Templeton Religion Trust
What if what we get from art is more than what we see?
What if art measurably changes us?
What if science can help reveal art’s value?
What is it about art, anyway?
Why do so many people seek it out, even plan trips around it? Why do major cities throughout the world all have at least one art museum? And why are places of worship so often architectural masterpieces that house extraordinary art?
You don’t need to spend much time talking with people about their encounters with great works of art to realize that the experience seems to be about more than pleasure. What’s gained often seems to be something otherwise hidden that’s waiting there for us – something behind, within, or beyond the surfaces we see or the notes we hear. Once revealed, the effects can be intense, profound, and transporting.
At least that’s what many people say – or struggle to say as they search for words to describe their experiences with art.
Over time, philosophical reckonings of such encounters have given rise to an idea known as aesthetic cognitivism. It asserts that engaging with art can stimulate new knowledge and advance understanding.
But is this intuitively appealing claim really true? Can it be demonstrated?
“People often recount intense, even spiritual or life-altering engagements with art. But such personal anecdotes are rarely, if ever, supported by quantifiable data or reproducible conditions – mainstays of the scientific investigation of any human experience,” notes Anjan Chatterjee, Ph.D., professor of neurology and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.
As director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, he’s among a small group in an emerging field. As scientists, they’re trying to learn more about the impact of art by characterizing the biological basis for aesthetic experiences.
After completing a pilot study, he has new funding from Templeton Religion Trust to take his work further. The goal of his current project is to determine the conditions in which art might promote the kind of understanding that aesthetic cognitivism claims can occur. Specifically, in a series of experiments, he and his team are examining behavior, neural responses, and individual differences among research participants as they experience art. To do this, they’ve developed a toolkit of science-based resources and methods.
The outcome of this research could be foundational for uncovering the transformational impact of the arts.
According to Chatterjee, aesthetic experience emerges from interactions of a triad of neural systems: sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and meaning-semantic.
“In the context of visual art, the sensory-motor system is attuned to salient visual properties of an artwork such as color, form, brushstroke, and texture, and the impression of motion,” he explains. “The emotion-valuation system mediates how an artwork makes us feel. Do we like it? Are we moved by it? Do we desire to stay engaged with it? The meaning-semantic system is engaged when we draw on our pre-existing knowledge of an artwork, or when it takes on new meaning or personal relevance.
“Most relevant to the proposition that art serves as a vehicle for understanding,” he continues, “is the link between meaning-semantic and emotion-valuation systems. An emotionally impactful engagement, we reason, may be a necessary precondition for new understanding and insight.”
Chatterjee’s earlier project involved developing a taxonomy — a vocabulary of words that capture people’s varied experiences with art. Based on the inputs of a diverse group of scholars and nearly 900 laypersons, after extensive analysis the team landed on a set of words that are inclusive of 11 key dimensions of the arts experience:
“Our taxonomy capitalizes on language to offer a window into a viewer’s inner experience when looking at art,” Chatterjee explains. “It allows us to address foundational questions about the conditions in which art can promote understanding and have a transformative effect.”
The first step in the current project has been to generate a companion resource to the taxonomy: a library of diverse images of artworks. Identified by a multidisciplinary team of experts and drawn from multiple historical and cultural contexts, paired with the taxonomy it creates a toolkit for researchers’ use.
Using controlled-conditions experiments, surveys, and magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activity, Chatterjee’s team is now applying its tools to investigate some fundamental questions related to aesthetic cognitivism:
Chatterjee hopes the scientific validation gained through research like this can help the arts survive and thrive, especially now as funding is increasingly cut.
“A theoretically grounded, multimethod research approach has the capacity to add rigorous and persuasive evidence in support of the value of the arts,” he maintains. “The findings of this line of research will facilitate conditions in which art is likely to promote beneficial outcomes such as understanding, insight, and personal growth. This promise could guide public policy, educational programs, and community and institutional outreach to maximize engagement with art and promote its transformational qualities.”
