Main description:

Art and technology have been converging rapidly in the past few years; an important example of this convergence is the alliance of neuroscience with aesthetics, which has produced the new field of neuroaesthetics.

Irving Massey examines this alliance, in large part to allay the fears of artists and audiences alike that brain science may "explain away" the arts. The first part of the book shows how neuroscience can enhance our understanding of certain features of art. The second part of the book illustrates a humanistic approach to the arts; it is written entirely without recourse to neuroscience, in order to show the differences in methodology between the two approaches. The humanistic style is marked particularly by immersion in the individual work and by evaluation, rather than by detachment in the search for generalizations. In the final section Massey argues that, despite these differences, once the reality of imagination is accepted neuroscience can be seen as the collaborator, not the inquisitor, of the arts.

Contents:

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part 1: The Imagination, Neural

Chapter 1. Background, Purposes, and Limitations of the Inquiry
Chapter 2. Neuroscience and the Visual Arts
Chapter 3. At the Limits of Language
Chapter 4. Music and Language in Dream

Part 2: The Imagination, Plain

Chapter 5. The Three Fields

Part 3: Conclusions

Chapter 6. Ideas and Values

Bibliography
Index