Book Review: Experiencing Art. In the Brain of the Beholder

Experiencing art is a new contribution to a fairly crowded literature on the link between science and art, and in particular the study of how scientific knowledge about perception and emotion can inform how we understand the human experience of art. The interest in the subject is very strong, as shown by the many books by scientists, such as Solso (1994), Zeki (1999), Livingstone (2002), and Mather (2013), and there is much activity in terms of research in the area as well. An example of this strong level of activity is the recent establishment of the Visual Science of Art Conference (VSAC) as a standing satellite of the European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP) (I admit a vested interest in selecting this example, as a recent organizer). Given this background, this book is a welcome addition to the literature. The goal is described in the very first paragraph as considering “what we do when we experience art”. There are three parts (acts) on “The art of seeing”, “The art of knowing”, and “The art of feeling”. Before these there is also an overture, which offers a useful and balanced summary of different approaches to the study of art and what art is for. These range from the mimetic to the conceptual approaches. The strength of this book is that it discusses many angles and uses lots of examples from the visual arts across the centuries. Shimamura’s background is as a scientist rather than an art historian; it is therefore remarkable how many detailed discussions of specific works of art he has been able to include. To mention just one of my favourites, but a rather arbitrary example, Murillo’s “Two women at a window” offers a wonderful context for the discussion of the facial expression of emotions. The book’s main strength—its breadth—is also its weakness. One can accept that many aspects of perception, emotion, memory plus the historical context are all important factors in understanding how people experience art. However, the consequence is that very little is left out, and it is hard to see any boundaries: human responses to art are not set apart from any other human experience in response to novel objects or even to life events. From the perspective of a scientist, the reader is left grasping for clear definitions to hold on to. For instance, some authors have claimed that humans have an aesthetic response to any given stimulus. This is controversial, but at least it is a clear position. Shimamura’s proposed framework is different, because in chapter 1 he has a figure in which there is a role for the intention of the artist. This suggests a model in which the interaction between artist and beholder is key. Yet very different positions are at times presented as acceptable. For instance, in the last chapter we read that aesthetics is about “our ability to determine what is good or bad for us”: a statement not entirely consistent with the closing quote from Gombrich (“I do not think that there are any wrong reasons for liking a statue or painting”). The challenge of defining the scope of the area is something many authors are struggling with, and I do not have a perfect answer. Where does “art” begin and end? In turn, this begs the question as to which human experiences are, therefore, of interest: on the one hand, it seems too restrictive to say that art is what is produced intentionally by an artist; on the other hand, in a broad sense, how is experiencing art any difference from studying