Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross’s Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us is one of those books that makes you rethink the whole business of art. Not just the kind that gets locked up in museums with schoolchildren being frogmarched past it, but the everyday stuff, singing badly in the car, doodling during a dull meeting, sticking on a playlist when the day’s gone sideways. It’s a great read but it does have some issues, however, it’s great to have some scientistific batting for art being essential.
Here are my compliments and what I think it missed.
The book introduces us to neuroaesthetics, which sounds like something you’d pay too much for at a Mayfair clinic, but is in fact the science of how art is intrinsic to your brain and body. Their central claim? We’re hard-wired for art. Not wired for tax returns, not wired for spreadsheets but wired for colour, rhythm, drama and doodling.
The Science Bit
Over the last twenty years, boffins have shoved people into brain scanners and discovered that art literally rewires the brain. This is thanks to neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to keep reinventing itself like Madonna, only with fewer sequins. And art, according to Magsamen and Ross, is one of the fastest ways to make that happen.
And the stats back this up…
45 minutes of making art lowers cortisol (stress hormone) in 75% of people. Yes, even if you can’t draw more than a stick man.
One art experience a month might add ten years to your life. Ten. Years. Which means that visiting the Tate Modern could be more effective than Pilates.
Elsewhere we learn that music sharpens the mind, tuning forks can calm you down (a first for tuning forks, usually only seen in school science cupboards), and that some doctors are now handing out prescriptions for museum visits. Imagine rocking up to your GP: “I’m feeling a bit low.” “Right then, two galleries and a matinee at the National. Call me in the morning.”
The Aesthetic Triad
They also explore something called the aesthetic triad, three brain systems that explain why art gets under our skin. There’s the bit that takes in the sensory stuff, the bit that rewards us with a chemical pat on the back, and the bit that drags in all our cultural baggage. In short, art feels good, makes sense of life, and leaves us wondering why we ever bothered with Sudoku. Imagine making art while making love. Wow.
When It Works
The book shines brightest when it gets personal: dementia patients perking up at old songs, hospitals designed with sound and colour that help people heal faster, art therapy tackling PTSD. Suddenly, art isn’t just “decoration for rich people’s walls” it’s frontline medicine.
But…
Of course, it’s not perfect. The science can feel a bit thin in places, with more tear-jerking anecdotes than double-blind studies. And the scope is so wide that some topics get skimmed faster than the culture section in the Daily Mail.
The other main issues I have with it are that like many who seek scientific support in explaining things, they barely touch on the cultural aspects and that that’s re so wrapped up the why is it Ade that they fail to realise how unimportant it makes it all except as part of an engine, there no joy anywhere in this and the cultural aspects are glossed over. Designers talking about art often miss this because they’re stylists. Scientists miss it because it’s the how that they want to know. They call every raining art and make no distinction between that and Art.
In explaining everything through the how, they exorcise the joy and magic like explaining magicians’ tricks.
The Final Word
Quibbles aside, Your Brain on Art lands its punch. It argues, persuasively and with a good dollop of research, that art isn’t a luxury. It’s as essential as sleep, food, or your morning cuppa. If you’ve ever needed ammunition for why arts funding should matter (or simply a decent excuse for your pottery class), this book delivers.
It’s uplifting, it’s slightly evangelical, and it might just make you treat your doodles, playlists and theatre trips as what they really are: not distractions, but lifelines.
Would I buy it again? Yes, it’s a great read.