also taken up by Lopes ( 2005 ). There he argues that the kind of seeing (“seeing-in”) cultivated by practiced visual art engagement enriches moral sensibility by enriching the suite of intellectual resources that make the viewer reliable at discriminating morally relevant features of situations. (p. 180) Part of the moral sensibility Lopes describes includes what he refers to as a repertoire of moral concepts (e.g., solidarity, grief, violation). Some visual art, though not all according to Lopes, can be used to deepen and understand those concepts. In this way, some visual art can communicate moral ideas in new or challenging or poignant ways that cause one to revise an important or closely held moral value, and thus, can be important to developing one's self-understanding.

Although the philosophical discussion of self-understanding or transformation through engagement with the arts primarily concerns moral or social knowledge, we see no reason to believe it must be limited to these contexts. The focus on moral knowledge in the philosophical literature may be occasioned by the felt need to distinguish the arts from the sciences as a means of knowing, as the latter tend not to have this moral or social focus 6 . However, we may think of the arts as a path to non-moral self-understanding as well, or, as above, as about non-moral yet central commitments and understandings important to our self-identity. For example, the works displayed during the 2013–2014 Los Angeles County Museum of Art retrospective of the work of Light and Space artist James Turrell, were described by many (critics and lay people alike) as transformative . The immersive light environments cause one's own perception to become the object of reflection, and led many to a deeper understanding of themselves and their relationship to the external world, deepening their conception of themselves as embodied beings whose access to the world is mediated by a visual perceptual faculty with particular features, limitations, and abilities, and of light, itself, as a physical substance. This fact (that perception is mediated by light) is not one that people learn from this exhibit; people learn that in middle school science classes. But being confronted with artistic works that exploit and make manifest this fact nevertheless affords viewers an understanding of the significance of this fact.

Enhanced self-understanding through art appreciation: empirical evidence

As in the philosophical literature, there also seems to be limited work in the psychological literature focused on the importance of art engagement in cultivating self-understanding, although research on self-reflection may speak to the psychological mechanisms that make possible the socially-relevant conception of self-identity as described above. Following Koopman and Hakemulder ( 2015 ), self-reflection refers to “thoughts and insights on oneself, often in relation to others and/or to society” (p. 82). This type of introspection often relates to one's emotions (e.g., monitoring current states and/or comparing those states to prior states), memories, values, and beliefs, and is associated with positive consequences (e.g., better mental health, well-being, increased capacity for self-regulation).

The literary arts are a domain in which self-reflection has received more comprehensive attention. Koopman and Hakemulder review evidence suggesting that self-reflection is elicited when one reads literary texts characterized by unconventional syntax or semantic features. Specifically, they review empirical work showing that self-reflection occurs in scenarios in which “(i) [reader's] previous personal experiences are evoked by descriptions of characters, places and events, (ii) [in which] readers experience emotional responses to the characters, and (iii) [in which] readers perceive the text itself, the artifact, as striking” (p. 95). Self-reflection elicited through reading in these contexts is likely to relate to one's self-understanding and identity both in moral and non-moral contexts. Similarly, some members of the medical community have embraced the idea that the literary and narrative arts facilitate self-reflection. Brady et al. ( 2002 ) posit that practicing self-reflection outside of a clinical context, and particularly through art appreciation, could lead to better doctor-patient relationships and, thereby, better patient outcomes.

With respect to visual art, research in neuroaesthetics has also suggested that when engaging with artworks that are emotionally moving and potentially transformative, individuals may have an inward, self-reflective focus. Here, being moved refers to “intensely felt responses [such as tears or chills] to scenarios that have a particularly strong bearing on attachment-related issues—and hence on prosocial bonding tendencies, norms, and ideals—ranging from the innermost circle of one's personal life … to higher-order entities of social life (one's country, social and religious communities)” (Menninghaus et al., 2015 , p. 8; see also Hanich et al., 2014 ; Wassiliwizky et al., 2015 , 2017a ). Recent work by Wassiliwizky et al. ( 2017b ) suggests, for example, that poetry containing a socio-cognitive component (e.g., prose addressing other people or personifying nature) is particularly moving, leading to chills and a response in brain areas involved in self-reflection (e.g., precuneus). When an artwork moves a beholder, she likely experiences an intense emotional response as well as explicitly reflects on her experience, potentially exercising self-understanding (as well as other-understanding, which we expand on in the next section). In this way, understanding the experience of being moved (rather than just focusing on aesthetic evaluation) indicates a promising avenue of research for neuroaesthetics to develop in line with our recommendation to adopt a social practice model.

Indeed, Vessel et al. ( 2012 , 2013 ) have demonstrated that during intensely moving aesthetic experiences, the default mode network—a network of brain areas including the precuneus, medial frontal cortex, inferior parietal cortex, and medial temporal cortex known to be involved in self contemplation, self reflection, and self-referential thought—is recruited. In Vessel et al.'s ( 2012 , 2013 ) studies, participants were tasked with attending to a set of visual artworks and judging how moving each one was while their brain activity was recorded in a scanner. Their finding that DMN activity was higher for artworks rated as highly moving relative to those rated lower on the scale may be interpreted as an inward, self-reflective focus that co-occurs with or is prompted by being emotionally moved. Additionally, this finding is consistent with research demonstrating that the DMN is recruited during other self-referential types of tasks involving self-identity (namely, making judgments about yourself or close others), moral decision-making, and theory of mind attributions (Northoff and Bermpohl, 2004 ; Northoff et al., 2006 ).

Psychologists have also described models that center the idea that art appreciation recruits metacognitive processes and promotes self-reflection and transformation. For example, Pelowski and Akiba ( 2011 ) (see also Pelowski, 2015 ; Pelowski et al., 2017 ) argue that influential empirical studies of aesthetic experience focusing on understanding the processes which lead to cognitive mastery of an artwork along with perceptual pleasure are “often divorced from a viewer's personal beliefs and identity” and “preclude the possibility for art to [truly] mark and transform lives” (p. 81) namely because they do not directly address discrepant experiences during an art encounter. According to Pelowski and Akiba's account, the self-reflective processing that occurs when a beholder's expectations have been violated (e.g., confusion about meaning) marks the beginning of a meta-cognitive re-assessment of an artwork, eventually leading to self-schema transformation. Similarly, Lasher et al. ( 1983 ) argue that the arts are central for mental and emotional growth because they offer opportunities for representational conflicts that, when resolved (in their case, often unconsciously) provide a way to restructure and unify initial mental representations. The process of defamiliarization, “becoming unsettled,” and self-reflecting, then may be crucial to deepening self-understanding.

In a more recent paper, Pelowski ( 2015 ) offered an empirical approach to studying art experiences as they relate to self-transformation and understanding. Specifically, Pelowski suggests that feeling like (or actually) crying during an art experience is a physical indicator of self-reflection, shifted perspectives, and self/schema changes. As a first foray into testing his model, Pelowski conducted a series of exploratory studies at several museums collecting both physiological data and self-reports from museum-goers. He demonstrated that feeling like crying while viewing art is correlated to increased self-awareness, feelings of epiphany and insight, as well as to mixed emotions corresponding to being moved. Although his empirical findings are specific to the visual arts, his model broadly appeals to all arts, as tears or chills responses are pervasive across all arts domains (Pelowski, 2015 ). Pelowski's approach is particularly instructive as it offers a means to frame socio-epistemic skills such as self-understanding within information-processing accounts, arguing for the importance of empirically investigating how each processing stage corresponds to self-related outcomes.

Importantly, these ideas are markedly different from the more typical information-processing accounts of aesthetic experience (e.g., Leder et al., 2004 or Chatterjee, 2004 ), which focus more on successful assessment of an artwork's formal information (perceptual and cognitive mastery) in the service of emotional appraisals. This traditional approach de-centers the importance of self-reflection or cognitive growth as an outcome or aspect of art appreciation. In contrast, the paradigm we suggest (which parallels Pelowski's) posits that although detached, the contemplative pleasure, which may be an outcome of art appreciation, is not valuable merely for its own sake, but also instrumentally valuable for deepening one's self-understanding.

Although the reviewed studies are not direct evidence that self-understanding is developed by art appreciation, they suggest, at least, that self-reflection, a process relevant to cultivating self-understanding, is prompted by moving art experiences. More research will be needed to understand the extent to which and how neural mechanisms correlated to self-referential processing are recruited during art appreciation. Candidate regions for investigation are those within the cortical midline structures including the orbitomedial prefrontal cortex (OMPFC) implicated in the continuous representation of self-referential stimuli and in processing emotional stimuli independent of sensory modality, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) implicated in evaluation of self-referential stimuli, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) implicated in monitoring of self-referential information, and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and adjacent precuneus thought to be involved in self-reflection and the integration of self-related representations (e.g., Northoff and Bermpohl, 2004 ). The partially overlapping default mode network as described above will also be critical to evaluate in the context of art appreciation.

Art engagement as a path to understanding others

Turning away from self-understanding, in this section we lay a foundation for a line of inquiry into how other-understanding may be enhanced by engaging in practices of art appreciation. Though here we highlight self- and other-understanding as separate socio-epistemic skills, we also point to the importance of investigating these “outcomes” as highly related. As before, the aim of this section is to build our suggestion that conceptualizing the arts as social practices would be an appropriate and fruitful framework for psychologists to embrace.

Philosophical conceptions of the relationship between art appreciation and other-understanding

Philosophers of art commonly contend that art appreciation enables us to understand others better by encouraging us to take on their viewpoints, to metaphorically take a walk in their shoes, to feel their pain. Through art appreciation we can understand ourselves as connected to one another, by recognizing others' emotions, actions, and perceptions as fundamentally similar to our own, or, more dramatically, by feeling others' emotions. For instance, in Cohen's ( 1993 ) discussion of his ambivalence toward ontological questions about the nature of art and the distinction between high and low art, he describes a memorial service in which his friend's favorite musical selections were played. Reflecting on the meaningfulness and appropriateness of this practice of playing music that someone cared for at their funeral, Cohen writes:

My friend has died and is not present. I listen to music I know he cared for. It is a fact about my friend that he cared for this music, perhaps even a constitutive fact about his sensibility: it partially defines who and what he was. It is, thus, an entrance into that sensibility. I sit listening, not merely thinking that this music meant something to my friend, but bending my imagination to the task of reaching and comprehending an aspect of my friend which responded to this music, that is, feeling what it was to be my friend (p. 154).

Here, Cohen understands artistic appreciation not only as (appropriately) playing a central role in an important social ritual of mourning, but also, or perhaps because it is one way of being in community with someone else. In this case, the mind, sensibility, or self of the person who is no longer present is accessible through attending closely to the music he loved. Similarly, Joseph Conrad characterizes the emotional sharing involved in artistic activity as:

the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts; to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspiration, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity—the dead to the living and the living to the unborn (cited in Goldie, 2008 , p. 192).

This notion, that the arts are an arena for interaction and potential emotional sharing between artists, beholders, and other past, present, and future beholders has an important history stretching back to at least Tolstoy ( 1899 ), if not to Aristotle.

The kind of interaction or connection art facilitates has been thought to lead to a fuller and morally important understanding of others and oneself. Kieran ( 1996 ) develops a notion of “imaginative understanding,” a skill promoted by the arts, as striving to “appreciate what the appropriate way of looking at and acting in the world is…typically…the appropriate way to feel for, to regard, and to respond to others” (p. 341). In this way, art appreciation, by promoting imaginative understanding, facilitates good moral judgment by enhancing our moral perception and sensibilities, especially with respect to the lived experiences of other people 7 .

Developing a similar line of thought, some scholars have suggested that reading literary fiction creates aesthetic distance, which “allow[s] [readers] to experiment more freely with taking the position of a character different from themselves, also in moral respects” (Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 , p. 92). That is, the dynamic process occurring during art appreciation is a form of socio-cognitive and emotional training, granting viewers the “time and privacy to learn to deal more strategically with” real life scenarios in a safe, “distant” space (this idea has been discussed by Oatley, 1999 , 2016 ; Robinson, 2005 ; de Botton and Armstrong, 2013 ; Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 ; Menninghaus et al., 2017 ). Despite this “distance” or, perhaps because of it, one can become deeply invested in fictional characters, emotionally engaging with them, and generating cognitive models of character's minds, just as one does in real social scenarios 8 .

That arts appreciation can deepen one's moral landscape by cultivating other-understanding is an empirical claim with potentially far-reaching consequences 9 . This idea has served as a theoretical foundation for arts-based therapies aimed at developing, for example, autistic children's social skills and theories of mind (see: arttherapy.org). Perhaps most robustly, as we briefly mentioned, in recent decades medicine has increasingly turned to the arts to help students and professionals cultivate proper self- and other-regarding dispositions (Shapiro et al., 2009 ). For example, Columbia University's Masters of Science curriculum in Narrative Medicine uses the arts and humanities to “imbue patient care and professional education with the skills and values of narrative understanding” (see: http://ce.columbia.edu/narrative-medicine ). Some have suggested that arts-based interventions help physicians become more empathic and culturally-sensitive, which then leads to better patient health outcomes (e.g., Novack et al., 1997 , pp. 502–509), whereas others have focused on the importance of reflection and imagination for developing insight, emotional understanding of patients, or other valuable “patterns of knowing” (e.g., Berragan, 1998 ; Rodenhauser et al., 2004 ; Averill and Clements, 2007 ).

These theoretical applications demonstrate the importance of reviewing the available empirical evidence that aligns with an argument that art appreciation cultivates other-understanding, the importance of understanding the psychological mechanisms underlying other understanding, as well as the importance of establishing norms for empirically investigating more fully the socio-epistemic outcomes and values of art appreciation.

Enhanced other-understanding through art appreciation: empirical evidence

Psychological research suggests that there are (at least) two related ways we can come to understand other people and their experiences: (i) cognitively, and (ii) emotionally “resonating” with others' experiences. Cognitive empathy, also often called “cognitive perspective-taking,” “theory of mind,” “mentalizing,” or “mindreading,” 10 refers to an individual's capacity to model others' experiences by making inferences about their intentions and predictions about future actions based on that mental representation. Although this cognitive process reflects one's capacity to model other people's minds, it crucially does not require emotional investment (e.g., I may understand that you are anxious but I do not feel that way myself).

Another way, then, to understand other people is to have an “insider” view by actually experiencing what the other person is experiencing. This “catching” of another person's experience is what most scholars refer to as empathy. Although there are many definitions for empathy in the psychological and philosophical literature (see Batson, 2009 ), most scholars broadly agree that there are two key criteria characterizing empathic responses. Firstly, empathy involves an affective capacity to recognize and resonate with others' emotions (also widely called “emotional contagion” or “affect sharing”). The affective response should be isomorphic with another person's affective state (Eisenberg and Fabes, 1990 ; De Vignemont and Singer, 2006 ). That is, one must experience the same emotion as another person, rather than simply respond emotionally to someone else's emotion (e.g., happiness in response to someone else's misfortune would not be isomorphic). This isomorphism is emphasized in the literature as distinct from related phenomena such as sympathy, which may be emotionally powerful but is usually thought of as feeling “for” rather than feeling “with.” Secondly, empathy should involve an awareness of the source of one's affective response; that is, a mechanism to distinguish between self and other. Imitation or emotional contagion alone, seen even in young infants, does not then reflect empathy (e.g., De Vignemont and Singer, 2006 ), as true empathy requires a more developed sense of self, agency, and other. Here, we will refer to this process as affective empathy.

Echoing the philosophical discussion above, a wide empirical research program has suggested the social and moral importance of both affective empathy and cognitive empathy, arguing that they are critical for social development and successful social interaction. Individuals with impaired (or a lack of) affective empathy are often characterized as psychopathic (e.g., Hare, 1991 as cited in Blair, 2005 ), and individuals with impaired theory of mind, a characteristic of autism, exhibit a host of social deficits including difficulties communicating, understanding others' thoughts and desires, recognizing and imitating others' facial expressions, among other issues (e.g., Blair, 2005 ). Moreover, although there might sometimes be negative consequences of increased empathy (e.g., favoring social “in-groups”; in Bloom, 2017 even goes to suggest that empathy has more costs than benefits), cognitive and affective empathic capacities in many ways provide a foundation for moral behaviors (Decety and Cowell, 2015 ). For instance, even short-term manipulations of cognitive perspective-taking can lead to increased feelings of social affiliation, perceived similarity, perceived closeness, intergroup understanding, desire to engage in intergroup contact, and to prosocial behaviors such as increased cooperation, sharing, comforting, and helping even in situations where prosocial attitudes might be more difficult to adopt (e.g., Stephan and Finlay, 1999 ; Bodenhausen et al., 2009 ; Wang et al., 2014 ) 11 .

In addition to its social importance, empathy provides an individual with knowledge about the environment without having to actually experience it oneself; for example, seeing someone get burned when they touch a hot stove or get bruised when they fall on a pavement is informative enough to attach appraisals to those situational contexts without having to experience the pain oneself (De Vignemont and Singer, 2006 ). This characteristic of empathy resonates with the aesthetic distance conception of fiction above, explaining how art appreciation could be a “safe space” for understanding others' difficult or taxing emotional experiences.

If art appreciation indeed enhances other-understanding, it would be reasonable to expect that we would find evidence, at least in some contexts, that engaging with art, be it viewing visual art, reading literature, or listening to music, recruits mechanisms associated with cognitive and affective empathy. For example, there may be evidence demonstrating that the neural mechanisms implicated in affective or cognitive empathy during real social interactions are also engaged when “interacting” with visual art or with fictional characters. Furthermore, art appreciation should mirror findings within the social interaction literature, such that after art-appreciation-based manipulations, we may find increases in self-reported perceived similarity and closeness, and perhaps increased degree of prosocial behavior exhibited toward an individual. Finally, we should expect that repeated “practice” or engagement with arts would develop empathy, perhaps changing aspects of one's disposition, personality, and capacity to empathize in future situations. Below, we review empirical evidence in line with each of these predictions, with the aim of demonstrating the promise and possibilities of the shift to a social practice framework in neuroaesthetics.

Simulation, embodiment and arts-engagement: neural mechanisms

Some researchers within neuroaesthetics have begun to reconsider arts engagement as a fully embodied, enactive experience (e.g., Freedberg and Gallese, 2007 ; Nadal et al., 2012 ), with empirical evidence suggesting the involvement of neural processes related to both perspective-taking and affective empathy during art appreciation. One such model of the role of embodied responses to visual arts is presented by Freedberg and Gallese ( 2007 ). They suggest that embodied responses occurring during art appreciation are forms of cognitive and affective simulations and, as such, play a role in facilitating an understanding of both the representational content of an artwork and of the intentions of the artist. Freedberg and Gallese provide several examples demonstrating that viewers have physical, “felt” responses to visual representations, even if those representations are abstract. For instance, the authors speculate that viewing a painting like Caravaggio's Incredulity of Saint Thomas , in which a man is poking at someone else's wound, or experiencing Michelangelo's Prisoner's , in which the figures appear “trapped” in the material out of which they are sculpted, leads to embodied responses of physical pain in the beholder. Moreover, elements within a visual artwork that simply imply the gestures used by the artist (e.g., canvas cuts as in artist Lucio Fontana's work, or Jackson Pollock's drip paintings) can also strongly activate the motor cortex, and are thus felt by beholders as actions (Battaglia et al., 2011 ; Umilta et al., 2012 ).

More evidence for action simulation during art viewing is provided by Leder et al. ( 2012 ) who demonstrate that we covertly simulate actions produced by a visual artist while we engage with the work. That is, when viewing work by Georges Seurat, for example, we may covertly “stipple” our hands, whereas while viewing art by Vincent Van Gogh, we may covertly create broader strokes with our hands. Interestingly, when the researchers experimentally manipulated participants motions to either be explicitly aligned or misaligned with painting style, preference scores were affected. That is, participants in congruent groups (stippling while viewing works in the Pointillist tradition or stroking while viewing works with strong brushstrokes) reported liking the artworks more than those in incongruent groups suggesting that incongruent motions interfered with motor resonance (Leder et al., 2012 ). Researchers have similarly discussed the role of embodiment with respect to music as well as the literary arts. For instance, research has demonstrated that we develop embodied understanding of characters within a literary text (for comprehensive reviews see Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 ; Oatley, 2016 ). One such example is seen in Hsu et al. ( 2014 ) who demonstrate that immersion or “getting lost in” emotion-laden literary text—in their case, fear-inducing compared to neutral excerpts from the Harry Potter series—leads to increased activation of the medial cingulate cortex, a structure associated with affective empathy.

Together, this research suggests that engagement with visual art may prompt beholders to mentally simulate artists' actions, and to “feel” the actions and emotions depicted in a work. Although we do not mean to suggest that simulation alone implies social understanding, as is evidenced by the fact that even very young infants (or primates) imitate without a developed theory of mind (e.g., Heyes, 2001 for review) it seems to have clear social value . Thus, embodied responses (what some refer to as “feeling into” art) may prompt meaning-making and explicit reflection (e.g., Pelowski, 2015 ). Importantly however, the extent to which mirroring, simulation, and empathy affect art appreciation and even aesthetic evaluation remains understudied.

The neural processes that are implicated in embodied emotion and action simulation, namely a medial frontotemporal network involving recruitment of the bilateral anterior insula, the dorsal and middle anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), as well as a mirror-neuron system (MNS), are implicated in empathy and theory of mind, and are important for representing both our own and others' actions (e.g., Decety and Grèzes, 2006 ). For example, Wicker et al. ( 2003 ) show that overlapping areas of the ACC are activated when one is imagining, observing, and expressing a disgusted facial expression. Similarly, Morrison et al. ( 2004 ) showed overlapping activation in the anterior insula and ACC both when a person was in physical pain and when she was viewing someone else in pain 12 . These responses can be modulated by a variety of factors, including dispositional/trait empathy, relationship between empathizer and target, situational context, and emotional context (e.g., De Vignemont and Singer, 2006 ). For example, in one study, electromyography was used to demonstrate that people with high affective trait empathy were more likely to automatically imitate happy and angry pictures of faces during passive viewing than people with low affective trait empathy (Rymarczyk et al., 2016 ).

With respect to visual art, a recent study similarly showed that trait empathy correlated to both physiological (facial electromyography and skin conductance responses) and behavioral responses to art (valence, preference, interest) (Gernot et al., 2017 ). Specifically, they showed that individuals who are high in emotion contagion are more moved by, interested in, and enjoy visual art. These high emotion contagion individuals also reacted more strongly to emotion congruent aspects of the visual art (e.g., they smiled while engaging with positive valence work and frowned when engaging with negative valence works). Similar findings have been reported within music, in which individual differences in empathetic capacities relate to understanding and interpretation of emotional expressivity and intentionality in music (Wöllner, 2012 ; Baltes and Miu, 2014 ). In this way, the empirical evidence points to a role for empathy in synchronizing emotion-relevant perceptions and actions among individuals, perhaps for understanding others more effectively, a skill art engagement may facilitate.

Another important set of neural structures—specifically within a lateral frontotempoparietal network (relevant regions include: lateral and medial PFC, lateral and medial parietal cortex, and medial temporal lobe, temporoparietal junction, and posterior superior temporal sulcus)—have been shown to correlate with tasks related to cognitive empathy such as action observation, imitation, self-recognition, impersonal moral and social reasoning, reappraisal by focusing on physical events, and categorizing affect in facial expressions (e.g., Lieberman, 2007 ). There is also a connection between this network and the mirror neuron network discovered in primates. In primates, mirror neurons activate both when the primate performs a goal-directed action and when it observes the experimenter performing the same action (Gallese et al., 1996 ). In humans, homologous regions of cortex (premotor cortex, LPFC, LPAC, DMPFC) similarly respond both to action observation and to imitation (e.g., Carr et al., 2003 ). Along with the regions that are implicated in embodied emotion and action simulation described above, these structures may be target regions of interest for neuroaesthetics.

The evidence linking neural processes recruited during other-understanding to art appreciation as reviewed above is promising. Perhaps the mirror neuron system (and other neural processes related to mentalizing as reviewed above) play an important role in enabling an experiential understanding of the content of a visual artwork as well as some of the artist's intentions (Freedberg and Gallese, 2007 ). Though more research is crucial, the findings up to this point suggest that engaging with art involves processes relevant to the attribution of mental states to others (Steinbeis and Koelsch, 2009 ; Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 ), and this suggests that art appreciation is deeply connected to other-understanding.

(Pro)social effects of art appreciation

Based on the presented evidence, if cognitive and affective empathic processes are recruited during art appreciation, just as is observed for empathy manipulations, we should observe increases in measures such as self-reported perceived similarity, closeness, or degree of prosocial behavior exhibited toward an individual after arts-appreciation-based manipulations. Again, the literary arts are an example domain where research has been particularly comprehensive. The effect of reading literature, and more specifically, narrative fiction on empathy and other-understanding has recently received widespread attention (see Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 ; Oatley, 2016 for comprehensive reviews). For example, Kotovych et al. ( 2011 ), find that the “challengingness” of the text, operationalized as the complexity of characters and number of ambiguities in a text, helps readers better identify with, feel more connected to, and understand a character more deeply. One explanation for such an effect is that when a literary text leaves more information about the narrator's mental life implicit and ambiguous, readers may be more likely to draw from their own experiences, resulting in a seemingly stronger connection with and understanding for an individual.

Further, psychologists have demonstrated both correlational and causal effects of reading narrative on various measures of empathy. Measures of empathy in these cases include the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test,” which probes one's ability to discern another individual's thoughts from their eyes alone (RMET; Baron-Cohen et al., 2001 ), or the Yoni test, which asks participants to identify others' affective and cognitive states from facial expressions (Shamay-Tsoory and Aharon-Peretz, 2007 ). Researchers have demonstrated that individuals who spend more time reading literary or narrative fiction compared to non-fiction tend to score higher on such tests suggesting that extended “practice” reading narrative fiction may cultivate one's capacity for understanding others (e.g., Mar et al., 2006 ; Panero et al., 2016 ). And, a recent series of experiments by Kidd and Castano ( 2013 ) demonstrated that individuals who were tasked with reading a “literary” short story that is characterized by unconventional syntax, ambiguity, and semantic features scored higher on the RMET and Yoni tasks after the reading exercise compared to those who read a popular fiction or nonfiction short story. This finding demonstrates that even brief exposure to the arts might promote other-understanding.

Importantly, empathy-related processing during arts appreciation across domains (e.g., beyond just the literary arts) also seems to lead to increased prosocial behavior. For example, Sze et al. ( 2012 ) demonstrated that after watching film clips that induced empathetic concern, individuals tended to be more charitable. Interestingly, these prosocial effects were partially mediated by age such that older participants were more charitable than their younger counterparts. Although not directly related to film appreciation per se (as film in this case was merely a stimulus meant to elicit empathetic concern), it is suggestive both of the power of film and the cultivation of prosocial tendencies with art experience. Film's power to move the viewer in this way has also been associated with increased feelings of intergroup connectedness and understanding (Oliver et al., 2015 ). Likewise, some research suggests that chills induced by music lead to more altruistic behavior, though more research is needed to tease apart the influence of factors like mood (Fukui and Toyoshima, 2014 ). Taken together, these findings suggest the importance of a continuing research program on the (pro)social implications of arts engagement.

Although these effects seem promising, many of the claims about empathy cultivated through art appreciation are contested. For instance, some researchers have been unable to replicate the causal effects (most recently, Panero et al., 2016 ), noting, like Bullot and Reber ( 2013 ), that a brief encounter is typically “shallow” and is unlikely to have significant impacts on cognitive or affective empathy. This is not altogether surprising as measures like the RMET are likely relatively stable across time. And, even if it appears that art engagement increases state empathy—that is, empathic responses during the interaction—the single engagement may not cultivate empathy in the long term in real-life scenarios the way that researchers hope. It is not inconceivable that an individual connects to fictional characters described as in a particular situation, but would not connect to real people in that same situation 13 . Furthermore, it is theoretically unclear why individuals who read a story just once, or even those who are well-read, should be better attuned to discriminating facial expressivity per se . Rather, it might be that narrative fiction develops imaginative capacity. In fact, research by Johnson ( 2012 ) finds that reading fiction can actually lead to decreased perceptual accuracy in discriminating fearful emotions. Johnson speculates that such reduced discriminability is likely due to a bias in attributing emotions, particularly ones congruent with a prosocial behavior, to ambiguous expressions. Similarly, research attempting to quantify the effects of both brief and longer-term art encounters on empathy and patient outcomes for medical professionals is contested and still underdeveloped (e.g., Perry et al., 2011 ; Yang and Yang, 2013 ; Kelm et al., 2014 ). Finally, there is conflicting evidence on the extent to which thrills-like responses affect schemas and behavior. For instance, the physical chills response that some individuals report in response to music as well as to visual art and literature does not always seem to differentially affect prosocial behaviors or self concept, relative to artworks that do not elicit chills (Konecni et al., 2007 ). Thus, more empirical studies are needed to systematically address how art appreciation actually affects other-understanding.

We began this section by reviewing philosophical views that hold or imply that art appreciation is socio-epistemically valuable insofar as it cultivates other-understanding through processes like emotional sharing or imaginative understanding. Following these ideas, psychologists and neuroscientists have begun to empirically assess whether and how art appreciation deepens other-understanding. Empirical research has up to this point demonstrated that art appreciation engages similar psychological processes that are involved in social interaction, such as emotional resonance, mental state attribution, and cognitive perspective taking. Furthermore, we reviewed evidence that showed that increased “practice” appreciating the arts, arts-appreciation “interventions” (as in medical school curricula), and even “basic exposure” to the arts (as in Kidd and Castano, 2013 ) increased individual's capacities for other-understanding. Although it is promising, the empirical and philosophical research centered on the relationship between art appreciation and other-understanding is still limited in its scope, quantity, and specificity. Particularly important will be to develop robust (perhaps more longitudinal) methodologies that demonstrate the processes by which arts appreciation cultivates other-understanding as well as its relationship to self-understanding, leading a flourishing life, and other socio-epistemic skills.

Looking ahead

In this paper, we aimed to highlight how understanding the power of the arts in our lives requires going beyond the current aesthetics-focused conception of the outcomes of art appreciation. Rather than neuroaesthetics models which focus nearly exclusively on judgments of beauty, preference, or liking as the primary outcomes of art appreciation, we should set ourselves to better understanding the range of socio-epistemic outcomes of such engagement. Here, we have focused on self-understanding and other-understanding as such outcomes, but do not intend to limit the potential of this framework shift to just these outcomes. Rather, we aimed to provide evidence for the fruitfulness of neuroaesthetics adopting a more comprehensive approach to the outcomes of art appreciation that mirror the richer conceptions of art engagement found in philosophy, art history, and art criticism, which understand art as an embodied, enactive, social practice.

Importantly, such an approach does not discount prior empirical research, but refocuses its aim around socio-epistemic skills developed within arts practices. In thinking of the arts as social practices that people engage in, we can come to better understand how they serve a variety of social and cultural values. We hope this approach inspires empirical research to more fully investigate the specific ways in which the processes underlying art engagement cultivate socio-epistemically valuable skills. That is, how do specific emotional experiences lead to self-understanding? To other-understanding? And to other socio-epistemic values? How does engagement with different art forms relate to distinct socio-epistemic values? Does engagement with literary art, for example, more promote a particular set of values, compared to practiced engagement with the visual arts or music?

To answer these questions, researchers will need to go beyond the typical unitary measures of preference after a single exposure, and instead employ more longitudinal designs incorporating both state and trait based measures. Take for example a researcher interested in whether and how engaging with particular form of visual art (e.g., art depicting minority groups such as American Indians) may deepen ones cultural understanding and appreciation. To go beyond standard designs, one might consider (a) encouraging viewers to engage with each artwork for longer periods of time (e.g., at least 1 minute), (b) comparing lab findings to naturalistic settings (e.g., conducting experiments in both settings to determine generalizability of lab results) and (c) combining methodologies (e.g., eye tracking, physiology, EEG, subjective self-reports such as being moved, interest, emotional state, and written reflections). Possible individual difference measures that researchers may employ include tests that measure capacity for cognitive and affective empathy [e.g., the Empathy Quotient (EQ; Lawrence et al., 2004 ), the Interpersonal Reactivity index (IRI; Davis, 1980 ), or the questionnaire of affective and cognitive empathy (QCAE, Reniers et al., 2011 )], tests that measure state and dispositional aspects of self-awareness [e.g., the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS; Brown and Ryan, 2003 ), self concept clarity questionnaires, tolerance for uncertainty, Webster and Kruglanski, 1994 ], tests that measure emotion perception and regulation (e.g., the scale of subjective emotion experience (See; as in Pelowski et al., 2017 ), and subjective self reports relevant to one's art experience including art expertise, interest, reflections and insights. Furthermore, researchers may adopt experimental techniques from the mindfulness and meditation literature, which similarly aims to demonstrate the perceptual, cognitive, and emotional effects of mindfulness practices as compared simply to mindful states. Thus, we see our reframing as an exciting opportunity for researchers to be creative in designs (see Table ​ Table2 2 for examples of open questions).

Open questions.

Outstanding questions for investigating the psychological and neurobiological relationships between self-understanding, other-understanding, and art appreciation .

Further, this kind of “art as social practice” approach encourages scientists to view art engagement, generally, be it appreciating or creating, as a form of knowledge acquisition and production. Although we focused here on art appreciation, we believe our approach generalizes to art creation. Like art appreciation, art making involves practices which integrate embodied and “mental” activities so as to render the two inseparable. In fact, the philosophical and psychological research on creation and creativity recognizes and investigates such processes of creative practice associated with individual development more so than does the research on art appreciation.

Finally, we believe that focusing on the socio-epistemic skills cultivated through art engagement highlights the important role art plays in our lives, and the need to advocate for arts education programs. Through this kind of research program, we should come to better understand the arts as socially valuable. We suggest that empirical research can be used to show that engagement with art has social and personal value, rather than monetary or economic value, the cultivation of which is important to us as individuals, and as communities.

Author contributions

All authors listed have made substantial, direct, intellectual contributions to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Anjan Chatterjee, Simon Penny, Dylan Sabo, Sarah Ostendorf, Ainsley LeSure, Santiago Mejia, and the two reviewers for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this argument.

1 Recent arguments by influential researchers such as Pearce et al. ( 2016 ) suggest that neuroaesthetics is often concerned not with explaining art appreciation, but rather with understanding the aesthetic qualities of objects that include the arts. However, findings within the aesthetic sciences are often used to explain art appreciation, specifically (e.g., Pelowski et al., 2016 published a review article titled “Visualizing the Impact of Art: An Update and Comparison of Current Psychological Models of Art Experience” in which they do just that).

2 While it may be that the kinds of social practices we are talking about relate to “artworld” institutions, practices are logically independent of and prior to institutions (see MacIntyre, 1999 for the relationship between practices and institutions).

3 The kind of theoretical shift we recommend—toward understanding the arts as practices—is also related to Noë's ( 2015 ). There, he develops an account of the arts as organized activities , insofar as they are: (1) natural or primitive, (2) “arenas for the exercise of attention, looking, listening, doing, undergoing” (p. 6), (3) structured and organized in time, (4) emergent, and which (5) have a function and (6) are a source of pleasure for those who engage in them (pp. 4–5). This approach is similar to the social practice account in that it is interested in the role of the arts in structuring a well-functioning or flourishing human life. It differs on the strength of the emphasis placed on the embodied nature of the arts, and in the expressed biological and “natural” interpretation it gives to these practices through the notion of “organizing” that it employs.

4 See Stolnitz ( 1992 ) for discussion of the philosophical debate about aesthetic cognitivism, which is concerned with whether we can learn from or know through art appreciation.

5 In doing so we do not claim that these are the only valuable socio-epistemic skills developed by the social practices of the arts or arts appreciation. For example, the “Seven C's” identified by Koelsch ( 2014 ) (social contact, social cognition, co-pathy, communication, coordination of actions, cooperation, social cohesion) is a taxonomy of what the author refers to as social functions of music. Similarly, other researchers including Panksepp ( 2009 ) highlight the social importance of music evolutionarily, particularly in its capacity to evoke social emotions.

6 Another hypothesis about this focus on moral knowledge may come from the overlap in moral and hedonic processing, evidence for which may be found in Tsukiura and Cabeza ( 2010 ).

7 Kieran's argument draws on the rich discussion of moral understanding and art appreciation, especially that of Iris Murdoch and Martha Nussbaum. Iris Murdoch argued that engagement with and creation of art (especially painting and literature) hone moral perception by tuning the perceiver to the salient features of moral reality; the arts make one's moral perception more discriminating and discerning. That is to say, engagement with the arts develops one's ability to see the world as it truly is, making art “the most educational of all human activities.” (1970) In Love's Knowledge Nussbaum contends that moral imagination, necessary to good moral judgment (and seeing the world as it truly is), is similar to artistic imagination (1990). She explicitly links the type of fine-grained attention to detail and ability to “see” the world in morally complex and nuanced ways cultivated by arts appreciation with the development of self and other-understanding.

8 There is some disagreement among philosophers about what cognitive process best characterizes this emotional-engagement, theorists variably refer to identification, empathy, sympathy, and mental simulation (see Giovannelli, 2005 ).

9 Some researchers have gone so far as to speculate on the socio-cultural benefits of arts engagement in relation to other-understanding. In his book, The Better Angels of our Nature , Pinker ( 2012 ) speculates that a decrease in contemporary violence can be partially attributed to increased literary consumption, relying on the notion that perspective-taking is fundamental to reading literature and that it leads to increased empathy and other-understanding.

10 We gloss over here some of the nuances that distinguish each of these terms. For instance, theory of mind is most often discussed in a developmental context, in contrast to cognitive perspective-taking and cognitive empathy. However, for the most part, they refer to the same/a very similar process.

11 Heyes ( 2001 ) provides an analysis of theories and evidence describing the relationship between imitation, theory of mind, and social cognition. Heyes points out “although it is plausible that the experience of imitating and being imitated contributes to the development of theory of mind, there is not currently a well-supported theory specifying the nature of the contribution” (p. 260).

12 Additionally, Singer et al. ( 2006 ) demonstrated that the proposed neural networks subserving empathy indeed represent “true” empathizing with another person, rather than just imagining one's own emotional experience. They first engaged participants in a game in which confederates played either fairly or unfairly. They then showed the same participants videos of their fair and unfair partners experiencing pain, while simultaneously measuring participants neural activity. Interestingly, all participants empathized with fair players, but only female participants empathized with the pain felt by unfair players experienced. In contrast, males seemed to experience more joy (evidenced by activation of reward circuitry), indicating their seeming desire for revenge against unfair players.

13 Philip Sidney wrote a sonnet about just this point in the 1580s: http://www.bartleby.com/358/46.html

• Averill J. B., Clements P. T. (2007). Patterns of knowing as a foundation for action-sensitive pedagogy . Qual. Health Res. 17 , 386–399. 10.1177/1049732306298250 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baltes F. R., Miu A. C. (2014). Emotions during live music performance: links with individual differences in empathy, visual imagery, and mood . Psychomusicol. Music Mind Brain 24 :58 10.1037/pmu0000030 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baron-Cohen S., Wheelwright S., Hill J., Raste Y., Plumb I. (2001). The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” test revised version: a study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism . J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 42 , 241–251. 10.1111/1469-7610.00715 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Batson C. D. (2009). These things called empathy: eight related but distinct phenomena , in The Social Neuroscience of Empathy , eds Decety J., Ickes W. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; ), 3–15. [ Google Scholar ]
• Battaglia F., Lisanby S. H., Freedberg D. (2011). Corticomotor excitability during observation and imagination of a work of art . Front. Hum. Neurosci. 5 :79. 10.3389/fnhum.2011.00079 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Becker H. S. (1982). Art Worlds . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Berlyne D. E. (1971). Aesthetics and Psychobiology , Vol. 336. New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts. [ Google Scholar ]
• Berragan L. (1998). Nursing practice draws upon several different ways of knowing . J. Clin. Nurs. 7 , 209–217. 10.1046/j.1365-2702.1998.00146.x [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Blair R. J. R. (2005). Responding to the emotions of others: dissociating forms of empathy through the study of typical and psychiatric populations . Conscious. Cogn. 14 , 698–718. 10.1016/j.concog.2005.06.004 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Blood A. J., Zatorre R. J. (2001). Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion . Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98 , 11818–11823. 10.1073/pnas.191355898 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bloom P. (2017). Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion . New York, NY: Random House. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bodenhausen G. V., Todd A. R., Richeson J. A. (2009). Controlling prejudice and stereotyping: antecedents, mechanisms, and contexts , in Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination , ed Nelson T. D. (New York, NY: Psychology Press; ), 111–135. [ Google Scholar ]
• Brady D. W., Corbie-Smith G., Branch W. T. (2002). “What's important to you?”: the use of narratives to promote self-reflection and to understand the experiences of medical residents . Ann. Intern. Med. 137 , 220–223. 10.7326/0003-4819-137-3-200208060-00025 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Brattico E. (2015). From pleasure to liking and back: bottom-up and top-down neural routes to the aesthetic enjoyment of music , in Art, Aesthetics, and the Brain , eds Huston J. P., Nadal M., Mora F., Agnati L. F., Cela-Conde C. J. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press; ), 303–318. [ Google Scholar ]
• Brown K. W., Ryan R. M. (2003). The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being . J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 84 :822. 10.1037/0022-3514.84.4.822 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Brown S., Dissanayake E. (2009). The arts are more than aesthetics: neuroaesthetics as narrow aesthetics , in Neuroaesthetics , eds Skov M., Vartanian O. (New York, NY: Routledge; ), 43–57. [ Google Scholar ]
• Brown S., Gao X., Tisdelle L., Eickhoff S. B., Liotti M. (2011). Naturalizing aesthetics: brain areas for aesthetic appraisal across sensory modalities . Neuroimage 58 , 250–258. 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.06.012 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bullot N. J., Reber R. (2013). The artful mind meets art history: toward a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation . Behav. Brain Sci. 36 , 123–137. 10.1017/S0140525X12000489 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Carr L., Iacoboni M., Dubeau M. C., Mazziotta J. C., Lenzi G. L. (2003). Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: a relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas . Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 100 , 5497–5502. 10.1073/pnas.0935845100 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Carroll N. (1988). Art, practice, and narrative . Monist 71 , 140–156. 10.5840/monist198871212 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Carroll N. (1998). Art, narrative, and moral understanding , in Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection , ed Levinson J. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; ), 126–160. 10.1017/CBO9780511663888.005 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Carroll N. (2012). Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction . New York, NY: Routledge. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chatterjee A. (2004). Prospects for a cognitive neuroscience of visual aesthetics . Bull. Psychol. Arts 4 , 56–60. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chatterjee A., Vartanian O. (2014). Neuroaesthetics . Trends Cogn. Sci. 18 , 370–375. 10.1016/j.tics.2014.03.003 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cohen T. (1993). High and low thinking about high and low art . J. Aesthet. Art Criticism 51 , 151–156. 10.2307/431380 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cuypers K., Krokstad S., Holmen T. L., Knudtsen M. S., Bygren L. O., Holmen J. (2012). Patterns of receptive and creative cultural activities and their association with perceived health, anxiety, depression and satisfaction with life among adults: the HUNT study, Norway . J. Epidemiol. Commun. Health 66 , 698–703. 10.1136/jech.2010.113571 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Danto A. (1964). The artworld . J. Philos . 61 , 571–584. 10.2307/2022937 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Davis M. H. (1980). A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy . JSAS Catalog Select. Doc. Psychol. 10 :85. [ Google Scholar ]
• de Botton A., Armstrong J. (2013). Art as Therapy . New York, NY: Phaidon Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Decety J., Cowell J. M. (2015). Empathy, justice, and moral behavior . AJOB Neurosci. 6 , 3–14. 10.1080/21507740.2015.1047055 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Decety J., Grèzes J. (2006). The power of simulation: imagining one's own and other's behavior . Brain Res. 1079 , 4–14. 10.1016/j.brainres.2005.12.115 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• De Vignemont F., Singer T. (2006). The empathic brain: how, when and why? . Trends Cogn. Sci. 10 , 435–441. 10.1016/j.tics.2006.08.008 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dickie G. (1974). Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Di Dio C., Gallese V. (2009). Neuroaesthetics: a review . Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 19 , 682–687. 10.1016/j.conb.2009.09.001 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dissanayake E. (1990). What Is Art For? Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Eisenberg N., Fabes R. A. (1990). Empathy: conceptualization, measurement, and relation to prosocial behavior . Motiv. Emot. 14 , 131–149. 10.1007/BF00991640 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Eskine K. J., Kacinik N. A., Prinz J. J. (2012). Stirring images: Fear, not happiness or arousal, makes art more sublime . Emotion 12 :1071. 10.1037/a0027200 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Freedberg D., Gallese V. (2007). Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience . Trends Cogn. Sci. 11 , 197–203. 10.1016/j.tics.2007.02.003 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fukui H., Toyoshima K. (2014). Chill-inducing music enhances altruism in humans . Front. Psychol. 5 :1215. 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01215 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gallese V., Fadiga L., Fogassi L., Rizzolatti G. (1996). Action recognition in the premotor cortex . Brain 119 , 593–609. 10.1093/brain/119.2.593 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gell A. (1998). Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory . New York, NY: Clarendon Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gernot G., Pelowski M., Leder H. (2017). Empathy, Einfühlung, and aesthetic experience: the effect of emotion contagion on appreciation of representational and abstract art using fEMG and SCR . Cogn. Process. [Epub ahead of print]. 10.1007/s10339-017-0800-2 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gertler B. (2015). Self-knowledge. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . ed. Zalta E. N. Available online at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/self-knowledge [ Google Scholar ]
• Giovannelli A. (2005). In sympathy with narrative characters . J. Aesthetics Art Criticism 67 , 83–95. 10.1111/j.1540-6245.2008.01337.x [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Goldie P. (2008). Virtues in art and human well-being . Aristotelian Soc. Suppl. Vol. 82 , 179–195. 10.1111/j.1467-8349.2008.00168.x [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Graham D. J., Field D. J. (2008). Variations in intensity statistics for representational and abstract art, and for art from the Eastern and Western hemispheres . Perception 37 , 1341–1352. 10.1068/p5971 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hanich J., Wagner V., Shah M., Jacobsen T., Menninghaus W. (2014). Why we like to watch sad films: the pleasure of being moved in aesthetic experiences . Psychol. Aesthet. Creativity Arts 8 :130 10.1037/a0035690 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hare R. D. (1991). The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised . Toronto, ON: Multi-Health Systems. [ Google Scholar ]
• Harrington A. (2004). Art and Social Theory: Sociological Arguments in Aesthetics . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Heyes C. (2001). Causes and consequences of imitation . Trends Cogn. Sci. 5 , 253–261. 10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01661-2 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hsu C. T., Conrad M., Jacobs A. M. (2014). Fiction feelings in Harry Potter: haemodynamic response in the mid-cingulate cortex correlates with immersive reading experience . Neuroreport 25 , 1356–1361. 10.1097/WNR.0000000000000272 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ishizu T., Zeki S. (2011). Toward a brain-based theory of beauty . PLoS ONE 6 :e21852. 10.1371/journal.pone.0021852 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jacobsen T., Schubotz R. I., Höfel L., Cramon D. Y. V. (2006). Brain correlates of aesthetic judgment of beauty . Neuroimage 29 , 276–285. 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.07.010 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Johnson D. R. (2012). Transportation into a story increases empathy, prosocial behavior, and perceptual bias toward fearful expressions . Pers. Individ. Dif. 52 , 150–155. 10.1016/j.paid.2011.10.005 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kawabata H., Zeki S. (2004). Neural correlates of beauty . J. Neurophysiol. 91 , 1699–1705. 10.1152/jn.00696.2003 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kelm Z., Womer J., Walter J. K., Feudtner C. (2014). Interventions to cultivate physician empathy: a systematic review . BMC Med. Educ. 14 :219. 10.1186/1472-6920-14-219 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kidd D. C., Castano E. (2013). Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind . Science 342 , 377–380. 10.1126/science.1239918 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kieran M. (1996). Art, imagination, and the cultivation of morals . J. Aesthet. Art Criticism 54 , 337–351. 10.2307/431916 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kieran M. (2012). For love of art: artistic values and appreciative virtues . R. Inst. Philos. Suppl. 71 , 13–31. 10.1017/S1358246112000197 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Koelsch S. (2014). Brain correlates of music-evoked emotion . Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 15 , 170–180. 10.1038/nrn3666 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Konecni V. J., Wanic R. A., Brown A. (2007). Emotional and aesthetic antecedents and consequences of music-induced thrills . Am. J. Psychol. 120 , 619–643. 10.2307/20445428 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Koopman E. M. E., Hakemulder F. (2015). Effects of literature on empathy and self-reflection: a theoretical-empirical framework . J. Literary Theory 9 , 79–111. 10.1515/jlt-2015-0005 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kotovych M., Dixon P., Bortolussi M., Holden M. (2011). Textual determinants of a component of literary identification . Sci. Study Lit. 1 , 260–291. 10.1075/ssol.1.2.05kot [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lacey S., Hagtvedt H., Patrick V. M., Anderson A., Stilla R., Deshpande G., et al.. (2011). Art for reward's sake: visual art recruits the ventral striatum . Neuroimage 55 , 420–433. 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.11.027 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lasher M. D., Carroll J. M., Bever T. G. (1983). The cognitive basis of aesthetic experience . Leonardo 16 , 196–199. 10.2307/1574913 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lawrence E. J., Shaw P., Baker D., Baron-Cohen S., David A. S. (2004). Measuring empathy: reliability and validity of the empathy quotient . Psychol. Med. 34 , 911–920. 10.1017/S0033291703001624 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Leder H., Bär S., Topolinski S. (2012). Covert painting simulations influence aesthetic appreciation of artworks . Psychol. Sci. 23 , 1479–1481. 10.1177/0956797612452866 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Leder H., Belke B., Oeberst A., Augustin D. (2004). A model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments . Brit. J. Psychol. 95 , 489–508. 10.1348/0007126042369811 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Levinson J. (1979). Defining art historically . Brit. J. Aesthetics 19 , 232–250. 10.1093/bjaesthetics/19.3.232 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lieberman M. D. (2007). Social cognitive neuroscience: a review of core processes . Annu. Rev. Psychol. 58 , 259–289. 10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085654 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lopes D. M. (2005). Sight and Sensibility: Evaluating Pictures . New York, NY: Oxford University Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• MacIntyre A. (1984). After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd Edn . Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• MacIntyre A. (1999). Social structures and their threats to moral agency . Philosophy 74 , 311–329. 10.1017/S0031819199000431 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mar R. A., Oatley K., Hirsh J., dela Paz J., Peterson J. B. (2006). Bookworms versus nerds: exposure to fiction versus non-fiction, divergent associations with social ability, and the simulation of fictional social worlds . J. Res. Pers. 40 , 694–712. 10.1016/j.jrp.2005.08.002 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Martin M. W. (1985). Introduction , in Self-deception and Self-understanding: New Essays in Philosophy and Psychology , ed Martin M. W. (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press; ), 30–34. [ Google Scholar ]
• McManus I. C. (1980). The aesthetics of simple figures . Brit. J. Psychol. 71 , 505–524. 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1980.tb01763.x [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Menninghaus W., Wagner V., Hanich J., Wassiliwizky E., Jacobsen T., Koelsch S. (2017). The distancing–embracing model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception . Behav. Brain Sci. [Epub ahead of print]. 10.1017/S0140525X17000309 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Menninghaus W., Wagner V., Hanich J., Wassiliwizky E., Kuehnast M., Jacobsen T. (2015). Towards a psychological construct of being moved . PLoS ONE 10 :e0128451. 10.1371/journal.pone.0128451 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Morrison I., Lloyd D., Di Pellegrino G., Roberts N. (2004). Vicarious responses to pain in anterior cingulate cortex: Is empathy a multisensory issue? . Cogn. Affect. Behav. Neurosci. 4 , 270–278. 10.3758/CABN.4.2.270 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Murdoch I. (1970). The Sovereignty of Good . New York, NY: Routledge. [ Google Scholar ]
• Nadal M., Flexas A., Gálvez Á., Cela-Conde C. J. (2012). Neuroaesthetics: themes from the past, current issues, and challenges for the future . Rendiconti Lincei 23 , 247–258. 10.1007/s12210-012-0185-1 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Noë A. (2015). Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature . New York, NY: Hill and Wang. [ Google Scholar ]
• Northoff G., Bermpohl F. (2004). Cortical midline structures and the self . Trends Cogn. Sci. 8 , 102–107. 10.1016/j.tics.2004.01.004 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Northoff G., Heinzel A., De Greck M., Bermpohl F., Dobrowolny H., Panksepp J. (2006). Self-referential processing in our brain—a meta-analysis of imaging studies on the self . Neuroimage 31 , 440–457. 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.12.002 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Novack D., Suchman A. L., Clark W., Epstein R. M., Najberg E., Kaplan C., et al.. (1997). Calibrating the physician: personal awareness and effective patient care . J. Am. Med. Assoc. 278 , 502–509. 10.1001/jama.1997.03550060078040 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nussbaum M. (1990). Love's Knowledge . New York, NY: Oxford University Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Oatley K. (1999). Why fiction may be twice as true as fact: fiction as cognitive and emotional simulation . Rev. Gen. Psychol. 3 :101 10.1037/1089-2680.3.2.101 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Oatley K. (2016). Fiction: simulation of social worlds . Trends Cogn. Sci. 20 , 618–628. 10.1016/j.tics.2016.06.002 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Oliver M. B., Kim K., Hoewe J., Chung M. Y., Ash E., Woolley J. K., et al. (2015). Media-induced elevation as a means of enhancing feelings of intergroup connectedness . J. Social Issues 71 , 106–122. 10.1111/josi.12099 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Panero M. E., Weisberg D. S., Black J., Goldstein T. R., Barnes J. L., Brownell H., et al.. (2016). Does reading a single passage of literary fiction really improve theory of mind? An attempt at replication . J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 111 :e46. 10.1037/pspa0000064 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Panksepp J. (2009). The emotional antecedents to the evolution of music and language . Musicae Scientiae 13 ( 2 Suppl. ), 229–259. 10.1177/1029864909013002111 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pearce M. T., Zaidel D. W., Vartanian O., Skov M., Leder H., Chatterjee A., et al.. (2016). Neuroaesthetics: the cognitive neuroscience of aesthetic experience . Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 11 , 265–279. 10.1177/1745691615621274 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pelowski M. (2015). Tears and transformation: feeling like crying as an indicator of insightful or “aesthetic” experience with art . Front. Psychol. 6 :1006 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01006 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pelowski M., Akiba F. (2011). A model of art perception, evaluation and emotion in transformative aesthetic experience . New Ideas Psychol. 29 , 80–97. 10.1016/j.newideapsych.2010.04.001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pelowski M., Markey P. S., Forster M., Gerger G., Leder H. (2017). Move me, astonish me… delight my eyes and brain: the Vienna Integrated Model of top–down and bottom–up processes in Art Perception (VIMAP) and corresponding affective, evaluative, and neurophysiological correlates . Phys. Life Rev . 21 , 80–125. 10.1016/j.plrev.2017.02.003 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pelowski M., Markey P. S., Lauring J. O., Leder H. (2016). Visualizing the impact of art: an update and comparison of current psychological models of art experience . Front. Hum. Neurosci. 10 :160. 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00160 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Perry M., Maffulli N., Willson S., Morrissey D. (2011). The effectiveness of arts-based interventions in medical education: a literature review . Med. Educ. 45 , 141–148. 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2010.03848.x [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pinker S. (2012). The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined . New York, NY: Penguin Books. [ Google Scholar ]
• Reber R., Schwarz N., Winkielman P. (2004). Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: is beauty in the perceiver's processing experience? Pers. Soc. Psychol. Rev. 8 , 364–382. 10.1207/s15327957pspr0804_3 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Reniers R. L., Corcoran R., Drake R., Shryane N. M., Völlm B. A. (2011). The QCAE: a questionnaire of cognitive and affective empathy . J. Pers. Assess. 93 , 84–95. 10.1080/00223891.2010.528484 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rentfrow P. J., Gosling S. D. (2003). The do re mi's of everyday life: the structure and personality correlates of music preferences . J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 84 :1236. 10.1037/0022-3514.84.6.1236 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Robinson J. (2005). Deeper Than Reason: Emotion and Its Role in Literature, Music, and Art . New York, NY: Oxford University Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rodenhauser P., Strickland M. A., Gambala C. T. (2004). Arts-related activities across US medical schools: a follow-up study . Teach. Learn. Med. 16 , 233–239. 10.1207/s15328015tlm1603_2 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rymarczyk K., Zurawski L., Jankowiak-Siuda K., Szatkowska I. (2016). Emotional empathy and facial mimicry for static and dynamic facial expressions of fear and disgust . Front. Psychol. 7 :1853. 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01853 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schloss K. B., Palmer S. E. (2011). Aesthetic response to color combinations: preference, harmony, and similarity . Attent. Percept. Psychophys. 73 , 551–571. 10.3758/s13414-010-0027-0 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shamay-Tsoory S. G., Aharon-Peretz J. (2007). Dissociable prefrontal networks for cognitive and affective theory of mind: a lesion study . Neuropsychologia 45 , 3054–3067. 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.05.021 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shapiro J., Coulehan J., Wear D., Montello M. (2009). Medical humanities and their discontents: definitions, critiques, and implications . Acad. Med. 84 , 192–198. 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181938bca [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sherman A., Grabowecky M., Suzuki S. (2015). In the working memory of the beholder: art appreciation is enhanced when visual complexity is compatible with working memory . J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 41 , 898–903. 10.1037/a0039314 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shortess G. K., Clarke C. J., Richter M. L., Seay M. (2000). Abstract or realistic? Prototypicality of paintings . Visual Arts Res. 26 , 70–79. [ Google Scholar ]
• Silvia P. J. (2006). Artistic training and interest in visual art: Applying the appraisal model of aesthetic emotions . Empirical Studies Arts 24 , 139–161. 10.2190/DX8K-6WEA-6WPA-FM84 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Singer T., Seymour B., O'doherty J. P., Stephan K. E., Dolan R. J., Frith C. D. (2006). Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others . Nature 439 , 466–469. 10.1038/nature04271 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sloboda J. A., O'Neill S. A., Ivaldi A. (2001). Functions of music in everyday life: an exploratory study using the Experience Sampling Method . Musicae Scientiae 5 , 9–32. 10.1177/102986490100500102 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Steinbeis N., Koelsch S. (2009). Understanding the intentions behind man-made products elicits neural activity in areas dedicated to mental state attribution . Cereb. Cortex 19 , 619–623. 10.1093/cercor/bhn110 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Stephan W. G., Finlay K. (1999). The role of empathy in improving intergroup relations . J. Soc. Issues 55 , 729–743. 10.1111/0022-4537.00144 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Stolnitz J. (1992). On the cognitive triviality of the arts . Brit. J. Aesthetics 32 , 191–200. 10.1093/bjaesthetics/32.3.191 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sze J. A., Gyurak A., Goodkind M. S., Levenson R. W. (2012). Greater emotional empathy and prosocial behavior in late life . Emotion 12 :1129. 10.1037/a0025011 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Taylor R. P., Micolich A. P., Jonas D. (1999). Fractal analysis of Pollock's drip paintings . Nature 399 :422 10.1038/20833 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tolstoy L. (1899). What is art? in What is Art and Essays on Art , eds Maude L., Maude A. (New York, NY: Crowell; ). [ Google Scholar ]
• Tsukiura T., Cabeza R. (2010). Shared brain activity for aesthetic and moral judgments: implications for the Beauty-is-Good stereotype . Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 6 , 138–148. 10.1093/scan/nsq025 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Umilta M. A., Berchio C., Sestito M., Freedberg D., Gallese V. (2012). Abstract art and cortical motor activation: an EEG study . Front. Hum. Neurosci. 6 :311. 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00311 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Vartanian O., Goel V. (2004). Neuroanatomical correlates of aesthetic preference for paintings . Neuroreport 15 , 893–897. 10.1097/00001756-200404090-00032 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Vartanian O., Skov M. (2014). Neural correlates of viewing paintings: evidence from a quantitative meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data . Brain Cogn. 87 , 52–56. 10.1016/j.bandc.2014.03.004 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Vessel E. A., Starr G. G., Rubin N. (2012). The brain on art: intense aesthetic experience activates the default mode network . Front. Hum. Neurosci. 6 :66. 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00066 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Vessel E. A., Starr G. G., Rubin N. (2013). Art reaches within: aesthetic experience, the self and the default mode network . Front. Neurosci. 7 :258. 10.3389/fnins.2013.00258 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang C. S., Kenneth T., Ku G., Galinsky A. D. (2014). Perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in intergroup contact . PLoS ONE 9 :e85681. 10.1371/journal.pone.0085681 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wassiliwizky E., Jacobsen T., Heinrich J., Schneiderbauer M., Menninghaus W. (2017a). Tears falling on goosebumps: Co-occurrence of emotional lacrimation and emotional piloerection indicates a psychophysiological climax in emotional arousal . Front. Psychol. 8 :41. 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00041 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wassiliwizky E., Koelsch S., Wagner V., Jacobsen T., Menninghaus W. (2017b). The emotional power of poetry: neural circuitry, psychophysiology and compositional principles . Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. [Epub ahead of print]. 10.1093/scan/nsx069 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wassiliwizky E., Wagner V., Jacobsen T., Menninghaus W. (2015). Art-elicited chills indicate states of being moved . Psychol. Aesthet. Creat. Arts 9 :405 10.1037/aca0000023 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Webster D. M., Kruglanski A. W. (1994). Individual differences in need for cognitive closure . J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 67 :1049. 10.1037/0022-3514.67.6.1049 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wicker B., Keysers C., Plailly J., Royet J. P., Gallese V., Rizzolatti G. (2003). Both of us disgusted in my insula: the common neural basis of seeing and feeling disgust . Neuron 40 , 655–664. 10.1016/S0896-6273(03)00679-2 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Winston A. S., Cupchik G. C. (1992). The evaluation of high art and popular art by naive and experienced viewers . Visual Arts Res. 18 , 1–14. [ Google Scholar ]
• Winterson J. (2006). Liza Lou . Available online at: http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/journalism/liza-lou/
• Wöllner C. (2012). Is empathy related to the perception of emotional expression in music? A multimodal time-series analysis . Psychol. Aesthet. Creat. Arts 6 :214 10.1037/a0027392 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wolterstorff N. (2015). Art Rethought: The Social Practices of Art . New York, NY: Oxford University Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Yang K. T., Yang J. H. (2013). A study of the effect of a visual arts-based program on the scores of Jefferson scale for physician empathy . BMC Med. Educ. 13 :142. 10.1186/1472-6920-13-142 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]