Book: Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us
Author: Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
Reviewed by: Hala Moddelmog, president and CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center
I’ve had my nose in a book since I could read (well before then if I’m being honest). I’ve been lost in books and transported to other worlds through them. Books have bored me and bored into me. But never before has a book recalibrated my brain—and the way I understand and care for it—like Your Brain on Art.
In their groundbreaking research, Susan and Ivy take us on a thorough and mind-blowing journey through the human body and how it responds to and is transformed by art and aesthetic experiences. They say in the same way that the neuroscience discipline has fueled a revolution in our understanding of the brain, neuroarts is building a similar and important body of evidence about our brains on art.
Susan and Ivy got my attention when they shared that stress isn’t in and of itself an emotion, but the physiological response to our emotions. Tension in the muscles, heightened blood pressure, increased heart rate—we’ve all likely experienced these feelings from time to time.
But the authors show us that making art/experiencing art can significantly reduce our cortisol levels in as little as 45 minutes, and I think that’s why I felt rejuvenated and relaxed just reading their book. Your Brain on Art features conversations with an evolutionary biologist and artists including David Byrne and Renee Fleming, people who are living their lives in neuroaesthetics.
Your Brain on Art puts into words what my colleagues have been pioneering for decades: how the arts can heal and transform us.
Hala moddelmog
I have the privilege of leading the Woodruff Arts Center, where I’m surrounded by world-class art every day thanks to our Art Partners: the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and High Museum of Art.
Your Brain on Art puts into words what my colleagues have been pioneering for decades: how the arts can heal and transform us.
It’s a simple and magical truth, and it happens at a cellular level. All we have to do is treat our brains like the intricate, delicate resources that they are. If we can find micro ways to immerse ourselves in theater, music, art, poetry, architecture, you name it, we’ll quickly see how our worlds become brighter, healthier and more hopeful.
Susan and Ivy call their book a kaleidoscope, each story forming a web of patterns and shapes within it. And I’m here to tell you firsthand that your whole life will become a kaleidoscope—it will turn technicolor—if you let your brain experience the hope and the healing power of the arts.
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