Like a neuropsychological tag-team, the other half of the Brain Ethics blog duo has followed up his partner’s recent Science and Consciousness Review article, with his own on Art and the Conscious Brain.
Martin Skov specialises in neuroaesthetics, the science of understanding how art and beauty is understood by the mind and brain.
Critics sometimes ask if the illumination of neurobiological mechanisms adds anything important to old-fashioned ‚Äì i.e., philosophical ‚Äì aesthetic inquiry. I think that already Plato and Aristotle already answered that. As they pointed out, works of art are created with the express purpose of provoking a mental representation in the brains that experience them. Thus, to understand the nature of art you also have to understand the cognitive processes responsible for turning the perceptual properties of any art object into a mental representation. How colour, lines, etc. are magically transformed into Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile is very much a question of how the brain works.
Neuroaesthetics is becoming an increasingly popular field in contemporary neuroscience, with an increasing number of books and even regular conferences now devoted to the field.
Update: It looks like Science and Consciousness Review are having some minor connection issues at the moment. Hopefully, normal service should be resumed shortly.
Link to Art and the Conscious Brain by Martin Skov.
Mind Hacks 
I would love to take a look at “Art and the Conscious Brain” but the link doesn’t work!
Could you administer “link CPR” so we can take a look at it?
Thanks