Interest in brain and art has continued to grow and be of wide interest to laypersons and scholars in all fields, not just neuroscience, neurology, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, art, and philosophy. The 10 years since the publication of the first edition of this book have seen major growth in several art and brain fields, a growth that seems to increase unabated. Additional relevant neurological cases of visual, musical, and literary artists with unilateral and diffuse brain damage due to dementia have been published, and most are described here. They confirm some previous conclusions appearing in the first edition and they help shed wider light on the brain’s underpinning of art production. Aesthetic reactions to art through functional neuroimaging, now considered the field of neuroaesthetics, have been published in increased numbers and relevant new studies are summarized in this edition.
The approach taken in this book continues to be that brain damage fractionates cognition and behavior in ways that enable insights into the organization of the mind in the brain. Of special interest here is the production of art and its underpinning in the brain. The major distinction between the production and reaction to art is that the former is studied with reference to brain damage in artists while the latter is studied principally in healthy subjects through their reactions to art works. With dance, for example, the majority of published studies deal with healthy subjects and their reactions to viewing the art. Evolutionary perspectives can help expand our understanding of how the brain controls the production and viewing of art, and such scholarship continues to be part of the discussions presented here.
Several new topics and sub-sections have been added, others were elaborated upon with new insights and data, and many were expanded, updated, and explored further. Literary artists with brain damage have now been included and the dance arts have been addressed as well. In all, the present edition of the book is a revised and expanded edition, citing and updating new data material when applicable. I hope this edition will continue to inspire new scientific discoveries and scholarly discussions on art and brain.
Dahlia W. Zaidel
University of California, Los Angeles, 2015