Book Review: Magnussen, S., & Ross, I., (2023), Your Brain on Art, Canongate

Your Brain on Art explores the fascinating connections between various art forms and the brain, including how art impacts human creativity. Several types of art are discussed, such as music, writing, painting and sculpture, but also others like embroidery, knitting or gardening. Eight different areas of connection between such various art forms and the brain are introduced and presented.

My Interest in the Arts

The book is well researched and reports on various scientific studies, often in considerable detail. In this review, I shall, however, not go into any of these specific studies, but rather review major conclusions that I believe useful for business leaders.

My own interest in this area primarily concerns how certain visual arts, such as painting or sculpture, might impact business creativity, which in turn can lead to better decisions. While this book addresses this, it covers a much broader arena where arts are important. In this review, I may perhaps not have been sufficiently balanced to cover all of this as I tend to focus more on the intriguing link between art and business (my book Art & Business addresses this).

The Neuroscientist Authors

The authors are two neuroscientists. Magnussen, with John Hopkins University, and Ross is with Google. There is a growing scientific body of evidence that art has a positive effect on us—offering for example, deeper human experiences and healing. The authors summarize succinctly the recent field of neuro-ascetics- literally the connection between neuroscience and creativity. According to the authors, the more we engage our senses, the more new experiences we may have, and this concept opens up a broader discussion about how to discover different “sides” of art.

Magnussen and Ross focus on positive effects from active involvement with art (creating and/or appreciating art), naming for example, competence-building, wellness and quality of life. This important book could also clearly benefit art collecting for business enhancing purposes.

There is now scientific proof that the arts are actually essential to our very survival. The relationship between the two is dynamic. Much of this is reported in the current book. It starts with the call for an aesthetic mindset, a high level of curiosity, a strive for open-ended exploration, a keen sensory awareness, and a commitment to engage in resulting creative activities. All of this appears necessary in order to become cognizant to the art around us.

Neuro Aspects of Art

Neuroplasticity is called for. As one’s environment changes, so do the approximately 100,000 neural circuits within the brain. Different art takes on new meanings. Our environment is, of course, also key here. This should be as diverse as possible.

Now to the aesthetic mind. There should be several relevant factors at play. This may lead us to use art in a personalized way, the so-called default mode network, DMN. One’s DMN is a “neural container” that lets us process when a work of art, a piece of music, or a certain landscape in nature matters to us.

Art & Wellbeing

How can all of this lead to an added sense of wellbeing? The anti-thesis of wellbeing might be a burnout. The arts offer a range of effective treatments for individual mental challenges. So-called sound therapy, for instance, may help reduce stress, observing it, to “ring the alarm”, to help channel the stress hormone that is being secreted, and to assist in recovery. The world-famous Swiss psychologist, Karl Jung, played an important role in the development of practices and techniques to cure or reduce stress-related illnesses.

Nature is Art

There is a link to nature too. The master architect Frank Lloyd-Wright, for instance, took long walks, every day, to open up to art (nature) to inspire his housing projects. Again, increased well-being.

Words are Art

Words may also be considered as art. The writer T.S. Elliot, for instance, stated that “genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. Poetry is a safe way to engage with difficult emotions”.

On Health & Healing

So, we see that art, in various forms, can help to restore our mental health. Trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), can even be treated through art and art therapy. Various types of more severe stress too may be diminshed by making use of various types of art.

Our bodies heal! But is this through the arts? For instance, a “quilt” was made up from a series of photos taken of human heart cells under a microscope in a lab at Stanford. These heart cells were moved with electricity as well as sound. Patients became better! Was this art or was it science?

The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) has estimated that 20-40% of reported deaths may have been avoided if patients had been exposed to proper forms of art.

Art has had a profound effect on one’s mental and physical health, both when it comes to prevention of problems, but also in managing and treating symptoms. Living fully and well over the course of one’s life is important. Art can be helpful, but good exercise, appropriate diet, enough sleep as well as relevant medication seem to be important to be able to fully benefit from art. Lifestyle changes may be called for, even as hard as they may be.

Even Alzheimer’s diseases appears to be more under control when art is nearby. A team from MIT came up with a way to expose patients to intensive sound and light while observing art. And this approach seems to work!

Art & Learning

Coming back to art’s impact on people who are not ill, or not depressed, there is a strong ability to create something original. This very essential element of originality is at the core of learning. We are not talking about education here. Pedagogy is not to be confused with learning. Our brain is structured to build new connections and to constantly evolve. How we learn is not the same as a social education system, which is too often built around memorization.  We are driven to learn, to fit puzzle pieces together, to solve mysteries, to figure things out. This curiosity-driven process, with endless discovery, can be found in art. Visual arts education seems effective. This is thus also a matter of developing one’s executive functioning, one’s capacity to manage one’s thoughts, actions and emotions, to achieve one’s goals.

The arts seem to activate the natural connections related to executive functioning in the brain, and actively strengthen them. There are three such natural connections in the brain: working memory, cognitive flexibility, as well as inhibitory control. This finding is particularly relevant for this reviewer, with a strong interest in paintings and sculpture, as already noted. It means that one’s brain might be in a position to actively support the choice of paintings and sculpture. It is a lot about learning, implying too that one might have a good time doing this. Learning is of course experimental. Practice, focusing on various real-life situations, thus may help us to learn.

It is also a lot about unblocking, some calling it unlearning, so that we can learn or relearn, thus gaining access to a full and passionate existence. Impact from art is central here, so that we can flourish, living an authentic, and full life. There are at least six attributes at play, all impacted by an active learning stance relative to art:

-       Cultivate curiosity

-       Put yourself in the center, to be admired by others

-       Put yourself in enriched environments (example: high ceilings!)

-       Reconnect to your creativity (don’t let inhibiting factors slow you down! Mind-wandering seems to be important!)

-       Develop rituals for rewriting your inner script. (Rituals give stability, alleviating stress. Rehearsing rituals is critical!)

-       Induce novelty and surprise. (The brain craves novelty, hence, again, imagination from artists may be able to “trigger” surprising impact).

The Communities of Art

In the end, art can facilitate a creation of communities, when like-minded people relate to and connect with each other more due to common views on specific arts, rather than for more general greater understanding and meaning. Thus, art creates culture; culture creates community; community creates humanity!

Looking at the impact from art in communities in a historic light, we see that the expression of feelings and beliefs may change over time. The shared vision in a community evolves! Thus, the shared vision during the Middle-Aged community that was impacted by the so-called Dutch masters was different from that emerging from, say, those who are attending today’s Museum of Modern Arts, NYC. Both are valid, of course, but evolutionary forces make them different.

Not belonging to a community that is inspired by art may lead to loneliness. And we humans are social creatures. Hence, this loneliness, being cut off from art, has dysfunctional consequences. Is the erratic, speedy evolution of many societies today leading to more loneliness? Here, we might keep in mind that art may proactively engage our social brains!

Communication

Engagement requires communication about art. Art can lead to new ideas, based on what is important and needed, weaving together common threads. Art might empower us to reimagine, re-envision, and reconnect, in order to find a more appealing way forward.

Future Art

What about art of and in the future? We have seen how art had shaped emerging values in different communities over time – the authors cite dramatically different settings, from the Renaissance that propelled humanity out of the Middle Ages - where the art of the time was key – to the street art associated with the fall of the Berlin wall, for example, In both cases, art seems to have eased evolutions, lessened stress and confusion.

It seems important that sensory stimulation was, is, and should be at the center. Traditionally, we talk about some five stimuli (taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing). But there seem to be many stimuli. Researchers have found around 53! To more fully appreciate the impact from art, there is a call for a broader, more active “mobilization” of human senses. Our sensory literacy should expand!

New technologies may support us when it comes to expanding our sensory abilities (loudspeaker technology, remote visionary displays, …) giving us new experiences. Health and wellness may be at stake. It is all back to living with an aesthetic mindset. Critically important for experiencing art.

Closing Thoughts

Why is this book so relevant today? We humans are in a race to embrace technological advances. Typically, artificial intelligence (AI) is seen as critical for stimulating the strong innovative thinking needed to advance. But this frontier for innovative thinking might also be impacted through an active link to art. It is perhaps not only an issue of embracing AI. Instead, embracing the arts as well, to help us to become more innovative, may be equally critical.

This book significantly contributes to a better understanding of the link between the arts, the brain and innovation. The message that art is so important should not be forgotten in today’s debate about new technologies. It is not all about AI!

Crucially, the link between art and the brain, and by extension art, the brain, and innovation, also involves the body. Much of what we call "art" is made by hand— through touch, movement, and physical engagement. In this way, creativity is not only a cognitive process but also an embodied one. The body, brain, and senses together shape our ability to create, connect, and imagine. Your Brain on Art reminds us that to fully understand the power of art, we must consider the whole human being.