At first glance, the premise of neuroaesthetics seems bizarre: Scientists are … See more

When Hubel and Wiesel were still in diapers, Dutch artist Piet Mondrian was painting works in an attempt to show, as he put it, that every visual form is ultimately reducible t… See more

Artists have learned to exploit other features of the visual system, too. The brain is an evolved machine, subject to all sorts of biological constraints. All of our color perception… See more

While much of neuroaesthetics focuses on the most elemental aspects of vision—the sensations detected by the retina and visual cortex—the field is also trying to explain art t… See more

If Playboy and Picasso can be explained by the same principle, is neuroaesthetics really dealing with art? Or is it just revealing the perceptual machinery activated by any complex vi… See more