Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Art makes us feel like we’re in love

In a recent study, Semir Zeki, Professor of Neuroaesthetics at the University College of London has shown that artwork stimulates the same centers of the brain that are active when we fall in love.



His research has shown that looking at an inspiring painting activates reward centers and releases the “feel-good” neurotransmitter dopamine.

Previously on GJ: Neuroaesthetics, with Semir Zeki interview
Professor Zeki's Blog
Zeki's book: Splendors and Miseries of the Brain: Love, Creativity, and the Quest for Human Happiness

8 comments:

  1. I love you. eye LUB U! i LOVE you man! Oh, wait, nooooo ... it's the art that I love.

    Okay, you knew posting this that some smart alek would come up with the lame blog comment?! Right?! Yeah, you did.

    So, as I'm the first to post a comment then the honour goes to me. (I added the 'u' to honor, to go along with that Brit accent from the footage ... raised in K.L., Malaysia at a Brit school ... so I can legitimately use it?!)

    I love your blog, I love that you share so many ideas ... did you post about the Hudson River contest? If so, then you are responsible for getting me to get my man to enter said competition. Will he win? Hmmmmmm, undetermined as of yet.

    I would love it if you would now be feeling the LOVE and rush to see what my art blog looks like because you have nothing better to do with your time than to humor me. Okay, I know that it's a pipe dream.

    LOVE MEETS ITSELF AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN. ~gangaji, a really cool spiritual personage ...

    Jan Olander
    www.ivegottadraw.blogspot.com
    www.playfulside.blogspot.com*
    www.shelflife.blogspot.com

    *in hiatus, because my ego was suffering. true, sad, but true.

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  2. The beautiful is that which is desirable in itself. (Aristotle)
    __________________

    « Aristotle famously rejected Plato’s theory of forms, which states that properties such as beauty are abstract universal entities that exist independent of the objects themselves. Instead, he argued that forms are intrinsic to the objects and cannot exist apart from them, and so must be studied in relation to them. However, in discussing art, Aristotle seems to reject this, and instead argues for idealized universal form which artists attempt to capture in their work.
    [...]
    Painting must not be studied merely to prevent people from being cheated in pictures, but to make them attend to physical beauty. »

    by:
    http://www.iep.utm.edu/aristotl/


    P.S. very good blog, because of beauty :)

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  3. I certainly agree with the video although not from a neurological point of view, I'm in no position to verify that. However, I find art the "happiest" activity - making art even more than looking at it. Not as if my stuff was that great but I think it comes with the added bonus of creating something, which always feels great.
    As for the National Art Pass, thanks for the reminder, I'll get one tomorrow: for £35 you get into some galleries that are otherwise paying (most of our museums are free anyway) but what's even better, you get to see special exhibitions in places such as Tate half price. Definitely worth it!

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  4. As I understand (Harvey) Dunn, it is necessary to have a feeling aside from just the drawing, the color, etc. In you picture. You might call it the picture’s life force. This Life Force does not have to be definitely of the character of the subject of the picture. In fact, the force has no definite character. Dunn has described this force of feeling toward your picture as love. If you have this feeling it surges through your brush on your canvas without effect on your part.

    ~George Wright class notes 1924-25

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  5. What does this mean for artist who are creating art on a day to day biases? Is this why i stay at work so long?

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  6. I never thought of that, I just...felt it. Thank you for making it understandable, by putting it into words.

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  7. As I understand it, every enjoyable activity releases dopamine. That art viewing art causes a dopamine release is remarkably unsurprising.

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  8. This is your Brain. This is your Brain on Art? -RQ

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