With the original release of Vision and Art in 2002, Harvard professor Margaret Livingstone successfully bridged the gap between science and art, exploring how great painters fool the brain: why Mona Lisa’s smile seems so mysterious, or Monet’s Poppy Field appears to sway. In the revised and expanded edition, Livingstone presents two new chapters of her latest observations, has substantially expanded other chapters, and updates the rest of the existing text with new insights gleaned from her ongoing research, bringing the book to the cutting edge in the field of neuroscience. Accompanying Livingstone’s lively prose are many charts and diagrams that lucidly illustrate her points, as well as in-depth analyses of the phenomena found in major works of art. Be it the explanation of common optical illusions or the breakdown of techniques painters use to create those illusions, Vision and Art provides a wealth of information for artists, scholars, and scientists alike.

A Harvard neurobiologist explains how vision works, citing the scientific origins of artistic genius and providing coverage of such topics as optical illusions and the correlation between learning disabilities and artistic skill.

Josef Albers (1888–1976) was an artist, teacher, and seminal thinker on the perception of color. A member of the Bauhaus who fled to the U.S. in 1933, his ideas about how the mind understands color influenced generations of students, inspired countless artists, and anticipated the findings of neuroscience in the latter half of the twentieth century. With contributions from the disciplines of art history, the intellectual and cultural significance of Gestalt psychology, and neuroscience, Intersecting Colors offers a timely reappraisal of the immense impact of Albers’s thinking, writing, teaching, and art on generations of students. It shows the formative influence on his work of non-scientific approaches to color (notably the work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) and the emergence of Gestalt psychology in the first decades of the twentieth century. The work also shows how much of Albers’s approach to color—dismissed in its day by a scientific approach to the study and taxonomy of color driven chiefly by industrial and commercial interests—ultimately anticipated what neuroscience now reveals about how we perceive this most fundamental element of our visual experience. Edited by Vanja Malloy, with contributions from Brenda Danilowitz, Sarah Lowengard, Karen Koehler, Jeffrey Saletnik, and Susan R. Barry.

How science changed the way artists understand reality Exploring the Invisible shows how modern art expresses the first secular, scientific worldview in human history. Now fully revised and expanded, this richly illustrated book describes two hundred years of scientific discoveries that inspired French Impressionist painters and Art Nouveau architects, as well as Surrealists in Europe, Latin America, and Japan. Lynn Gamwell describes how the microscope and telescope expanded the artist's vision into realms unseen by the naked eye. In the nineteenth century, a strange and exciting world came into focus, one of microorganisms in a drop of water and spiral nebulas in the night sky. The world is also filled with forces that are truly unobservable, known only indirectly by their effects—radio waves, X-rays, and sound-waves. Gamwell shows how artists developed the pivotal style of modernism—abstract, non-objective art—to symbolize these unseen worlds. Starting in Germany with Romanticism and ending with international contemporary art, she traces the development of the visual arts as an expression of the scientific worldview in which humankind is part of a natural web of dynamic forces without predetermined purpose or meaning. Gamwell reveals how artists give nature meaning by portraying it as mysterious, dangerous, or beautiful. With a foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson and a wealth of stunning images, this expanded edition of Exploring the Invisible draws on the latest scholarship to provide a global perspective on the scientists and artists who explore life on Earth, human consciousness, and the space-time universe.

This comprehensive text challenges the taken-for-granted opposition of science and art by combining the fundamental principles of psychology, art and creativity and presenting the interdependent disciplines together in one unique, clear, and accessible resource. The author, Shannon Whitten, begins with an introduction to the foundations of art and psychology, providing readers with a critical understanding and history of the key concepts in both disciplines before establishing their interdependency. Drawing on a solid evidence base, the book then presents an assortment of extensive topics, from the human perception of color to the ability of art to impact mental health. The exploration of these topics enables the reader to reflect on the phenomenal power of human creativity. The chapters include vital categories of human psychology such as emotion, perception, personality, and social psychology to show the extensive connections between these elements of experience and art. Featuring a wealth of additional resources, this illuminating text equips the reader with a sound knowledge of the vocabulary and issues in the study of empirical aesthetics through visual content and stimulating prompts for reflection. Emphasizing the link between creativity and good mental health, the book is an essential read for students of the psychology of art, creativity, art therapy, and empirical aesthetics, as well as any discipline within the humanities, arts and science. It will also be of relevance to anyone interested in understanding the psychology behind creativity and its therapeutic effects on the artist.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Happiness Project discovers a surprising path to a life of more energy, creativity, luck, and love: by tuning in to the five senses. “Life in Five Senses invites us into the seismic shift toward a life grounded in sensation, vitality, and innate intelligence.”—GLENNON DOYLE, author of Untamed “An inspiring and practical guide to living in the moment.”—SUSAN CAIN, author of Bittersweet and Quiet For more than a decade, Gretchen Rubin had been studying happiness and human nature. Then, one day, a visit to her eye doctor made her realize that she’d been overlooking a key element of happiness: her five senses. She’d spent so much time stuck in her head that she’d allowed the vital sensations of life to slip away, unnoticed. This epiphany lifted her from a state of foggy preoccupation into a world invigorated by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. In this journey of self-experimentation, Rubin explores the mysteries and joys of the five senses as a path to a happier, more mindful life. Drawing on cutting-edge science, philosophy, literature, and her own efforts to practice what she learns, she investigates the profound power of tuning in to the physical world. From the simple pleasures of appreciating the magic of ketchup and adding favorite songs to a playlist, to more adventurous efforts like creating a daily ritual of visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and attending a flavor university, Rubin shows us how to experience each day with depth, delight, and connection. In the rush of daily life, she finds, our five senses offer us immediate, sustainable ways to cheer up, calm down, and engage the world around us—as well as ways to glimpse the soul and touch the transcendent. Life in Five Senses is an absorbing, layered story of discovery filled with profound insights and practical suggestions about how to heighten our senses and use our powers of perception to live fuller, richer lives—and, ultimately, how to move through the world with more vitality and love.