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Brain, Beauty, & Art
 Brain, Beauty, & Art
Essays Bringing Neuroaesthetics into Focus
Edited by
A N JA N C HAT T E R J E E A N D E I L E E N R . C A R D I L L O

1
 3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chatterjee, Anjan, editor. | Cardillo, Eileen R., editor.
Title: Brain, beauty, & art : essays bringing neuroaesthetics into focus /
Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo (editors).
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021032376 (print) | LCCN 2021032377 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197513620 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197513644 (epub) |
ISBN 9780197513651 (digital online)
Subjects: LCSH: Aesthetics—Psychological aspects. |
Arts—Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC BH301.P 78 B73 2022 (print) |
LCC BH301.P 78 (ebook) | DDC 111/.85—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021032376
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021032377

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197513620.001.0001

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
 Contents

Prologue: Where Have We Been, and Where Are We Now?  xi

Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo
Contributors  xvii

SE C T IO N I F R A M EWO R K S
1. An Early Framework for a Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual
Aesthetics  3
Anjan Chatterjee
2. Bringing It All Together: Neurological and Neuroimaging
Evidence of the Neural Underpinnings of Visual Aesthetics  8
Marcos Nadal and Camilo J. Cela-​Conde
3. But, What Actually Happens When We Engage with “Art”?  13
Matthew Pelowski and Helmut Leder
4. Naturalizing Aesthetics  18
Steven Brown
5. Moving Toward Emotions in the Aesthetic Experience  22
Cinzia Di Dio and Vittorio Gallese
6. The Aesthetic Triad  27
Oshin Vartanian and Anjan Chatterjee
7. How Neuroimaging Is Transforming Our Understanding of
Aesthetic Taste  31
Martin Skov
8. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Aesthetic Experience  36
Marcos Nadal and Marcus Pearce

SE C T IO N I I B E AU T Y
9. Facial Beauty and the Medial Orbitofrontal Cortex  43
John P. O’Doherty and Raymond J. Dolan
vi Contents

10. Beautiful People in the Brain of the Beholder  48

Anjan Chatterjee
11. The Mark of Villainy: The Connection Between Appearance
and Perceived Morality  52
Franziska Hartung
12. A Quest for Beauty  56
Thomas Jacobsen
13. Scene Preferences, Aesthetic Appeal, and Curiosity: Revisiting
the Neurobiology of the Infovore  61
Edward A. Vessel, Xiaomin Yue, and Irving Biederman
14. Kinds of Beauty and the Prefrontal Cortex  66
Teresa Pegors
15. Expertise and Aesthetic Liking  70
Martin Skov and Ulrich Kirk
16. Social Meaning Brings Beauty: Neural Response to the
Beauty of Abstract Chinese Characters  75
Xianyou He and Wei Zhang

SE C T IO N I I I A RT
17. The Contributions of Emotion and Reward to Aesthetic
Judgment of Visual Art  83
Oshin Vartanian
18. Embodiment and the Aesthetic Experience of Images  88
Vittorio Gallese, David Freedberg, and Maria Alessandra Umiltà
19. The Role of Left Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortices in Aesthetic
Valuation  93
Enric Munar and Camilo J. Cela-​Conde
20. Noninvasive Brain Stimulation of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal
Cortex During Aesthetic Appreciation  97
Marcos Nadal, Zaira Cattaneo, and Camilo J. Cela-​Conde
21. Is Artistic Composition in Abstract Art
Detected Automatically?  102
Claudia Menzel, Gyula Kovács, Gregor U. Hayn-​Leichsenring, and
Christoph Redies
 Contents vii

22. The Contribution of Visual Area V5 to the Perception

of Implied Motion in Art and Its Appreciation  107
Marcos Nadal and Zaira Cattaneo
23. Art Is Its Own Reward  112
Simon Lacey and K. Sathian
24. Imaging the Subjective  117
Edward A. Vessel and G. Gabrielle Starr
25. Cultural Neuroaesthetics of Delicate Sadness Induced
by Noh Masks  122
Naoyuki Osaka
26. Toward a Computational Understanding of Neuroaesthetics  127
Kiyohito Iigaya and John P. O’Doherty
27. Artists, Artworks, Aesthetics, Cognition  132
William P. Seeley
28. Aesthetic Liking Is Not Only Driven by Object Properties,
but Also by Your Expectations  137
Martin Skov and Ulrich Kirk
29. Finding Mutual Interest Between Neuroscience and
Aesthetics: A Brush with Reality?  142
Andrew J. Parker
30. What Can We Learn About Art from People with
Neurological Disease?  147
Anjan Chatterjee

SE C T IO N I V M U SIC
31. Chills, Bets, and Dopamine: A Journey into Music Reward  155
Laura Ferreri, Jordi Riba, Robert Zatorre, and
Antoni Rodriguez-​Fornells
32. Why Does Music Evoke Strong Emotions? Testing the
Endogenous Opioid Hypothesis  161
Daniel J. Levitin and Lindsay A. Fleming
33. Music in All Its Beauty: Adopting the Naturalistic Paradigm
to Uncover Brain Processes During the Aesthetic Musical
Experience  166
Elvira Brattico and Vinoo Alluri
viii Contents

34. Investigating Musical Emotions in People with Unilateral

Brain Damage  170
Amy M. Belfi, Agathe Pralus, Catherine Hirel, Daniel Tranel,
Barbara Tillmann, and Anne Caclin

SE C T IO N V L A N G UAG E A N D L I T E R AT U R E
35. The Neurocognitive Poetics Model of Literary Reading
10 Years After  177
Arthur M. Jacobs
36. The Power of Poetry  182
Eugen Wassiliwizky and Winfried Menninghaus
37. Pictograph Portrays What It Is: Neural Response to
the Beauty of Concrete Chinese Characters  188
Xianyou He and Wei Zhang

SE C T IO N V I DA N C E
38. Movement, Synchronization, and Partnering in Dance  195
Steven Brown
39. Dance, Expertise, and Sensorimotor Aesthetics  199
Beatriz Calvo-​Merino
40. An Eye for the Impossible: Exploring the Attraction
of Physically Impressive Dance Movements  203
Emily S. Cross
41. The Mind, the Brain, and the Moving Body: Dance as a
Topic in Cognitive Neuroscience  208
Bettina Bläsing and Beatriz Calvo-​Merino
42. Training Effects on Affective Perception of Body Movements  213
Louise P. Kirsch and Emily S. Cross

SE C T IO N V I I A R C H I T E C T U R E
43. The Neuroaesthetics of Architecture  221
Oshin Vartanian
44. Architectural Styles as Subordinate Scene Categories  225
Dirk B. Walther
 Contents ix

45. Architectural Affordances: Linking Action, Perception,

and Cognition  230
Zakaria Djebbara and Klaus Gramann
46. Architectural Design and the Mind  235
Alex Coburn

Epilogue: Where Are We Now, and Where Are We Going?  241

Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo
Index  247
 Prologue
Where Have We Been, and Where Are We Now?
Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo

Seated on a wrought iron chair, enveloped in the sweet scent of magnolias and
surrounded by decaying architectural remnants, I (AC) resolved to study the
biology of aesthetic experiences. It was early in the spring of 1999. The set-
ting was the courtyard at Garages, my favorite bar in Birmingham, Alabama.
I was with two close friends; we often met there on Friday afternoons
to talk about life and work. I had just been recruited by the University of
Pennsylvania to join the newly forming Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.
Several drinks in, as the end to our cozy collaborations sunk in, Britt posed
the following question to Mark and me. Imagine yourself 10 years into the
future. Look back at your professional life. What would you regret not doing?
Professionally, my work had focused on attention, spatial representations,
and language. Personally, I had always been preoccupied by beauty, and I was
obsessed with photography. With alcohol-​infused clarity, I realized that my
regret would be not making aesthetics an object of scientific inquiry. I was
changing institutions, and it seemed an opportune time to tackle new ideas.
At the time, neuroaesthetics did not exist. I didn’t know anybody who studied
it or had written about it. After arriving at Penn, still a time before internet
searches, I explored the old-​fashioned way—​musty meanderings through
the library looking for relevant journals and books that could tether me to
the topic. I found the Empirical Studies of the Arts, the flagship journal of the
International Association of Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA). In 2002, I traveled
to the next biennial meeting of IAEA held in Takarazuka, Japan, and met a
small congenial group of people committed to scientific aesthetics. A path
forward, although still obscure, seemed possible.
At the same time Anjan was contemplating a future pivot in the trajectory
of his academic pursuits, I (EC) was finishing my final semester of college
and charting the first steps of my own. I was preoccupied with the question
of human uniqueness—​what aspects of our biology and minds explained our
particular way of being in the world. I’d first taken a comparative biology
xii Prologue

approach to this mystery, assisting behavioral research on the symbolic

capacities of one of our closest relatives, orangutans. Working so closely
with such intelligent beings remains one of the defining, most humbling
experiences I’ve had. But I found the pace of rigorous cognitive research with
non-​human apes to be too slow. By March of 1999, I was peering down a
microscope, quantifying properties of hippocampal cells in migratory and
nonmigratory juncos and recognizing my own ill-​suitedness for bench neu-
roscience. On perhaps the same glorious spring day that Anjan resolved to
investigate aesthetics, I dropped my senior thesis and determined human
cognitive neuroscience was the middle way I sought. The extent of my aes-
thetic investigations at the time consisted of sporting conventionally ugly
clothes and hair on purpose (it was the ’90s, after all) and defiantly feeling
beautiful. It seems fitting, however, that two decades later my quest has led
me to exploring aesthetic experience, one of the most human things we do.
The scientific study of aesthetics traces back to 1876, with Gustav Fechner’s
Vorschule der Ästhetik (Preliminaries to Aesthetics). Trained in medicine
and physics, and a pioneer of experimental psychology, Fechner proposed
the radical idea that aesthetics could be studied “from below.” He meant that
it could be an experimental science, which contrasted with the approach
“from above”—​arguments derived from first principles. His book built on
his own earlier work in psychophysics that systematically related proper-
ties of the outside world to properties of the mind. He recognized that for
this outer psychophysics to be true, there had to be an inner psychophysics.
Judgments about the world are, by necessity, mediated by properties of the
brain. However, the ability to investigate this inner psychophysics was lim-
ited in the 19th century.
Neuroaesthetics is the realization of Fechner’s vision that one could
study aesthetics empirically and link the brain to behavior. A subdiscipline
of cognitive neuroscience, neuroaesthetics is concerned with the neural
basis of aesthetic experiences. We regard aesthetics broadly to encompass
interactions with entities or events that evoke intense feelings and emotions,
typically linked to pleasure, including but not limited to engagement with
art. Twenty years ago, neuroscience joined the long history of discussions
about aesthetics in psychology, philosophy, art history, and the creative arts.
Scholarship in neuroaesthetics accelerated in earnest about a decade ago (see
Figure P.1). To state the obvious, this is a very young field. These early days
make the field ideal for researchers at the start of their careers or for sea-
soned researchers looking to make a switch in the focus of their inquiry. Big
 Prologue xiii

500
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
1965
1967
1969
1971
1973
1975
1977
1979
1981
1983
1985
1987
1989
1991
1993
1995
1997
1999
2001
2003
2005
2007
2009
2011
2013
2015
2017
2019
Figure P.1 Neuroaesthetic publications from 1965 to 2019. PubMed
search using the following terms: (neuroaesthetics) OR (neuroscience/​
neuropsychology AND art) OR (neuroscience/​neuropsychology AND beauty)
OR (neuroscience AND aesthetics).

questions remain to be tackled. We are still establishing neuroaesthetics’ con-

ceptual underpinnings, the relevant scientific agenda, the optimal methods
for inquiry, and how best to engage with allied disciplines.
One goal of this book is to communicate the growing pains and the
burgeoning excitement of this new field. People are often fascinated by
the brain and by beauty and art. For many, the idea that the brain and aes-
thetics could be connected and studied scientifically comes as a surprise.
When thinking of this connection between the brain and aesthetics, it is
worth distinguishing between descriptive and experimental neuroaesthetics.
Descriptive neuroaesthetics maps known properties of the brain onto aesthetic
constructs. Experimental neuroaesthetics actually conducts experiments to
test hypotheses. For example, one could appreciate that our visual system
carves the world into people, places, and things and find an interesting
parallel that representational visual art has been preoccupied by portraits,
landscapes, and still lifes. One might further postulate that visual artists op-
erate with implicit knowledge of the visual brain. This observation is descrip-
tive, and the postulate is speculative. No hypothesis has been tested, and no
experiment has been conducted. By contrast, one could hypothesize that our
visual system engages valuation of paintings in a way that respects functional
xiv Prologue

anatomic segregations. An experimenter might present portrait and land-

scape paintings to people in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner
and predict that the parts of the visual cortex that process faces would
show greater neural activity to portraits of beautiful than average-​looking
people, but be mute with respect to beauty in landscapes. They would fur-
ther predict the converse pattern of neural activity in response to beauty in
landscape paintings. In general, descriptive neuroaesthetics invites broad,
sweeping claims. Experimental neuroaesthetics, like any experimental sci-
ence, offers incremental and provisional claims. We believe that while de-
scriptive neuroaesthetics can drive broad interest in the field and generate
big hypotheses, a mature neuroaesthetics needs to be grounded in a robust,
experimental program.
This volume surveys important work in experimental neuroaesthetics.
What principles guided the choice of essays in this book? We wanted each
essay to be anchored to a specific peer-​reviewed publication and for authors
to contextualize and comment on their work. We picked papers that we re-
gard as important in the short history and ongoing development of the field.
We also asked several other scientists for a list of papers they, too, regarded as
influential. As may seem obvious for a volume on neuroaesthetics, the papers
had to address aesthetics and make an explicit link to the brain. Psychology
papers with implications for the brain, but without an explicit link, were not
considered. Our initial list included 60 papers. The first and senior authors
were invited to contribute their essays and add any other authors they saw
fit. We asked authors to address three questions and write in the style of a
popular science essay: (1) What motivated the original paper? (2) What
were the main findings or theoretical claims made?, and (3) How do those
findings or claims fit with the current state and anticipated near future of
neuroaesthetics? Each essay was to be short and limited to five references.
We further requested they be stand-​alone contributions designed to be read
without need for the original paper (although academics can certainly access
them if this collection is used for teaching or to guide future research). Most
people we invited accepted graciously and were intrigued by the prospect of
writing a popular science essay placing their work in a broader context. A few
authors declined, and some were stymied by the pandemic. Our final tally is
the 46 essays presented here, designed to bring the history of neuroaesthetics
into contemporary focus.
The book is organized into seven sections. Section I addresses conceptual
frameworks. These essays represent the field’s ongoing attempts to establish
 Prologue xv

its identity. How does one organize an empirical program? These attempts at
framing vary quite a bit; perhaps not surprising as the field finds its footing.
Section II focuses on beauty; the experience of beauty is most commonly as-
sociated with the term “aesthetics.” These essays capture different approaches
to the biological underpinning of beauty in faces and in landscapes. Section
III is about art. We sequester the best of such works in high temples of culture
and are preoccupied with adorning our homes and walls with others. How
do we think about these desired objects when they lack an obvious link to
primary rewards, like food and sex?
The subsequent four sections are shorter—​covering music (Section IV),
literature (Section V), dance (Section VI), and architecture (Section VII)—​
and reflect the uneven growth of the field. The cognitive neuroscience of
music is itself a well-​developed domain of inquiry. A section in a book such
as this one could not possibly do music scholarship justice. Rather, it aims
to highlight work that showcases possible methodological or program-
matic paths forward for other, less explored areas. Curiously, some of the
music researchers we invited declined because they did not see themselves
as conducting neuroaesthetics research. Nonetheless, the essays included
capture themes important to music researchers and relevant to the field as a
whole. The neuroscience of literature, dance, and architecture are even earlier
in their evolution than the study of visual beauty and art. Sections V through
VII convey emerging topics that are central to these nascent subfields of
neuroasethetics.
What is not covered by this collection is as important to note as what is. As
the most rapidly developing subfield of neuroaesthetics, and our own area of
expertise, this collection focuses on the study of visual aesthetics. However,
to our thinking, eating a delicious meal, inhaling a delicate fragrance, being
swathed in diaphanous silk, and immersing oneself in a horror film are as rel-
evant experiences to neuroaesthetic investigations as beholding the frescoes
of the Sistine Chapel. We regard these gaps as invitations not diminishments,
and we hope to inspire enterprising readers.
The collection represents a curated set of essays inviting the reader to
journey along with researchers actively shaping neuroaesthetics today. We
were relatively activist editors navigating between trying to make each essay
readable to a general public while not simplifying its content and, most im-
portantly, not altering the voices of the authors. The diversity in style of ex-
pression and opinion has been retained to convey the splendid messiness of a
new field in which the received wisdom is yet to be received.
 Contributors

Vinoo Alluri, PhD Steven Brown, PhD

Assistant Professor Associate Professor
Cognitive Science Lab Department of Psychology,
International Institute of Information Neuroscience & Behaviour
Technology McMaster University
Hyderabad, India Canada
Amy M. Belfi, PhD Anne Caclin, PhD
Assistant Professor Researcher
Department of Psychological Science Lyon Neuroscience Research Center
Missouri University of Science and INSERM, CNRS, Claude Bernard Lyon
Technology 1 University
USA France
Irving Biederman, PhD Beatriz Calvo-​Merino, PhD
Harold W. Dornsife Professor of Associate Professor in Cognitive
Neuroscience Neuroscience
Deptartments of Psychology and Department of Psychology
Computer Science, Program in City, University of London
Neuroscience UK
University of Southern California
Eileen R. Cardillo, DPhil
USA
Associate Director
Dr. habil. Bettina Bläsing Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics
Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences University of Pennsylvania
Technical University Dortmund USA
Germany
Zaira Cattaneo, PhD
Elvira Brattico, PhD Associate Professor
Professor, Center for Music in the Brain Department of Psychology
Department of Clinical Medicine University of Milano-​Bicocca; IRCCS
Aarhus University and Royal Academy Mondino Foundation,
of Music Aarhus/​Aalborg Italy
Denmark
Camilo J. Cela-​Conde, PhD
Department of Education, Psychology,
Full Professor
Communication
Department of Philosophy, Human
University of Bari Aldo Moro
Evolution and Cognition Group
Italy
University of the Balearic Islands
Spain
xviii Contributors

Anjan Chatterjee, MD Laura Ferreri, PhD

Professor of Neurology, Psychology, and Laboratoire d’Etude des Mécanismes
Architecture Cognitifs
Director, Penn Center for Université Lumière Lyon 2
Neuroaesthetics France
University of Pennsylvania
Lindsay A. Fleming, MA
USA
Research Assistant and Project
Alex Coburn, PhD Coordinator
Medical Student Department of Psychology
Department of Medicine McGill University
University of California San Francisco Canada
USA
David Freedberg, PhD
Emily S. Cross, PhD Pierre Matisse Professor of the
Professor of Human Neuroscience History of Art
Department of Cognitive Science Department of Art History and Italian
Macquarie University Academy for Advanced Studies
Australia Columbia University
Professor of Social Robotics USA
Institute of Neuroscience and
Vittorio Gallese, MD
Psychology
Professor of Psychobiology
University of Glasgow
Department of Medicine and Surgery,
UK
Unit of Neuroscience
Cinzia Di Dio, PhD University of Parma
Faculty of Educational Science Italy
Department of Psychology, Research
Klaus Gramann, PhD
Unit on Theory of Mind
Professor
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Biological Psychology and
Italy
Neuroergonomics
Zakaria Djebbara, PhD Technische Universitaet Berlin
Postdoc Germany
Department of Architecture, Design,
Franziska Hartung, PhD
Media and Technology
Lecturer
Aalborg University
School of Psychology
Denmark
Newcastle University
Raymond J. Dolan, MD UK
Max Planck UCL Center for
Dr. med. dent. habil. Gregor U. Hayn-​
Computational Psychiatry and Ageing
Leichsenring, BA
Research, Wellcome Centre for Human
Experimental Aesthetics Group,
Neuroimaging
Institute of Anatomy I
University College London
Jena University Hospital, University of
UK
Jena School of Medicine
Germany
 Contributors xix

Xianyou He, PhD Simon Lacey, PhD

Professor of Psychology Assistant Professor
School of Psychology Departments of Neurology and Neural
South China Normal University & Behavioral Sciences
China Pennsylvania State University
USA
Catherine Hirel, MD
Neurologist Helmut Leder, PhD
Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Professor of Empirical Aesthetics
INSERM, CNRS, Claude Bernard Lyon Faculty of Psychology and Cognitive
1 University; Hopital Neurologique Sciences Research Hub
Pierre Wertheimer University of Vienna
France Austria
Kiyohito Iigaya, PhD Daniel J. Levitin, PhD
Division of Humanities and Social Founding Dean of Arts and Humanities
Sciences Minerva Schools at KGI
California Institute of Technology USA
USA
Winfried Menninghaus, Dr.
Arthur M. Jacobs Director
Freie Universität Berlin Max Planck Institute for Empirical
Germany Aesthetics
Department of Language and Literature
Thomas Jacobsen, PhD
Germany
Professor of Psychology
Experimental Psychology Unit Dr. Claudia Menzel
Helmut Schmidt University /​University Social, Environmental, and Economic
of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg Psychology
Germany University of Koblenz-​Landau
Germany
Ulrich Kirk, PhD
Associate Professor Enric Munar, PhD
Department of Psychology Full Professor
University of Southern Denmark Human Evolution and Cognition Group
Denmark University of the Balearic Islands
Spain
Louise P. Kirsch, PhD
Research Associate Marcos Nadal, PhD
Institute for Intelligent Systems and Associate Professor
Robotics Department of Psychology
Sorbonne Université University of the Balearic Islands
France Spain
Prof. Dr. Gyula Kovács John P. O’Doherty, DPhil
Biological Psychology and Cognitive Professor
Neurosciences Division of Humanities and Social
Friedrich-​Schiller University Jena Sciences
Germany California Institute of Technology
USA
xx Contributors

Naoyuki Osaka, PhD Christoph Redies, MD, PhD

Professor Emeritus Experimental Aesthetics Group
Kyoto University Institute of Anatomy I
Visiting Professor Jena University Hospital, University of
CiNet Osaka University and Japan Jena School of Medicine
Academy Germany
Japan
Jordi Riba, PhD
Andrew J. Parker, MA, PhD, ScD Department of Neuropsychology and
Professor of Neuroscience Psychopharmacology
Department of Physiology, Anatomy, & Maastricht University
Genetics The Netherlands
University of Oxford
Antoni Rodriguez-​Fornells, PhD
UK
Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit
Marcus Pearce, BA, MSc, PhD Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute
Senior Lecturer in Sound & Music L’Hospitalet de Llobregat
Processing Department of Cognition, Development
School of Electronic Engineering and and Education Psychology
Computer Science University of Barcelona
Queen Mary University of London Spain
UK Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis
Avançats
Teresa Pegors, PhD
Spain
Manassas
Virginia K. Sathian, MBBS, PhD
USA Chair of Neurology
Penn State Health
Dr. Matthew Pelowski
Director, Neuroscience Institute
Assistant Professor of Cognitive and
Professor of Neurology, Neural &
Neuroaesthetics
Behavioral Sciences, and Psychology
Faculty of Psychology and Cognitive
Pennsylvania State University
Sciences Research Hub
USA
University of Vienna
Austria William P. Seeley, MFA (Sculpture),
PhD (Philosophy)
Agathe Pralus, PhD
Adjunct Faculty
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Humanities
Lyon Neuroscience Research Center,
University of New Hampshire at
INSERM, CNRS
Manchester
Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University
USA
France
 Contributors xxi

Martin Skov, PhD Edward A. Vessel, PhD

Senior Researcher Research Scientist
Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Department of Neuroscience
Resonance Max Planck Institute for Empirical
Copenhagen University Hospital Aesthetics
Hvidovre & Center for Decision Germany
Neuroscience, Copenhagen
Dirk B. Walther, PhD
Business School
Associate Professor
Denmark
Department of Psychology
G. Gabrielle Starr, PhD University of Toronto
President Canada
Professor of English and Neuroscience
Eugen Wassiliwizky, Dr.
Pomona College
Senior Researcher
USA
Max Planck Institute for Empirical
Barbara Tillmann, PhD Aesthetics
CNRS Research Director Department of Language and Literature
Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Germany
INSERM, CNRS
Xiaomin Yue, PhD
Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University
Research Fellow
France
The Laboratory of Brain and Cognition
Daniel Tranel, PhD National Institute of Mental Health
Professor USA
Departments of Neurology and
Robert Zatorre, PhD
Psychological and Brain Sciences
Montreal Neurological Institute
University of Iowa
McGill University and International
USA
Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound
Maria Alessandra Umiltà, PhD Research
Professor of Physiology Canada
Department of Food and Drug
Wei Zhang, PhD
University of Parma
Assistant Professor
Italy
School of Psychology
Oshin Vartanian, PhD South China Normal University
Associate Professor China
Department of Psychology
University of Toronto
Canada
 SECTION I
F R A MEWOR K S
 1
An Early Framework for a Cognitive
Neuroscience of Visual Aesthetics
Anjan Chatterjee

Comment on: Chatterjee, A. (2003). Prospects for a cognitive neuroscience

of visual aesthetics. Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts, 4, 55–​59.

When I first started to think about the neural basis of aesthetic experiences
in the late 1990s, little was written on the topic. Unlike other domains of psy-
chology, such as attention, perception, or memory, aesthetics had not gained
purchase in cognitive neuroscience. In fact, aesthetics was barely visible in
psychology itself despite being rooted in Fechner’s writings more than a
hundred years earlier. In 1999, papers by Zeki (1999) and Ramachandran
and Hirstein (1999) were initial forays into scientific aesthetics by estab-
lished neuroscientists. While undeniably important as initial markers for
the field, their papers were but a first step. They were speculative and did
not offer a framework for a systematic research program. Scholars in the
humanities latched on to these initial papers in ways that were detrimental
to the field. For the most part, they ignored subsequent careful experimental
work done by neuroscientists, as if neuroaesthetics began and ended in 1999
(Chatterjee, 2011). Missing in early discussions was a basic question: What
would a framework that could guide experimental progress in the neurosci-
ence of aesthetics entail?
During the 1980s and 1990s, as I came of age as a scientist, approaches
from cognitive psychology were dominant. The basic premise was that
complex phenomena can be broken down into component parts. These
components and their relationships could be studied in relatively controlled
ways. Each component presumably had its own neural signature. Over time
and after considerable experimentation, the psychological and neural bases
for the system would be laid bare. Depicted in “box and arrow” models, their
underlying logic can be traced back to the work of Carl Wernicke and Ludwig
Lichtheim in the late 19th century. In the two decades preceding my paper,

Anjan Chatterjee, An Early Framework for a Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual Aesthetics In: Brain, Beauty, & Art.
Edited by: Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197513620.003.0001
4 Frameworks

such models were applied quite successfully to reading and face processing,
among other cognitive processes.
With these earlier models in mind, I proposed the following hier-
archical and interactive framework for visual aesthetic experiences
(Figure 1.1).
The central idea of the framework was that visual aesthetics involved visual
processing and would, at a minimum, have to follow principles of visual neu-
roscience. Visual features known to be processed in different parts of the
brain, such as line orientation, color, movement, and form, would necessarily
also be involved in visual aesthetic experiences. For example, if color was a
critical component of a painting, then regions of the brain that processed
color would be prominently engaged. This differential of weighting of early
visual components based on the stimulus was indicated in the framework by
bidirectional arrows of early vision to attention.
Intermediate vision represented processes that Gestalt psychologists had
identified in which elements were grouped together, by similarity, or prox-
imity, and so on. This aspect of visual processing seemed important when
considering balance and order and harmony of elements—​elements prom-
inent in discussions about composition and what made some art more ap-
pealing than others.

Stimuli
Attention

Decision

Early vision, features Intermediate vision Emotional response

(orientation, shape, color) (grouping) Liking versus wanting

Representational domain
(places, faces)

Figure 1.1 A framework designed to decompose aesthetic experiences into its

component parts.
Adapted from Chatterjee, A. (2003). Prospects for a cognitive neuroscience of visual
aesthetics. Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts, 4(2), 55–​60.
 A Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual Aesthetics 5

Late or higher vision is the stage where these visual elements cohered into
recognizable entities, such as people, places, and things. These entities are
relevant to the aesthetics of (1) what people look like; (2) our relationship to
the environment, whether natural or human-​built; and (3) objects, both the
quotidian as well as those peculiar artifacts that we designate “art.” Again,
attention plays a role in highlighting these aspects of object representation
depending on the stimuli under consideration. So, for portraits, brain areas
processing faces, such as the fusiform face area, would be engaged dispro-
portionately, and, for landscapes, the parahippocampal place area.
Since a major aspect of aesthetic engagement is the emotional experience
and valuation of stimuli, our emotion and reward systems would also be en-
gaged. When the focus is on beauty, as has been true for many studies in
neuroaesthetics, our reward and pleasure circuitry involving the ventral stri-
atum, ventromedial prefrontal, and orbitofrontal cortices would be engaged.
At the time, I pointed to the work on pleasure circuits distinguishing between
liking (or hedonic states) and wanting (or incentive states) and speculated
that engaging liking without wanting might be a biological characterization
of a kind of disinterested interest that philosophers like Immanuel Kant had
written about.
Finally, I included a module about decisions. The general idea is that
human decision-​making is influenced by several variables, the most obvious
ones having to do with homeostatic behavioral responses for survival. If we
are hungry, we seek food. If we are cold, we seek warmth. I thought that the
aesthetic value of objects would also modulate human decision-​making. We
might be more likely to approach objects and choose them if we find them to
be attractive.
How has the model fared over the years? In general, I believe that it has
held up reasonably well. The visual decomposition ideas remain relevant.
Evidence continues to grow for how relatively early vision engages in valu-
ation (perhaps mediated by attention). The emotional and reward aspects of
the framework have also been largely confirmed and are now dealt with in
more nuanced ways than I imagined. For example, the question of a common
currency of reward arises. Are the same neural structures involved in the
rewards received for beautiful faces as for places and things (see Chapter 14,
by Pegors)?
In retrospect, some aspects of the framework have not been adequately
studied, and the framework itself did not sufficiently emphasize other aspects
of aesthetic experience that we now know to be important.
6 Frameworks

The idea of disinterested interest and, more specifically, the relevance

of Kant to contemporary scientific aesthetics is now debated (Hayn-​
Leichsenring & Chatterjee, 2019). Is it possible for a disinterested interest to
be instantiated in the brain, and is such a state important? How would one
construct experiments to test this idea? More generally, a current debate in
the field is whether aesthetic experiences are ever disinterested, or if such en-
gagement, by necessity, involves a call to action.
While I considered decision-​making in the framework, I did not con-
sider the motor system, which is one outward expression of our decisions.
This omission was a mistake. The importance of motor aspects of aes-
thetic experiences is now better appreciated (see Chapter 18, by Gallese,
Freedberg, and Umiltà). In recent work, we report that beautiful faces influ-
ence motor systems that guide limb and eye movements (Faust, Chatterjee, &
Christopoulos, 2019).
The questions surrounding emotions are also developing in more nuanced
ways than implied by my early framing. Ostensibly negative emotions are
reconfigured. Why do seemingly negative emotions, such as horror or sus-
pense, play a prominent role in so many aesthetic experiences, whether they
be in narrative, music, or painting?
A big omission of the framework was that semantics and meaning were
not emphasized. Clearly, what we think we know influences what and how
we value what we see. Our personal background, education, and the historic
and cultural milieu (see Chapter 25, by Osaka) we inhabit have profound
influences on our evaluation of people, places, and things. These influences,
in my view, remain areas ripe for ongoing exploration.
To summarize now, almost two decades later, the idea that aesthetic
experiences can be investigated as a componential process continues to
make sense. Current areas of active investigation focus on the relative impor-
tance of these components, their properties, and their relationship to each
other. Furthermore, we can now leverage advances in cognitive neuroscience
methods that were not available in 2003. These methods include multivoxel
pattern analysis, connectivity analyses, and noninvasive brain stimulation.
We can also take advantage of advances in adjoining domains of cognitive
neuroscience, such as the neuroscience of decision-​making, emotion reg-
ulation, motor control, and valuation in general. In other words, we still
have much to learn about neuroaesthetics, but the methods and conceptual
foundations are in place to forge ahead.
 A Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual Aesthetics 7

References

Chatterjee, A. (2011). Where there be dragons: Finding the edges of neuroaesthetics.

American Society of Neuroaesthetics Newsletter, 31(2), 4–​6.
Faust, N. T., Chatterjee, A., & Christopoulos, G. I. (2019). Beauty in the eyes and the
hand of the beholder: Eye and hand movements’ differential responses to facial attrac-
tiveness. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 85, 103884. doi:https://​doi.org/​
10.1016/​j.jesp.2019.103884
Hayn-​ Leichsenring, G. U., & Chatterjee, A. (2019). Colliding terminological sys-
tems: Immanuel Kant and contemporary empirical aesthetics. Empirical Studies of the
Arts, 37(2), 197–​219. doi:10.1177/​0276237418818635
Ramachandran, V. S., & Hirstein, H. (1999). The science of art: A neurological theory of
aesthetic experience. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, 15–​51.
Zeki, S. (1999). Art and the brain. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, 76–​96.
 2
Bringing It All Together
Neurological and Neuroimaging Evidence of the Neural
Underpinnings of Visual Aesthetics

Marcos Nadal and Camilo J. Cela-​Conde

Comment on: Cela-​Conde, C. J., Agnati, L., Huston, J. P., Mora, F., & Nadal,
M. (2011). The neural foundations of aesthetic appreciation. Progress in
Neurobiology, 94, 39–​48.

Our research group, Human Evolution and Cognition, was founded in

2001, at the University of the Balearic Islands. Its chief goal was to study
our species’ derived cognitive traits—​that is to say, the mental traits that
distinguish our species from other primates. Back then, we believed that
language, morality, and aesthetics made human minds distinct. To un-
derstand these traits, it was necessary to understand how they evolved
throughout the human lineage.
The study of the evolution of organisms’ bodies is based fundamentally on
fossils, which result from the substitution of hard organic tissue by minerals
from the surrounding rocks. Fossils can inform about the structure of bones
in body parts, such as limbs, and can lead to inferences about locomotor or
grasping functions. But language, morality, and aesthetics leave no fossil
traces of their existence. Is it even possible to study their evolution? In the
absence of direct fossil evidence, we have to make do with indirect evidence
from archaeology, comparative cognition, and neuroscience.
Evidence of the creation of visual culture during the past 150,000 years of
human evolution is plentiful: the use of pigments, necklaces and bracelets
from shells and animal teeth and claws, geometrical forms engraved into
rocks and ostrich shells, ornamented tools and burials, carved statuettes,
and painted murals on the walls of caves. But these are recent behavioral
expressions of a process of cognitive evolution that started millions of years
earlier, when the human and chimpanzee lineages diverged. We believed
that we could find important clues to this evolution if we understood the
neural underpinnings of aesthetics. This hypothesis is what led our team

Marcos Nadal and Camilo J. Cela-​Conde, Bringing It All Together In: Brain, Beauty, & Art. Edited
by: Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197513620.003.0002
 Bringing It All Together 9

to neuroimaging studies of aesthetics in the early 2000s (see Chapter 19, by

Munar and Cela-​Conde).
The first decade of the 21st century saw the start of experimental neuroaesthetics
(Chatterjee, 2011). Progress was slow at first. In 2005, the session organized by
Martin Skov at the Copenhagen Brain and Mind Forum on neuroaesthetics in-
cluded four speakers, more than the neuroimaging studies in aesthetics that had
been published at the time! But by 2010, the number of published neuroimaging
studies on aesthetic appreciation, liking, or beauty had grown to nearly 10. Not a
staggering amount, but there was something strange about the observations: as
the number of studies increased, so did the number of brain regions identified
as involved in aesthetics. Aesthetic appreciation had been linked to activity in
the frontal pole, left dorsolateral cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, temporal pole,
motor cortex, parietal cortex, ventral striatum, and occipital cortex, among others.
Moreover, it wasn’t even clear that the results from these neuroimaging studies
confirmed studies that had examined the effects of brain lesions and neurodegen-
erative diseases on the creation and appreciation of aesthetics.
The main goal of “The Neural Foundations of Aesthetic Appreciation” was
to bring together the available evidence on the neural underpinnings of aes-
thetics from neuroimaging and neurology and offer an integral interpretative
model. We wanted to explain how aesthetic appreciation was related to brain
activity, and we wanted to explain why some studies had found that activity in
some regions, and other studies had found it in other regions. Our main point
was that aesthetic appreciation is no simple matter: there is no “beauty center”
in the brain, no single region whose function is to compute aesthetic value.
Aesthetic appreciation involves many processes that unfold at different times,
maybe even at different time scales, and at different locations that are concerned
with different aspects of the experience—​from perceiving basic elements, asso-
ciating with memories, searching for meaning, and assessing reward value to
judging and deciding. Understanding the complex puzzle required a model that
could help us place and fit together the many pieces. We used Chatterjee’s (2003)
model (see Chapter 1 in this volume) as a guide to place the pieces in space, and
Jacobsen and Höfel’s (2003) previous study to place the pieces in time.
The two main ideas that emerged from this integration of the empirical ev-
idence and the models had to do with brain networks and processing stages.
We proposed that the key organizational structure underlying aesthetic ap-
preciation was a network and not any individual region. We also proposed
that there might be at least two stages of appreciation. The first stage, lasting
for about half a second after image presentation, is the formation of an initial
10 Frameworks

impression. It involves perceptual processes interacting with attentional

control signals and is mediated by a fronto-​parieto-​occipital network. The
second stage is a deeper evaluation of the image and involves affective pro-
cesses, searching for meaning, recalling personal experiences, and activating
knowledge stored in memory. Both of these ideas were the seeds for our sub-
sequent neuroimaging study (Cela-​Conde et al., 2013).
We argued that the different studies had thrown light only on different
parts of this temporally and spatially distributed process. For a decade,
neuroaesthetics had been like people in the dark describing an elephant to
each other by touching only one part of its body: some studies had mainly
captured perceptual processes, others mainly judgment processes, and
others mainly affective processes. The results of neuroimaging studies—​of
any scientific study for that matter—​are very sensitive to the experimental
design and the neuroimaging method and setup. Perhaps, we suggested, the
conflicting results of those studies reflect the varying neural underpinnings
of aesthetics as reflected in how different research groups thought about aes-
thetics and the best way to study it.
Looking back on “The Neural Foundations of Aesthetic Appreciation,” we
seem to have had other goals at the back of our minds. We recognize in our
writing our struggles to define neuroaesthetics, to explain what it can con-
tribute to understanding human nature and culture, and to defend it from
criticism. These concerns would evolve and take more precise shape in a later
conceptual paper (Pearce et al., 2016, also Chapter 7 in this volume). The
original paper also contains many of the untested assumptions we have criti-
cized more recently, including that aesthetics is inherently connected with art
and that it is part of a set of uniquely human capacities that set us apart from
other animals. In the past decade, as the field has continued to produce more
empirical evidence, and as our understanding of the historical roots of cen-
tral concepts in our theories and models has increased, it has become clear
that we share many of the neural systems that mediate the cognitive and af-
fective processes involved in aesthetic appreciation with many other animals,
primate and otherwise. To put it another way, experimental neuroaesthetics
has shown that much of the neural machinery that makes it possible for us to
experience beauty existed millions of years before the origins of the human
lineage: it is part of the “basic cognitive kit” that enables mammals—​maybe
even birds and reptiles—​to assess the value of meaningful current or possible
objects and situations in the light of past experience and current state. What
we thought of as “the human capacity to produce and appreciate beauty” we
 Bringing It All Together 11

now see as one among many variations on the theme of a hedonic valuation
system; that is to say, a system of brain regions shared across many species
that informs the organism how much it likes or wants something.
We see “The Neural Foundations of Aesthetic Appreciation” as a seeking
paper: it sought to make meaning out of disparate results, it sought a place for
neuroaesthetics within cognitive neuroscience, and it sought to show why it
is a worthy scientific endeavor. It is very much a paper of its time. It hinges
between the slow and tentative beginning of experimental neuroaesthetics in
the 2000s and the field’s burgeoning in the 2010s, with dozens of neuroscien-
tific studies on aesthetics published every year. The connected papers graph
(see Figure 2.1, created using connectedpapers.com) shows that it is very

Figure 2.1 Visual representation of similar articles. Articles are arranged and
connected according to their similarity. Similar articles have strong connecting
lines and cluster together. The size of each article’s circle represents the number
of citations: the larger the circle, the more it has been cited. Shade of gray
represents the publishing year.
Source: connectedpapers.com.
12 Frameworks

similar to papers of its time, especially papers published between 2009 and
2013 (Figure 2.1). The fact that the paper’s annual citation rate has dropped
steadily since 2015 also suggests that, in a sense, it has run its course.
Nevertheless, we believe it served its purpose well: it summarized and in-
tegrated much of the empirical evidence available at the time; it attempted to
present a prospective, coherent field of scientific research; it proposed testable
hypotheses; and, on a more practical note, it was published in a high-​profile
neuroscience journal, making the field visible to other domains of neurosci-
ence. We take it as a sign of healthy growth that the field of neuroaesthetics
has moved past many of these earlier concerns.

References

Cela-​Conde, C. J., García-​Prieto, J., Ramasco, J. J., Mirasso, C. R., Bajo, R., Munar,
E., Flexas, A., del-​Pozo, F., & Maestú, F. (2013). Dynamics of brain networks in the
aesthetic appreciation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 110,
10454–​10461.
Chatterjee, A. (2003). Prospects for a cognitive neuroscience of visual aesthetics. Bulletin
of Psychology and the Arts, 4, 55–​60.
Chatterjee, A. (2011). Neuroaesthetics: A coming of age story. Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience, 23, 53–​62.
Jacobsen, T., & Höfel, L. (2003). Descriptive and evaluative judgment processes: Behavioral
and electrophysiological indices of processing symmetry and aesthetics. Cognitive,
Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 3, 289–​299.
Pearce, M. T., Zaidel, D. W., Vartanian, O., Skov, M., Leder, H., Chatterjee, A., & Nadal,
M. (2016). Neuroaesthetics: The cognitive neuroscience of aesthetic experience.
Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11, 265–​279.
 3
But, What Actually Happens When We
Engage with “Art”?
Matthew Pelowski and Helmut Leder

Comment on: Pelowski, M., Markey, P., Forster, M., Gerger, G., &
Leder, H. (2017). Move me, astonish me . . . delight my eyes and
brain: The Vienna Integrated Model of top-​down and bottom-​up
processes in Art Perception (VIMAP) and corresponding affective,
evaluative and neurophysiological correlates. Physics of Life Reviews,
21, 80–​125.

All models are wrong, but some are useful.

—​Commonly attributed to George Box

Or, at least, that is the goal . . .

The origins stories that motivated our interest in empirical aesthetics start
with visual art. For MP, the beginning was a rectangular painting. Just a huge
expanse of purple. The canvas, along with 14 others, filled an octagonal room
in the Mark Rothko Chapel in Houston. He finally visited it at the end of
his master’s degree—​it did not disappoint. However, by that time, he had
also found multitudes of similarly compelling pieces—​paintings, sculptures,
performances. Certainly, this impact was also not limited to “Art.” One might
find similar reactions with music, theater, or social or religious rites. What
made this artwork so special? Despite being “simply” paint, the work was
highlighted in anecdotal accounts (e.g., Elkins, 2001) for its ability to create
experiences of anxiety, self-​awareness, adjustment, transformation, tears,
and insight. Coming at this topic as a painter (his undergraduate focus) in-
terested in causing such effects, MP thought what could be a better topic for

Matthew Pelowski and Helmut Leder, But, What Actually Happens When We Engage with “Art”? In: Brain, Beauty, &
Art. Edited by: Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197513620.003.0003
14 Frameworks

scientists interested in the body, perception, and the brain than to explain
how these phenomena could happen? And, how might the same stimulus
evoke such different responses in different people? How might we explain
instances where nothing interesting occurred?
At the same time, when MP looked at the emerging psychological aes-
thetics and eventually neuroaesthetics, he did not see many answers or even
attempted explanations. As MP wrote then (Pelowski & Akiba, 2011), which,
reflecting back, captured his motivation for and exasperation with the state
of study, “while such accounts might have inspired art study, the current
modeling of art perception” was based on basic aspects of low-​level vision
(symmetry, contrast, clarity) or considered only a reductive, limited idea
(i.e., leading to visual pleasure) of “art experience.” The kind of intense, di-
verse reactions that interested him were not only off the map but seemed
anathema to empirical and theoretical study itself.
HL also came to this topic, first as a young painter, with the desire to un-
derstand how the artworks he was making and those by others that he loved
were appreciated and perceived. Around 2000, as he ventured into the next
stage of his career—​now for quite a while in psychology of perception—​HL
decided that it was time that psychological aesthetics should become the
main topic of his research. He, too, saw a need for more complex, intercon-
nected theory. HL was struck by the absence of even a discussion of how the
very basic (or as it turns out, not that basic) aspects of art perception might
fit together, much less the nuanced, profound outcomes that he, too, wanted
to eventually build to an explanation for. The psychological study of art, as
well as related brain studies, was only just beginning. If we want to push
empirical aesthetics, he thought, and if he also wanted to convince a hiring
committee that art was a worthwhile topic for a new direction of study, we
needed a theoretical foundation, a model to put these pieces together to sug-
gest components we might look for to shape hypotheses.
Especially, for both of us, we saw no mechanism to explain the interaction
of factors, the who—​what an individual might bring to an encounter—​or
how they might be “wrong,” might adjust, find something surprising. Rather,
in existing empirical studies and models of cognition and the brain, we were
left with collections of processes, lumped together, perhaps with a collection
of boxes, but connected only by double-​pointed arrows, equally weighted
and balanced, with no stages, flows, directionality, cases where experiential
aspects might or, even more important, might not occur, and thus no way of
explaining how we might react and change within an engagement.
 What Actually Happens When We Engage with “Art”? 15

The 2017 paper was a culmination of both our meeting and the con-
vergence of our models. Both of us had proposed box-​and-​arrow design
models, typical of cognitive psychology, based on the assumption that our
evaluations, emotions, physiological responses, etc., are the end result of a
cognitive progression with mappable stages. The Leder et al. (2004) model,
which aimed to describe what happens when we initially see an artwork
and provide basic steps of initial aesthetic processing, and which also be-
came the theoretical foundation of the first research center for empirical aes-
thetics in psychology at University of Vienna, served as a core. It covered
bottom-​up processes, perceptual processes, and proposed how these interact
with top-​down considerations to create a sense of content, style, and per-
sonal meaning, and it culminated in a final stage (cognitive mastery) syn-
thesizing these aspects into an initial reaction, assignment of meaning, basic
affect, and appraisal. We then teased this core model out on the edges by in-
cluding a pre-​state incorporating “schemas” (our working maps of the world,
expectations, beliefs, cued behaviors, actions, meanings, responses, and a ge-
neral idea of our “self ”) that one might bring to an art encounter and apply
throughout the stages. The model also tried to expand beyond notions of
mastery and address the implications of different outcomes. The precursor
for this was Pelowski and Akiba (2011), which proposed three outcomes. The
2017 paper constituted what we called a rather “audacious” goal—​to propose
the core stages and broad outcomes from “all” engagements with especially
visual media or to answer what, broadly speaking, could happen when we
encounter any design or visual art.
To structure such outcomes, we also proposed specific “checks” for
schema congruency (our match of self and expectations to the reality of
our world), self-​relevance, and coping ability (see Figure 3.1) embedded
in the Cognitive Mastery stage. This led to five outcomes: (1) a default
or mundane reaction, identified by high schema congruency and low
self-​relevance and associated with short viewing-​time, little emotion,
and appraisals based on immediate processing; (2) a sense of “novelty”
or heightened interest, tied to low schema-​congruency/​self-​relevance,
aligning with enjoyment of an artwork’s ambiguity or instances where
individuals find new approaches or ideas appealing; (3) powerful and
engaging experiences, linked with high schema congruency and self-​
relevance, in which some element of the work resonates with a viewer and
stimulates feelings of harmony or wonder; (4) very negative outcomes,
stemming from low schema-​congruency/​high self-​relevance, resulting
16 Frameworks

Figure 3.1 Main processing “checks” and resulting outcomes constituting the
proposed basic varieties of engagement with art or other stimuli.
Adapted from Pelowski et al. (2017).

in negative emotions and attempts to disengage from or diminish a

stimulus’s importance; and (5) cases of initial schema-​discrepancy/​high
self-​importance, but which are followed by a period of self-​reflection and
eventual “transformation” of schema or concepts.
We tied each stage and outcome to specific factors (emotion, evaluation,
physiology), while stages and outcomes were themselves influenced by con-
textual factors or previous outputs. In this way, the model offered a flexible al-
gorithm to explain aesthetic experience, where the nature of specific aspects
or inputs (who, what, where) could be variable but their relation could be
defined for future empirical study. In the 2017 paper, these stages and
outcomes were further connected to brain regions, based on existing know-
ledge largely from outside neuroaesthetics, regarding areas that had been
implicated in various processing components. For example, we suggested re-
gions such as ventral medial prefrontal cortex or medial orbitofrontal cortex
(self-​relevance), ventral anterior cingulate cortex (congruency), or ventral
 What Actually Happens When We Engage with “Art”? 17

striatum (coping), among others, that might be central to, and more or less
active, given the results of posited checks.
Although specific aspects of these stages have been questioned and
rearranged, we are happy to say that both the 2004 paper, which served as
a foundation for many empirical studies, and the subsequent 2017 paper,
which has facilitated discussions about broad implications of art experience,
have proved useful in empirical studies. Equally exciting, the model has also
been applied to topics adjacent to art: experiencing nature, music, and de-
sign, or methods for promoting well-​being, health, and attitude change. Most
importantly, we are happy that by taking a risk and proposing hypotheses for
what might go where, at what time, and in what order, we gave researchers a
vehicle from which to navigate and explore. Even if not set in stone, one can
test against something and build clear hypotheses.
The model also has implications that are not yet tested, especially as
pertains to the brain. One of the considerations most fun to include in the
model was the correspondence between various outcomes and stages to
existing theories and neural networks (e.g., anterior and posterior midline
structures) of self-​awareness, reflection, insight, and emotion regulation.
The model raises questions about predictive processing (e.g., Van de Cruys
& Wagemans, 2011). A mind that builds a generative model about the envi-
ronmental causes of perceptual inputs and checks whether the predicted sen-
sory activity corresponds with what is actually received through the senses
suggests a highly dynamic, interconnected brain. We think predictive pro-
cessing accounts essentially mirror arguments that we make in our model—​
that experience is driven by prior expectations, states, and schemas, and that
these are applied in perception—​and suggest how these features might trans-
late to neurobiology.

References

Elkins, J. (2001). Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who have Cried in Front of
Paintings. Routledge.
Leder, H., Belke, B., Oeberst, A., & Augustin, D. (2004). A model of aesthetic appreciation
and aesthetic judgements. British Journal of Psychology, 95 (4), 489–​508.
Pelowski, M., & Akiba, F. (2011). A model of art perception, evaluation and emotion in
transformative aesthetic experience. New Ideas in Psychology, 29(2), 80–​97. https://​
doi.org/​10.1016/​j.newideapsych.2010.04.001
Van de Cruys, S., & Wagemans, J. (2011). Putting reward in art: A tentative prediction
error account of visual art. i-​Perception, 2(9), 1035–​1062.
 4
Naturalizing Aesthetics
Steven Brown

Comment on: Brown, S., Gao, X., Tisdelle, L., Eickhoff, S. B., & Liotti,
M. (2011). Naturalizing aesthetics: Brain areas for aesthetic appraisal across
sensory modalities. Neuroimage, 58, 250–​258.

Unlike most of my colleagues working in the fields of aesthetics and

neuroaesthetics, I see aesthetic processing in simple and stark terms: it is
about what we like and dislike (Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988). Period.
I see absolutely no need to invoke the arts here. Art works are simply one
type of object—​out of a bewildering diversity of animate and inanimate
objects that exist in the environment—​that we can appraise for their appeal.
I reject the Enlightenment idea that aesthetics is a theory of art. Aesthetics
is simply about what we like and dislike, what we find beautiful and ugly,
what we find attractive and repulsive. It deals with very general issues about
preferences and taste that apply to any type of object. In response to the
Enlightenment idea that aesthetic processing is “disinterested” and thus
functionless, I point out that our aesthetic sense is a major motivator of
behavior. We seek out what we find appealing, and we avoid what we find
repulsive. People desire to have sex with individuals whom they find attrac-
tive, and they refuse to set foot in a restaurant whose food made them sick
on a previous visit.
If what I claim is correct, then there should be a general brain network that
deals with aesthetic appraisals of like and dislike regardless of the appraised
object. This system should receive inputs from all types of sensory pathways—​
for example, visual input to evaluate the appeal of faces and sunsets and audi-
tory input to evaluate the appeal of music and birdsong—​but the system itself
should transcend the nature of the sensory input. In our study, my colleagues
and I attempted to identify an aesthetic-​appraisal system in the brain that
operates on all kinds of objects. Such a system should, of course, process the
appeal of art works, but it should in no way be specific to such appraisals. It
should be a general system that mediates our sense of taste for all kinds of
objects.

Steven Brown, Naturalizing Aesthetics In: Brain, Beauty, & Art. Edited by: Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo, Oxford
University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197513620.003.0004
 Naturalizing Aesthetics 19

Our study entailed a meta-​analysis, which is a statistical analysis of a large

collection of related but separate studies that have already been published.
To take an everyday example, a given clinical trial for a drug might show
that the drug reduces blood pressure in users, but a meta-​analysis would look
across all studies that examined the drug in order to see if the drug actu-
ally produces a significant effect overall. Whereas a single trial might include
1,000 patients, the meta-​analysis might include 20,000 patients and thus be
much more reliable. In my case, I looked across all existing neuroimaging
studies in which participants had to make an aesthetic judgment on some
type of object. I sought all sensory modalities of appraisal in order to see what
was common across them. I ended up surveying four sensory modalities: vi-
sion, audition, taste, and smell. Are there brain areas that are commonly acti-
vated whether we aesthetically appreciate foods, faces, odors, musical works,
clothing, bodies, paintings, and the like? Meta-​analysis is the ideal approach
for addressing such a question.
My colleague Xiaoqing Gao and I identified 93 published studies at the
time that met our criteria for inclusion. Because studies of negative aes-
thetic appraisal were limited, our study focused only on positive aesthetic
appraisals; in other words, experiments in which people reported on what
they like, prefer, and/​or find beautiful. We first extracted information about
the activated brain regions from each study. We then used the analysis
method called “activation likelihood estimation” to find areas that are com-
monly activated across a set of studies. As a first step, we analyzed each sen-
sory modality separately, revealing aesthetic activations for vision, audition,
taste, and smell. While each analysis revealed brain areas specific for that
modality, a number of areas were clearly common across the four. We next
applied what is called a “conjunction analysis” to statistically determine what
was common across the four sensory modalities. Most of the areas revealed
by the conjunction analysis were associated with aspects of emotional ap-
praisal and evaluation. A part of the brain called the anterior insula appeared
as the most concordant area across the four sensory pathways. This result was
surprising. The anterior insula has its strongest association with appraisals
of the negative kind, for example, feelings of disgust. There are fewer studies
that relate the insula to appraisals of the positive kind, such as those under-
lying aesthetic appreciation.
However, the insula is a complex and multifaceted region that deals with
how we perceive the internal state of our body. From the standpoint of aes-
thetics, the anterior insula is also a primary receiving area in the brain for
20 Frameworks

information coming from the taste buds of the tongue. Hence, in the article,
we argued that our sense of taste of the aesthetic type maps onto a brain
region for our sense of taste of the sensory type. We further attempted to
naturalize aesthetics by presenting a “food model” of aesthetic processing,
which argues that the brain’s aesthetic system evolved first for the appraisal
of objects of biological importance—​most notably food sources and poten-
tial mates—​and was later co-​opted for the appreciation of artworks, such as
paintings and music. I think it is far more reasonable to argue that the appre-
ciation of art works piggybacked onto an existing system for the appraisal
of objects of biological importance than it is to posit that humans evolved a
novel brain system for the appreciation of human-​created art. I see no evi-
dence to support the latter viewpoint, an idea echoed by other thinkers as
well (Skov & Nadal, 2020).
To my way of thinking, aesthetics and neuroaesthetics are theories of how
we appraise objects for their appeal. Nothing more, nothing less. It is high
time that we abandon the Enlightenment idea that aesthetics is the study of
art, as well as its modern offshoot that neuroaesthetics is the neuroscientific
study of art. The study of art deals with far more concerns than the aesthetic
responses of perceivers. As I have discussed elsewhere (Brown, 2018), a cog-
nitive and neural approach to the arts forces us to confront such issues as how
dancers are able to synchronize their body movements to a musical beat and
to one another (see Chapter 38, by Brown), how actors are able to pretend to
be fictional characters, how painters are able to create representations of their
three-​dimensional perception in a two-​dimensional format, how musicians
are able to communicate meaningful information about emotion by varying
the structure of musical scales, and many others. Ellen Dissanayake and
I argued that the appropriate name for the field devoted to this area of study
should be neuroartsology, not neuroaesthetics (Brown & Dissanayake, 2009).
The issue of aesthetic appeal is unquestionably an important one for both
producers and perceivers of the arts, but it is neither the only one nor the
most important one.
Beyond disavowing the “aesthetics = art” idea, the field of neuroaesthetics
has a second immense challenge to confront in the coming years. From its
inception, aesthetics has been a study of perception, and neuroaesthetics has
adopted this exclusively perceptual focus. However, what both fields have
completely neglected is the production aspect of aesthetics. Creators imbue
art works with aesthetic features to make them appealing to perceivers, and
performers attempt to convey this beauty in their interpretations. Hence, we
 Naturalizing Aesthetics 21

have to consider the production side of aesthetics as much as the percep-

tion side. Dissanayake (2009) devised the concept of “artification” to describe
this production process. Artification occurs not just in the arts but in eve-
ryday processes of personal aesthetics, including people’s attempts to convey
their physical appeal to potential romantic partners. Interestingly, the study
of aesthetics in evolutionary biology provides a more balanced approach
to the topic than aesthetic theory in psychology, for example by analyzing
so-​called aesthetic displays in connection with mate attraction in animals.
Aesthetic displays are ubiquitous in human behavior, but are generally seen
as being outside of the domain of aesthetics due to the field’s focus on percep-
tual processing. Many of the things that we appraise as beautiful are things
that people put a great deal of effort into appearing beautiful. The field des-
perately needs to close the sensorimotor loop and devote as much attention
to aesthetic production as to aesthetic perception.

References

Brown, S. (2018). Toward a unification of the arts. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1938.

Brown, S., & Dissanayake, E. (2009). The arts are more than aesthetics: Neuroaesthetics
as narrow aesthetics. In M. Skov & O. Vartanian (Eds.), Neuroaesthetics (pp. 43–​57).
Baywood.
Dissanayake, E. (2009). The artification hypothesis and its relevance to cognitive science,
evolutionary aesthetics, and neuroaesthetics. Cognitive Semiotics, 9(5), 136–​158.
Ortony, A., Clore, G. L., & Collins, A. (1988). The Cognitive Structure of Emotions.
Cambridge University Press.
Skov, M., & Nadal, M. (2020). A farewell to art: Aesthetics as a topic in psychology and
neuroscience. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(3), 630–​642.
 5
Moving Toward Emotions in the
Aesthetic Experience
Cinzia Di Dio and Vittorio Gallese

Comment on: Di Dio C., & Gallese, V. (2009). Neuroesthetics: A review.

Current Opinions in Neurobiology, 19, 682–​687.

Our brain does not work in watertight compartments. It is an intricate net-

work of neural activities and areas whose functions are intimately entangled.
In our 2009 review, we provided a synthesis of what the new discipline of
neuroaesthetics had accomplished in its first 10 years. When considering
aesthetic experience, we cannot refer to the activation of a single brain area.
We must refer to the joint activation of different brain structures responsible
for the analysis of specific aspects of visual stimuli, be they artworks or not.
When observing a work of art, our brain is engaged in parallel processes: our
perception is not the mere “visual” copy of what is before our eyes, but the re-
sult of a complex construction whose outcome depends on the contribution
of our body and its motor potentialities, our senses, and our emotions, imag-
ination, and memories. There have been attempts made to address aesthetic
experience from a psychological and/​or functional point of view. Among
these, one of the most comprehensive is the model developed by Leder and
collaborators (e.g., Pelowski et al., 2017; see also Chapter 3), who support the
idea that aesthetic experience goes from visual to semantic processing, up to
the effect of the context, the observer’s experience, emotional engagement,
motor resonance, and so on. In this chapter, we focus on the emotional and
motor aspects.
Our neurophysiological and psychophysical research highlighted both the
affective component that characterizes aesthetic experience and the motor
component: both are underpinned by embodied simulation processes; that
is, the neural reuse of cortical areas activated by the performance of actions,
the experience of emotions and sensations, to map them in others (see
later discussion). For the emotional component, we used the Golden Ratio
(i.e., the harmonic division of a line in extreme and mean ratio where the

Cinzia Di Dio and Vittorio Gallese, Moving Toward Emotions in the Aesthetic Experience In: Brain, Beauty, & Art.
Edited by: Anjan Chatterjee and Eileen R. Cardillo, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197513620.003.0005
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Mennä vuonna oli minun ilonen olla.
Tänä vuonna olis minun parempi kuolla.
Eipä enää naurata, kun aina johtuu mieleen,
Ett' on oma kultani jo mennyt muien viereen.
Tuostapa on syämeni sangen karvas,
Kun on oma kultani jo muien armas.
Ikävät on aikani maailman päällä
Ei kuulu kultaistani siellä eikä täällä.
Päivä se paistaa ja lintusetki laulaa,
Minun kulta veäksen jo muien kaulaan.
Lumipilvet taivaalla juoksee ja kulkee
Minun kulta muita jo sylihinsä sulkee.
Waan minä itkenki ja valitan ja huolin,
Waikk' olen sorrettu kaikilta puolin? —
Heitän koko Suomenmaan ja lähen Wenäehelle,
Elän siellä vuotta kaksi, niin on hyvä jällen.

Riitta.

Hullu olin kun ma läksin kotipitäjästä,

Näin mä siellä kultani joka viikon päästä.
Minä olen täällä ja sinä olet siellä,
Moni järvi välillämme, soita paljo tiellä.
Sirkat ne sirkottaa ja lintuset laulaa,
Waan eipä kultani riennä'kään kaulaan.
Lintuset visertävät metsien päällä,
Minä istun ikävissä yksinäni täällä.
Tuuli se tuulee ja pienet puut ne taipuu,
Kultani ääni ei kankailla kaiku.
 Niin on suru syämessäni ja on kauan ollut,
Enkä ole sanoakaan kullastani kuullut.

Liisa.

Surunen on syämeni, itku silmän peittää:

Jopa oma kultani taisi mun heittää.
Minä elin kultani kanssa, elin monta vuotta;
Iän nuoren kulutin ja kulutin juur suotta.
Olin aina siivo tyttö, siivo rehellinen,
Kultani se viettelijä, viekas, petollinen.
Wiikon vuotin kultoani, vuotin joka ilta,
Kysyin keon kukilta ja ilman lintussita:
Ettekö kukat ole kultoani nähnyt,
Miss' ompi kultani kulkenut ja käynyt?
Ettekö tieä te lintuset pienet,
Missä mun kultani elänee ja lienee? —
Kulta eli ilossahan meren tuolla puolla,
Minun anto surra ja ikävihin kuolla.

Mari.

[Toisella tavalla ja vaillinaisesti ennen präntätty; katso; Finnische

Runen von Dir. H.R. Schröter, sivulla 1106 ja 141.]

Astelin kaunista kangasta myöten,

Heliätä hiekkarantoa myöten.
Poro minun pölysi polvilleni,
Heliätä hiekkoa helmoilleni.
Menin minä siskoni kartanohon,
Siskopa minua syömähän laitti.
Söin palan eli puolen arvoltani.
Kysyin sitte siskolta armaistani.
"Armahasi ei ole ollunna täällä:
Tuollapa maannehe marjoin päällä."
Kävin minä armasta katsomahan,
Sisko se sivullani astumahan.
Armahani makasi paarten päällä.
Silkkinen huivi oli silmiin päällä.
Sisko se käski mua nauramahan,
Sano minun armahan toisenki saavan.
Olisin ma nauranut armastani,
Waan empä jaksanut itkultani.
Suu minun neuro, syämeni itki,
Silmäni vettä vuoatteli.
Weetpa ne vierivät poskia myöten,
Menivät kun virrassa koskia myöten.

(Lisää toiste.)

MEHILÄINEN W. 1840.
Helmikuulta.
MUUALTA LÄHETETTY.

Kysymys Mehiläisestä.

Kunne on nyt kulkenunna,

Kovin kauaksi kaonna,
Mehiläinen meiän maalta,
Näiltä Pohjolan periltä,
Kun ei kuulu kulkevaksi, 5
Ei näy sinä ikänä? —
Joko lie kulkenna kulunsa,
Ohin aikansa ajanna,
Mennyt meistä melkosihin,
Kohen merta määrätöntä, 10
Ponnetonta, pohjatonta,
Iankaikkista, isoa;
Josta ei pahat palaja,
Tule taitavat takasin.
Näihin ilmohin ikänä, 15
Eipä se meri mehusta
Taia tulla täytetyksi;
Sill' on vuosia vatsassa
Ennen saatuja saatoja,
Tuhansia tunkemia, 20
Ei ole sittenkään sisältä
Meri tämä täytynynnä,
Wiel' on ontena ololta,
Avaralta autiana.
Se nyt saattapi minunki, 25
Wiepi paikalla vinohon,
Toimittapi toisahalle
Ajatukset ainehesta,
Es'sanoista eksyttäpi.
Enk' ois outo ollenkana, 30
Saattamaton saanutkana,
Ruvennut runon tekohons
Tähän työhön työntynynnä,
Wann tuli iso ikävä,
Kaipaus kaonnehesta; 35
Se minun pani pakolla,
Sepä työnti työntämällä,
Laitti virttä laulamahan,
Saatteli runon sanoille.
Niin jo tuota toistamisen 40
Mehiläisestä kyselen:
Onko enää ollenkana
Elämässä entisessä,
Näissä maailman majoissa,
Joka kuuna kulkemassa; 45
Wain lie joutunut jokehen
Tulvan tullessa isoksi;
Wainko tuimahan tulehen,
Aivan hirmu hiiloksehen;
Wain oisi salohon saanut, 50
Selkosmetsihin sekonut,
Etähäksi eksynynnä;
Tahi ei tahtone enempi
Tulla'kaan tuville näille,
Kaukasille kartanoille, 55
Näille Pohjolan perille,
Pikkuisihin pirttilöihin,
Joiss' on karstoa katossa,
Paljo pöyvillä pölyä,
Penkeilläki pelmehiä, 60
Aivan lasitki likaset,
Sillat myöski siivotonna.
Samoin kun sano Paturi,
Häpäsi Hämehen miesi,
Runossansa rustatussa, 65
Jossa paraite paniki,
Ylen määränsä ylävä,
Siivoistamme, silloistamme,
Pöyvistämme, penkeistämme,
Akkunoista, astioista, 70
Niinkun kaikista kaluista,
Waate'varsista pahoista,
Wielä taioista tavoista,
Että tyyleistä tytärten,
Poikasien Pohjan maalla. 75
Ja niin kiittiki kivasti
Heiän puolen hempehiä,
Tyttäriä tyynempiä,
Kun ovat kovan koriat,
Ylen määränsä ylävät, 80
Monen tansin taitavaiset.

Waanpas kuule Kustu kulta,

Pane mielehen Paturi,
Mitä mä sanon sanoista,
Laulustasi laitetusta: 85
Mitä on tyllit tyttärillä,
Talonpojan tallukoilla?
Mitä on saalit silkkisetki,
Kamritsiset kaulahuivit.
Että silkkisiekalehet, 90
Jotta saavat sammumahan
Tulen liekin liehumasta,
Keiton alta kyökistäki?
Niin ennen isät sanoivat,
Muistutteli muinaskansa: 95
Ei salli savinen pelto
Koriata kuokkiata,
Piian pitkeä hametta,
Sukanvartta valkiata.
Pois ne onki Pohjolasta 100
Silkit, kamritsit kateessa,
Talonpoikaisten taloista.
Se on mahti mamsellejen,
Tapa herraisten taloissa,
Jotk' on sääty säayltähän 105
Pulskiampahan pukuhun.
Se on erotus eräinen
Meille varsin valmistettu
Tuntomerkiksi tutuksi,
Niinkun tunki kunniaksi, 110
Että olla oikiasti
Waattehissansa vakaasti,
Sääyssansä säiseästi.
Sill' on kukkoki kuresta,
Kananpoika kaarnehesta, 115
Erotettuna esinnä
Luojaltansa luullaksemme,
Niille pantuna paraaksi
Esimerkiksi etehen,
Jotk' ei ilman itsiänsä 120
Koskan tule tuntemahan,
Tuntemahan, tietämähän,
Mistä on suku sukunsa,
Mistä alku ainehensa,
Waikk' on alku ainehemme 125
Maasta, mullasta sukumme.
Niin me pojat Pohjan maalla
Aina aikahan tulemma
Kotisaaulla saralla,
Jot' ei paljo painettane. 130
Emmekä huoli ensinkänä
Suurten rinnalle ruveta,
Tytöt ei ne meiän maalla
Maha tulla mamselleiksi.
Jos ei toisinkaan toella 135
Pitäis kenenkään kehata
Ylen pitkiä piteä
Körttiröiyn rötkäloitä,
Halkosuisia hameita,
Wanhan kansan kauhtanoita, 140
Jost' on joukossa johuja,
Pahat seuroissa seotki,
Josta juorut juoksioitten,
Lorut pitkät loppumatta.
Moni mielen miehistäki, 145
Warsin vaimoista valitut,
Niin on eksyneet etääksi,
Uskossansa untunehet,
Että pyrkivät pyhiksi,
Wanhurskaiksi vaattehilla. 150
Niin on tyhmät tyttäretki,
Että riepunsa repivät,
Kaikki katkovat hameensa,
Huivinsaki hukkoavat,
Aivan polttavat poroksi; 155
Sillä toivovat tulevan,
Paremmaksi pääsevänsä,
Sillä pyrkivät pyhiksi,
Taivasta tavottelevat;
Waikk' on synnissä syvästi 160
Omatunto tuuvitettu,
Ettei tunne tuomiota
Synnin päälle synkiätä;
Waikka himot hiukoavat,
Weri kunne'ki vetäpi, 165
Synnin töihin tyhmempihin,
Ilkeyksihin isoihin.

Waan jo olen vaiti vaattehista,

Että tylleistä tytärten,
Wirkan vainen viimeseksi 170
Mehiläiselle sanani:
Niinkö siistiksi sinäki
Tulit tuttu lintusemme,
Että sä noesta nokastut,
Eli muista muuttehista, 175
Tulemastasi tupihin,
Meiän maille matkomasta?
Waikk' oot kuullut käyessäsi,
Että nähnyt ollessasi,
Kuinka vaimot vastoinensa 180
Karstoja kapistslevat
Joka lauantai laesta,
Nokiorret nostelevat,
Ettei kai ole katosta
Sitä puonnut silmillesi, 185
Silmillesi, siivillesi.
Wieläpä seinätki sipovat,
Kyntivät metson kynillä,
Sekä veillä veisteievät
Aivan puulle puhtahalle, 190
Pöyät, penkkinsä pesevät,
Lakasevat lattiansa
Warpuluuilla lujasti,
Raot kaikki rassoavat
Puikon kanssa puhta'aksi; 195
Waikk' ei siisti sittenkänä
Ole vielä ollenkana
Meiän tuhmissa tuvissa,
Pimiöissä pirteissämme,
Kuin on kuulunut Hämeessä, 200
Aina mainittu olevan,
Lattiat vesin valetut,
Kaikki pesty permantonsa;
Kuin on suurissa saleissa,
Parahissa pappiloissa. 205
Wain tule kuitenki tupihin,
Pikkusihin pirttehimme,
Joss' olet kauan kaivattuna,
Kauan ollunna kateessa;
Tuo tukulta tullessasi 210
Meille mieluista mehua,
Kanna mettä kaapussasi,
Alla siipesi simoa.
Elekä pane pahaksi,
Ellös tuosta tuskautuko, 215
Waikka kuinka kuulisitki
Pahanjuonisten panevan,
Kulkuasi kummeksivan,
Tahi kieltäsi kiroovan;
Ei ole ollut ennenkänä 220
Kaikki kaikille hyväksi,
Yksi kiitti, toinen moitti,
Harvat arvon antanepi —
Se on mahti maailmassa,
Se tapa iänikuinen. 225

***

Kaikki mit' on kankiasti

Tähän lauluhun las'ettu,
 Taikka pantuna pahasti,
Puuttuvaisesti puhuttu,
Lapinpuolen lausehilla, 230
Puhe'parsilla pahoilla,
Siitä saattapi sanoa:
Ett' on miekka miestä myöten,
Laulu laulajan mukahan.

Jälkimaine. Jo tätä ennen olemma, ilman muita lauluja,

präntättäneet Mehiläiseen kolmekymmentä nykysemmän ajan
tekoista runoa. Niitä on ollut 25 semmoisia, jotka on tehty ruotsin eli
muun vieraan kielen ymmärtämättömiltä miehiltä ja niiden eritekiäin
luku on 14. Nämät tekiät ovat olleet kotoperää osittain Karjalasta
(Repolasta, Lieksasta, Ilomantsista ja Kerimäeltä), osittain Savosta
(Rautalammilta, Wiitasaaresta, Pielavedeltä ja Iinsalmesta), osittain
Pohjanmaalta (Siikajoesta, Iistä ja Hyrynsalmesta). Usiammastaki
syystä olemma aina mieluisesti präntättäneet talonpoikaisten
laitoksia niin runoissa, kun muissa kirjotuksissa. Ensistäki kielen
vuoksi. Aivan surkiata on katsella, kuinka Suomen kieli monessa
herraisten tekemässä kirjotuksessa on pilattu, erittäinki ensiaikoina.
Ruotsin kielen sanajärjestys on aikaa voittain niin tavalliseksi
suomalaisissa kirjoissa tullut, että moniki lukia jo katsoo kankiaksi
kaiken kirjoituksen, joka siitä ei seuraa. Emmekä huolisi vallittaa, jos
ne sen tekisivätki, joiden silmät ja korvat ovat tottuneet ruotsalaiseen
kirjotukseen, vaan se vasta on pahempi ja ainaki huolettava asia,
kun sama ruotsalaisuus paikka paikoin jo on tullut umpi
suomalaisillenki niin tutuksi ja rakkahaksi, etteivät muusta tiedä,
eivätkä huoli. Tiedämmä kyllä, kaikilla aineilla taivaan kannen alla
olevan ikänsä, aikansa ja muutteensa, eikä mitään muuttumatonta
löytyvän, ei kieltä, mieltä, eikä muuta ainetta, näkyväistä eli ajateltua.
Mutta se on myös tietty ja kaikille tuttu asia, että esimerkiksi puu
itsevapaudessansa kasvaa luonnostansa suoraksi, vaan kun tulee
tuuli idästä, toinen lännestä ja pieksää sen muiden lähellä olevien
suurempien puiden väliin, niin viimein oksista eli latvasta puuttuu
niihin ja kasvaa niitä myöten vääräksi ellei aikanaan vapauteta ja
oikaista. Ei siis liene'kään lupa niin ajatella, kun meillä ei olisi
minkäänlaista huolenpitoa kotikielestämme, »vääntyköön kuinka
tahansa. Kaiketi'ki on meillä siitä niin huolta, kun hyötyäki. Eikä
ole'kaan yksipuolisia velvollisuksia maailmassa, niin että
saattaisimma kielestäkään sanoa, sen vaan meille hyväksi luodun
olevan, meidän ei siitä huolta pitää tarvitsevan. Se siis on huoli ja
velvollisuus kotikieltämme kohtaan, että, minkä taidamma,
estelemmä sen oman luonteensa heittämästä ja mutkistumasta
ruotsin tahi muiden ulkokielten mukaan. Olisiko se siis niin
vaarallinen asia, ja eikö se olisi ennemmin suotava, kun esteltävä?
— Tätä kysymystä vastaamma toisella: onko se vaarallista jos
männyt metsässä kasvavat vääriksi, ja eikö ne kuitenki ole mäntyjä,
ei muita puita? — Ovat kyllä ja kelpaavatpa vielä polttopuiksi, mutta
seinää ja huonetta on niistä vaikia saada. Ainaki pitää niitä
usiammiksi kappaleiksi sitä ennen palotella ja ei saa sittenkään
muuta, kun jatkettua seinää. Semmoista jatkettua, paloteltua kieltä
saadaan myös suomesta, kun sitä ulkokielten mukaan mutkistettuna
käytetään. Suomessa on oikein aika honkiin verrattavia sanoja,
juurellansa, varrellansa, oksilla ja latvalla. Semmoisista ruotsi ja
moni muu ulkokieli ei paljo tiedä'kään, vaan täyttää yhden suomen
sanan siasta puheen usiammalla pienellä, välistä neljällä ja viidelläki.
Kun nyt semmoisiin ulkokieliin tottuneet jotai suomeksi kirjottavat ja
liiatenki, jos kääntävät jotakuta niistä kielistä, niin tavallisesti saavat
sanan sanalta, kaksi paraalta suomalaiseen kirjotukseensa. Waan
erityiset sanat ruotsissa ja muissa ulkokielissä enimmiten ovat
lyhyitä, suomen sanat pitkiä. Sentähden venyy kirjotuksensaki
pitkäksi ja näyttää oudollen. Tätä vikaa parantaaksensa karsivat ja
katkasevat sanat, jolla saavat semmoista kieltä, kun useimmissa
virsissä virsikirjassamme. Niin on mielestämme Turun ja Uudenmaan
Suomalaisten kieli oikian luonteensa kadottanut ja pilannut
somuudensa, niin Wiron kieli vieläki pahemmaksi rumentunut. Waan
jälki vetää, sanotaan sananparressa, ja kun nyt suomalaiset kirjat
enimmäksi osaksi ovat mainittua ruotsin mukailemata, niin tarvitsisi
saada toinenki jälki, joka vetäisi ehkä muutamiaki siltä entiseltä
ruotsin jäleltä. Tosin onki nykysempinä aikoina alettu tehdä ja käydä
tätä toista suomalaisuuden jälkeä, mutta vieläki on se entinen
paremmin tallattu. Sentähden olemma meki puolestamme liittäyneet
niihin, jotka tallaavat tätä suomalaisuuden uraa paremmaksi tieksi,
vaan koska usein meki erehdymmä sille entiselle tielle, niin haluisesti
ainaki olemma pyytäneet tutuksi tehdä runoja ja muita kirjotuksia
semmoisilta miehiltä, joita joku vieras kieli ei taida hämmentää,
ruotsalaisuus ei seottaa. Se on ensimmäisenä syynä, minkätähden
semmoisia runoja ja muita kirjotuksia olemma präntättäneet.

Toiseksi osotaksen niissä Suomen kansan mieli, tavat ja elämä

paremmin, kun herraisten laittamissa runoissa ja kirjotuksissa.
Meidän herrasväki mielessänsä, tavoissansa ja elämässänsä ei ole
enemmin Suomen, kun mihin muuhun kansaan verrattavia. He ovat
eronneet kansasta, jos ei juuri siksikään, että taitaisiin Ruotsalaisiksi,
Wenäläisiksi eli Saksalaisiksi lukea. Moni heistä tuskin tuntisikaan
kalaa elävässä muodossaan, vielä vähemmin, kuinka sitä
pyydetään, minkälaisia nuotta ja verkot ovat, minkälaisia aura, viikale
ja harava, millä tavalla pellot ja metsät saadaan eloa kasvamaan, jos
nauris kasvaa maassa eli puussa j.n.e. He ovat kuitenki paljo
oppineempia, kun talonpoikanen kansa, mutta kun heidän oppinsa ja
taitonsa ovat ulkopuolella talonpojan oppia ja taitoja, niin tulevat he
ulkopuolin tuntemaanki, mitä suurimmalla osalla Suomen kansasta
oikein on omituista. Ja kun joskus kirjotuksissaan kuvaelevat, niin
eivät saa oikiata kuvaa Suomen elämän muodosta, vaan välistä
kaunistavat sen liiaksi, toisinaan rumentavat ylimääräsesti eli
hairailevat muulla tavalla. Liika kaunistus helpoimmasti tapahtuu
omilta maanmiehiltämme, mutta ei ole kuitenkaan kiitettävä. Lapselle
näytettiin kerran omenapuun kuva paperille kirjotettu. Ihastuen
katseli hän niitä viheriöitä lehviä ja kauniita, vaalevia kukkia ja sanoi,
ei koskaan niin kaunista puuta nähneensä. "Se on kuvattu sinun
nimikkö puustasi omenatarhassa", lausui isä, ja lapsi pyysi kuvaa
omaksensa. Isä vastasi, ei taitavansa antaa sekä puuta että kuvaa,
vaan jos tahtoisi vaihtaa, antaa puun isällensä, ottaa kuvan, niin sillä
saisi. Lapsi myöntyi mielellänsä vaihtamaan, sillä kuvan taisi
kädessänsä pitää, myös oli se uusi; vaan puu oli vanha, eikä
liikkunut paikaltaan. Jälkeenpäin olisi hän kerran helteessä puun
varjoon istunut, mutta kuva ei antanutkaan varjoa. Wieläki pahemmin
kävi hänen, koska syksyllä muut puistansa poimivat omenia ja hänen
kuvapuunsa aina oli yltä valkiassa kukassa. Wiimen tulivat hiiret ja
kalustivat sen rikki loukosta, mihen oli heittänyt, eikä hän tästä hiirien
työstä paljo surrutkaan. Tähän lapsen omanapuun kuvaan ovat
usein oppineitten kuvaukset elämän muodosta verrattavat. Ovat
monasti kuvauksia heidän puuttuvaisesta tiedostansa yhteiseen
elämään koskevissa asioissa, ei itse elämästä; heidän omista
luuloistansa, ei asioista. Toisin on sen kanssa, asia, joka itse
yhteisen elämän lapsi, siitä ei ole kunne'kaan vierasten oppien tielle
hairaunut. Kaikissa puheissa ja kirjotuksissaan ilmottaa hän kansan
mielen, tavat ja muun elämän muodon paremmin, kun minkä
oppineet kauniimmillaki kuivauksillaan voivat. Hän ei osota
ainoastansa kuorta munasta, vaan sekä syämen, että kuoren; ei
ainoastaan ulkonaista näköä huoneesta, vaan sisäsolennonki. —
 Wielä muitaki syitä löytyisi, joiden tähden arvossa pidämmä umpi
Suomalaisten kirjotuksia. Usein ansaitsevat itse aineensa puolesta
tutuksi tulla ja ikäskun näytteeksi ulkolaisille Suomen yhteisen
kansan nykysestä kirjallisesta taidosta. Ei monta vuotta sitte
präntätyssä saksalaisessa, hyvin oppineelta mieheltä tehdyssä
kirjassa luetaan Suomalaiset vieläki pakanain sekaan. Ei siis taida
haitata, että tulisivat vähä paremmin meidän maan ja kansan
tuntemaan, jos ei toisin puolin meidänkään tästä pakanallisesta
nimestä tarvitse suuttua, vaan ennemmin kilvotella ja pyrkiä, vasta
paremmaksi tulla. — Tämä nyt olkoon puolestamme myös niille
vastaukseksi sanottu, jotka moittivat meitä "hävyttömien loruin"
pränttäämisestä Mehiläisessä, vaikkemme kyllä voikaan ymmärtää,
mistä syystä ne mennä vuoden Lokakuun osassassa luettavat tarinat
olisivat hävyttömiksi tuomittavat. Eikä ole muutkaan, joita siitä
asiasta olevina kyselleet, sitä ymmärtäneet. Sen kyllä pidämmä
hävyttömänä asiana, vaimolla olevan salaukkoloita, mutta se
mielestämme ei ole hävytöntä, jos joku muistuttaa vaimoa siitä,
vaikka kohta pilkkaamalla eli nauramallaki. Samalla tavalla ovat
valhe, petos ja varkaus itsestänsä tuomittavia, mutta saapi niistä
kuitenki puhua, joka niitä ei ylistä ja seurattaviksi esimerkiksi muille
niitä ei aseta. —

Mitä edellä luettavaan runoon koskee, niin on se myös umpi

suomalaisen miehen tekemä, lukkari Eerikki Bisin Kiannalta,
Hyrynsalmen pitäjätä, ja taitaa olla ensimmäinen, jonka eläissänsä
on tehnyt, sillä hän on vielä nuori poikamies. Mielellään olkoon siis
se hänelle sallittu, jos olisiki joku paikka runoissansa "pantuna
pahasti, puuttuvaisesti puhuttu" k. v. 224—234. Muutamia paikkoja
olemma pränttäämättä heittäneet, joissa liiaksi ylistää toimitustamme
Mehiläisen kanssa, sillä semmoista ylistystä emme ansaitse omassa
tunnossamme, vaan ennemmin moitintoa. Silla itse tunnemma
työmme ja toimemme puuttuvaiseksi ylitse kaikista niistäki, jotka siitä
meitä enimmästiki mahtavat moittia. Sillä niitä on niin monta, jotka
oikein kilvotellen estävät meitä sitä paremmaksi saamasta: välistä
taidottomuus, välistä kiirut aika, välistä kykenemättömyys, välistä
huolettomuus, välistä varattomuus. — Sillä tunnolla ja mielellä ainaki
emme ole tainneet präntättää muitaki meille tulleita ylistysrunoja
Mehiläisestä, niin esimerkiksi emme sitä, jonka jo pariki vuotta sitte
saimma ja joka lopettaa aineensa seuraavalla tavalla:

Wielä saattelen sanoiksi,

Wielä virkan immeiseksi:
Jos sa joskus matkoillasi,
Sattuisit samotessasi,
Kujille kotikyläni,
Koti peltojen perille;
Ellös siirtykö sivutse,
Tahi oikasko ohitse!
Mistäs tunnet minun kotoni? —
Tuosta tuntenet kotoni:
Koto on minun lovessa,
Kyröjärven kainalossa,
Lounasrannalle rakettu,
Liki koskea jaloa,
Suurta, paljo pauhaavata,
Kyröskoskeksi sanottu,
Weenlasku Kyrölammin,
Laajalaatusen vesistön.
Siitä länsiluotehesen
Wirstan päässä päätyneenä
On se kunta kylästä,
Neljä pikkuruukusia,
Jota Pettutaipaleeksi
Haukkunimellä hokevat.
Siell' on mun kotokyläni,
Syntypaikkani samate,
Kostun saarta vastapäätä,
Länsisuuntoa samasta.

Jos sa joskus luoksi jouvut,

Pääyt paikalle samalle;
Toki tulloski tupahan,
Sekä poikkea sisälle,
Yötimähän, päivimähän,
Kostimahan Kostulahan,
Ei sun täällä semminkänä
Panna pettua etehen,
Tahi parkkia pahoa;
Emoni sun einehtävi,
Kostitsevi kylläseksi,
Makumaiolla Meriken,
Ristikenki rieskasella.

Paikat on perin pulskiammat,

Ihanimmat ilman alla;
Kaunihimmat kaikkialla
Ovat Kostulan kotoset:
Niemet on somat näöltä,
Arot kaunihit, avarat,
Siinä saaristot likellä,
Joissa kukat kuhisevat,
Kahisevat kaikenlaiset. —
Ja meiän ahe ihana
 Kukillansa kultasilla,
Puistollansa pulskialla,
Pihlajistolla jalolla!
Oh kun sitä silmäellä
Aamuaikoina alotan,
Keskellä kesäsyäntä,
Päivän nostessa norolta
Kultinensa, koittonensa,
Hopeinensa, hohtonensa;
Niin se mieleni mehuna,
Syvältä syämeniki,
Sulosuomasta sulavi,
Ihantelevi ilosta.
Siitä sieki, meiän lintu,
Mehiläinen, mieliksesi
Saisit mettä mittavasti,
Suunnattomasti simoa.
Siellä saisit siipiäsi,
Lentimiäsi levätä,
Ryvetä mehikukissa,
Höyriä hunavarassa.

Kutsumisestansa saamma sitä meille tuntematonta kutsujata

rehellisesti kiittää ja myös runostansa, jota emme kuiteekaan jo
mainitusta syystä taida kokonaan präntättää. Ettemme ansaitse
ollenkaan semmoisia ylistyksiä todistaa seuraavaki meille muualta
lähetetty:

Muuan sana Mehiläiselle.

 "Toden ollessa sananlaskun: luonnossansa mies lujempi,
tavoissansa taitavampi, olis Mehiläisenkin pitänyt Simpukan ja
Kotkan sadusta oppiman, 'ei lentämään korkiammalle, kuin siivet
kantavat', ja muistellen, päämääränsä olevan, ainoastansa tässä
elossa kartutella hyödytystä ja huvitusta ihmisille, ei yritellä'kään
kajomaan uskon oppiin ja tulevaisen elämän asioihin. Tämän
kuitenkin unhotettuansa, niinkuin usiammasta ensivuotensa,
varsinkin Joulukuun Numerosta on nähtävä, ja niinmuodoin varsin
'Simpukan' satuun saadessaan, näkyis tarvitsevan varoitusta, ettei,
luonnossaan pysyin ja oikiata päämaaliaan kohden kulkiin kyllä
hyödyllinen ja kiitettävä ollen, taidottomuudessaan peräti hukkaan
lentää hurrittaisi.

"Mehiläinen on kyllä monasti julistanut pitävänsä P. Raamatun

arvossa ja oikian uskon ainoana perustuksena. Mutta sitä ei tämän
kirjottaja jaksa uskoa, nähdessään ja kuullessaan siltä niin monta P.
Raamatun oppia vastaan käyväistä menoa ja ääntelemistä. Hän
rohkenee esimerkiksi Tammikuun Historia osassa 3 siv. — omastako
päästänsä, eli muiden mukaan, sitä ei ole sanonut — päättää, jotta
'kaikki historian totuus juurraksen enimmältä muisto muistolta
säilyneihin tarinoihin ja kirjallisiin tietohin', 5 siv., että 'pian ainoat
muinasajan tiedot ovat etsittävät tarinoissa', että 'sekä ne, jotka
epäilevät suuresti mitänä totta näissä tarinoissa löytyvän, että ne,
jotka pitävät enimmiä totena, taitavat erehtyä', että 'runoilemissa
liiatenki on varottava, ettei kaikkea todellistana totena pidettäisi', ja
ettei 'historiallista totuutta silloin (vanhaan aikaan) kysytty, eikä
vaadittu, vaan ainoasti luonnollista totuutta eli asian kertomista
senaikuisten ihmisten luulon ja toivon mukaseksi', ja 6 siv. että
'ikivanhoja aikoja tutkiessa ikäskun uimma avaralla merellä, kussa ei
rantaa erota'kana'."