Viewing art is good for us, but new research may now tell us why — and that therapeutic uses may be better than previously ...

These paintings are both by the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian but display strikingly different styles. The house on the left is ...

When we view art, the flow of visual information goes from the eye to a part of the brain known as the visual cortex. That's where the visual information is first processed.

Researchers at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute found that people’s brain activity varied more when viewing abstract art, as compared with representational art. This was especially true in the default ...

04/08/2025 April 8, 2025. Researchers studying people's brain activity when looking at abstract art have revealed why we interpret blobs of paint on canvas so differently.

This is because this area is more involved in the recognition of objects, showing that the brain processes representational and abstract art quite differently. To play this video you need to ...

A book that explains the way looking at art affects your brain. ... “What we think of as representational art is pretty abstract as it’s on a flat surface,” he went on to say.

First, participants viewed 70 abstract paintings and sketches and 80 representational (realistic) paintings and photographs and rated how much they liked each one.

It was my road-to-Damascus moment – the first time a piece of abstract art had stirred my emotions. Like many people, I used to dismiss these works as a waste of time and energy.

As neuroscientists delve deeper into the mysteries of the human mind one area of study that continues to receive greater attention is the brain’s relationship to art. The University of Toronto ...