Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía por la Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU)
Investigador
en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte. / PhD in
Philosophy – University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
Researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origins of art.
A Journey Through the Neural Bases of Artistic Creation and Appreciation
DOI of the original article: 10.1007/s12210-012-0192-2
Introduction: Art as a Product of the Brain
What transforms a work into a work of art? For the historian Pierre Rosenberg, it is "a true miracle" with no apparent solution. However, Jean-Pierre Changeux, one of the most influential neuroscientists of our time, offers a bold answer: art is, above all, a product of the human brain, a biological "artifact" that emerges from the extraordinarily complex physicochemical reactions occurring between our neurons (Changeux, 1985, 2005, 2008).
This perspective does not aim to reduce aesthetic experience to a mere set of electrical impulses, but rather to open a dialogue between neuroscience and art history. Changeux invites us to ask: can we better understand how we appreciate, create, and are moved by a work of art if we understand the brain mechanisms that make it possible?
The Brain: A Universe of Connections
To understand how the brain produces art, we must first glimpse its astonishing complexity. The human brain contains approximately 100 billion neurons, each establishing up to 10,000 synaptic connections with others. The total number of synapses in the cerebral cortex is around one million billion—a figure approaching the number of positively charged particles in the entire universe.
But the true wonder lies not only in quantity but in plasticity: these connections are not fixed but constantly modified. As the philosopher Gaston Bachelard rightly noted, everything that occurs in the brain—including the creation and appreciation of art—is based on physicochemical reactions that, far from being mechanical, give rise to the inexhaustible richness of human experience.
Evolution: From Homo habilis to the Chauvet Artist
The human brain did not emerge from nothing. From Homo habilis (2.5 million years ago), with a cranial volume of 600-700 cm³, to modern Homo sapiens (about 1,400 cm³), the organ of thought has undergone profound transformation, driven by discrete genetic changes that allowed the expansion of the cerebral cortex, particularly in the frontal lobes.
However, genetics does not explain everything. Changeux emphasizes that there is no "art gene" or intelligence gene: brain development results from a constant interaction between the genetic heritage and the environment. The newborn's brain weighs four times less than the adult brain, and its postnatal maturation extends until puberty, allowing the assimilation of culture, language, and, of course, artistic conventions.
Fascinating fact: the paintings of the Chauvet cave, dating back 30,000 years, already show perfect representations of forms and movements. This challenges the idea of linear progress in art: art renews itself but does not "progress" in the scientific sense.
How Does the Brain View a Work of Art?
The process of visual appreciation begins in the retina, where light-sensitive molecules initiate reactions that convert light stimuli into neural signals. From there, information travels to the thalamus and, finally, to the visual cortex, where different areas specialize in processing:
Color (neurons that respond selectively to red, green, or blue)
Form (neurons sensitive to line orientations or configurations such as hands or faces)
Movement and depth
Spatial organization
But art is not just perception—it is emotion. When we contemplate a work such as Philippe de Champaigne's Magdalene, we not only process forms and colors; structures of the limbic system, such as the amygdala, linked to emotions, are also activated. The connection between configurative perception and emotion is mediated by cultural learning—for example, knowing the story of Mary Magdalene in the Christian tradition enriches our emotional response to the work.
The "Global Neuronal Workspace": Conscious Synthesis
Changeux, in collaboration with Stanislas Dehaene, has proposed the concept of the "Global Neuronal Workspace" : a network of neurons with long-range axons distributed across the prefrontal, parietotemporal, and cingulate cortices. This system allows information processed in specialized areas to be integrated and access consciousness (Dehaene et al., 1998; Changeux and Dehaene, 2008; Dehaene and Changeux, 2011).
A revealing example is Salvador Dalí's painting The Disappearing Image (1938), where we sometimes see a female body and other times a male face. What we perceive at each moment is that interpretation which manages to "gain" access to the global workspace and be consciously reported.
Aesthetic appreciation, according to various neuroimaging studies, correlates with activation of the orbitofrontal cortex and the cingulate cortex, areas that would form part of this global system (Kawabata and Zeki, 2004; Cela-Conde et al., 2004).
The Rules of Artistic Creation
Artistic creation is never purely random. Although artists like Pollock or Soulages may appear chaotic, their work follows rules that restrict the space of possibilities. Changeux identifies several of these rules, with potential neural correlates:
The search for novelty and surprise: first exposure to a surprising work (such as Jeff Koons' sculptures) activates the frontal cortex; with repetition, this activation decreases. The brain thus has a measurable correlate of surprise.
The "consensus partium" or harmony between parts and whole: as formulated by Renaissance architect Alberti (1435/1972), coherence between parts is the hallmark of a masterpiece. In Titian's Pietà or Matisse's Large Reclining Nude, we cannot imagine the whole without the parts or the parts without the whole. Matisse did not compose his work overnight: there were many trials, many errors—a process similar to Darwinian natural selection (Changeux et al., 1973; Changeux and Danchin, 1976; Gisiger et al., 2005).
Recognition of the other as oneself: Titian's self-portrait evokes the imminence of death, and this emotion is recognized because it is shared. Neurosciences have shown that areas activated by one's own pain are also activated by the pain perceived in others (what Paul Ricoeur called "oneself as another"). Works such as Picasso's Guernica or Bernini's bleeding wounds express an ethical message against violence.
Art, Emotion, and Reason: Toward a Synthesis
Current hypotheses about the neural bases of aesthetic pleasure attribute a central role to the connection between the cognitive functions of the prefrontal cortex and the emotional functions of the limbic system. This is still a simplified vision, but it points toward understanding the harmony between reason and emotion that Schiller (1794/1983) already intuited in his reflection on the aesthetic education of the human being.
Conclusion: A Project for the Future
The title "Beauty in the Brain: Toward a Neuroscience of Art" is, in Changeux's own words, more a scientific project for the future than an already consolidated science. The neuroscience of art does not aim to explain the mystery of creation but to offer a new language to address ancestral questions.
As Ignace Meyerson wrote, "every work of art is completed as a world in itself." And as Walter Benjamin recalled, it possesses "a unique existence." Science cannot and should not replace aesthetic experience, but it can illuminate some of its mechanisms.
Perhaps the great lesson of Changeux is that art reminds us that we are, above all, cerebral beings. And that beauty, ultimately, resides in the complexity of our neural connections, in that dance between emotion and rule, between surprise and harmony, that makes it possible for one human brain to create and another to be moved by a work of art.
Bibliography
Alberti, L.B. (1435/1972). De Pictura. In Cecil Grayson (Ed. & Trans.), Leon Battista Alberti: On Painting and On Sculpture. London: Phaidon.
Cela-Conde, C.J., Marty, G., Maestú, F., Ortiz, T., Munar, E., Fernández, A., Roca, M., Rosselló, J., & Quesney, F. (2004). Activation of the prefrontal cortex in the human visual aesthetic perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101(16), 6321-6325.
Changeux, J.P. (1985). L'homme neuronal. Paris: Fayard. [English edition: Neuronal Man: The Biology of Mind (1985). New York: Pantheon Books].
Changeux, J.P. (2005). L'homme de vérité. Paris: Odile Jacob.
Changeux, J.P. (2008). Du vrai, du beau, du bien: une nouvelle approche neuronale. Paris: Odile Jacob.
Changeux, J.P., Courrège, P., & Danchin, A. (1973). A theory of the epigenesis of neuronal networks by selective stabilization of synapses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 70(10), 2974-2978.
Changeux, J.P., & Danchin, A. (1976). Selective stabilisation of developing synapses as a mechanism for the specification of neuronal networks. Nature, 264(5588), 705-712.
Changeux, J.P., & Dehaene, S. (2008). The neuronal workspace model of conscious processing. In M.S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The Cognitive Neurosciences IV (pp. 1303-1318). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Dehaene, S., Kerszberg, M., & Changeux, J.P. (1998). A neuronal model of a global workspace in effortful cognitive tasks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95(24), 14529-14534.
Dehaene, S., & Changeux, J.P. (2011). Experimental and theoretical approaches to conscious processing. Neuron, 70(2), 200-227.
Dehaene, S., Pegado, F., Braga, L.W., Ventura, P., Nunes Filho, G., Jobert, A., Dehaene-Lambertz, G., Kolinsky, R., Morais, J., & Cohen, L. (2010). How learning to read changes the cortical networks for vision and language. Science, 330(6009), 1359-1364.
Gisiger, T., Kerszberg, M., & Changeux, J.P. (2005). A model of the role of activity in the selection of synaptic connections during development. Biological Cybernetics, 92(6), 371-389.
Kawabata, H., & Zeki, S. (2004). Neural correlates of beauty. Journal of Neurophysiology, 91(4), 1699-1705.
Schiller, F. (1794/1983). Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen. In E. Ruprecht (Ed.), Schillers Werke. Frankfurt: Insel Verlag. [English edition: On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1954). New Haven: Yale University Press].
Note: References have been reconstructed from citations present in the original text of Changeux's article. For direct consultation, please access the full article through the provided DOI: 10.1007/s12210-012-0192-2.
Autor / Author
Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía – Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Investigador independiente en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte.
Bernabé Mallo
PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Independent researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origin of art.
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Publicaciones y proyectos en desarrollo / Publications and projects:
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