Art, Psychology, and Neuroaesthetics: Appreciate Art for Health and Well-Being

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Introduction

Have you ever noticed coming out of a museum, maybe having seen a Vincent van Gogh painting or one by Claude Monet, and being in a splendid mood? Or putting up that new wall piece art by Egon Schiele in your home and the entire room feels so much more comfortable? Did scribbling on a random piece of paper while you are on a phone give you some kind of satisfaction? These situations could point to relatively new findings of art psychology and neuroaesthetics showing that positive emotional output elicited from aesthetic experience directly affects a person’s mood and therefore indirectly promotes health and well-being.

The Framework

The general framework of the still very new scientific field of neuroaesthetics as well as of art psychology and science aesthetics evolves around the question of how to deconstruct what an aesthetic experience might be and how to construct experiments in thinking about this question. The basic idea is that one takes into consideration the design of our sensory and motor systems, but the question remains of how this constrains and informs our aesthetic experience and what the role of emotion and valuation is. Often reward systems are seen to be important but how does that inform or flavour our aesthetic experiences and what is the role of knowledge and meaning?

The emerging discipline of neuroaesthetics involves cognitive neuroscience concerned with understanding the biological impact of aesthetic experiences. It draws from many traditional areas of cognitive neuroscience including the science of aesthetic, emotion, semantics, attention, perception, and decision making. Such experiences involve evaluations of artifacts and environments. The science of aesthetic and art-related encounters are ubiquitous in everyday life, and the exploration of their biological implications can widen our understanding of human behaviour and shed light on health-related questions. Studies show that aesthetic experiences emerge from the interaction between sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and meaning-knowledge neural systems.

Art to Improve Health

Numerous empirical studies in the field of art psychology since the beginning of the 21st century suggest that aesthetic experiences related to art – all forms such as painting, music, and theatre included – can improve a person’s health (see sources below). However, how aesthetic appreciation and interaction directly affects our emotional as well as cognitive states to promote both the health of mind and body is still not universally proven. Yet many studies indicate, that exposing oneself to art may significantly change our mood and reduce stress levels. Studies conducted in people visiting museums and art galleries – both with figurative and abstract artAbstract artworks diverge from depicting recognizable scenes or objects and instead use colors, forms, and lines to create compositions that exist independently of visual references from the natural world. This movement, which gained momentum in the early 20th century, was propelled by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich. These artists aimed to explore spiritual, emotional, and More – showed that the memory among those people improved significantly, that stress levels decreased, and social inclusion ameliorated.

A study with people with dementia who visited art galleries showed, that the individual well-being was promoted, social interaction improved, and cognitive enhancement was achieved. Using art therapy among groups of vulnerable people, among them adolescents, elderly, and people with mental disorders, proved to be an effective therapeutic tool to promote psychological and physical well-being.

Art to Enhance Learning and Boost Dopamine

Using an art-based pedagogy with the integration of an art form such as theatre, visual art, painting, and music, showed to enhance the learning processes in studies involving healthcare education. By using art as a teaching method, the student’s interpersonal relationships, empathy, nonverbal communication, and observational skills improved decisively. The knowledge of art psychology and neuroaesthetics is applied in a variety of settings. Apart from primary and high schools, the concept is the basis for art therapy in mental health clinics and psychotherapy. Studies in such clinics have led to the discovery that painting allows the release of dopamine, the hormone that provides the feeling of reward, and of endorphins, hormones that contribute to the feeling of well-being. Once a patient finished a piece of art, it provided a feeling of happiness due to the release of oxytocin. The overall benefits included the release of stress and anxiety, psychological well-being, the development of social skills, as well as behaviour control.

Negative Art for Positive Feelings

And finally, neuroimaging studies highlighted those direct emotional responses to artwork are associated with recruitment of brain circuitry involved in pleasure, reward, and the regulation of emotion. Further experiments in the field of art psychology and neuroaesthetics show that people report being strongly engaged by art with content that could be considered negative.

klimt-judith-and-the-head-of-holofernes-cut — Gustav Klimt, Judith and the Head of Holofernes

The experience of feeling moved would then combine the negative affect with an equal level of positive affect. This implies that we can allow ourselves to be moved by tragedy in art because it is distant from us, clearly considering it as a fictional world of virtual reality. The horror of Edvard Munch’s scream, the black colour fields by Mark Rothko which have been read as suicide notes, and the terrifying scene of Judith with the decapitated head of Holofernes in Gustav Klimt’s masterpiece, all could give us a feeling of enlightenment. The experience of being moved by such works is not only pleasurable but can also be highly meaningful since we reflect on the nature of our feelings.

Mark Rothko, Black on Gray (1969-70) — Mark Rothko, Black on Gray

What Still Needs to be Done

There is still a lot we don’t know about the impact of aesthetics, the arts, the beauty of the brain, and how they relate empathy in the context of the psychology of art and neuroaesthetics. For example, does looking at masterpiece paintings have the same effect as watching a drama on stage? In how far can such experiences change people’s behaviours and emphatic abilities? Even if there is already extensive proof about the benefits of aesthetic experiences, such questions still cry out for further research into the fascinating world of neuroaesthetics.