I am writing today to offer a summary of several articles, for those readers who may have not have understood – or sometimes oversimplified – some of the previous publications dealing with art 1 . All the following statements have been proven and none of them are in any way disputed. We have seen in earlier articles that the artist elaborates his creation, notably with the help of a warming up of his senses, which will enable the inducement of the observer of that work to live a sensorial experience. We have also seen in previous articles that man is an integrated being who does not exist in himself. You will then understand why the object of a work is not limited to the artist or his interiority: the work is not its physical composition, but the phenomena it creates, namely the effects produced on the observer. The experience proposed belongs to the viewer and is different for each of us. The viewer will elaborate what he or she feels according to his or her experience, needs, sensitivity, environment, social surroundings, the place where the work is presented, etc.; and since our personal experience influences our aesthetic taste, it is important to surround ourselves with works of art in our daily lives. This sensory experience will strengthen the identity of the observer, but also his or her desire or capacity to live. Moreover, it strengthens one’s own history, one’s backbone; it facilitates one’s own re-creation, one’s ability to distance oneself from things, to feel better or well. My works are also designed to ‘dislodge’ the subject’s neurons, which are in comfort zones; they modulate neurons, which is to say that they create new ones. In short, my works not only make the viewer more intelligent, but also happier and strengthen his or her capacity to live. According to the World Health Organisation, works of art make us more elegant and sociable. They improve our physical, behavioural, psychological and social health by reducing feelings of loneliness: when we look at a work of art, our mirror neurons are activated as if we were not looking at an object, but at a person we love. Finally, they allow us to appropriate living spaces, because spaces do not exist in themselves. While the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu said that American abstract expressionism is considered to be in good taste for all the dominant social classes, 2 it has also been shown that this movement reduces the scope of a work of art, because here, the work is only linked to the artist, to the insula, to the artist’s interiority, to his feelings and self-consciousness. We have seen that the insula is a part of the self, but that the being is more complex. What warms up the senses and inspiration of an artist is a correlation between the outside and the inside. Art is peripheral to the artist and his senses refer to what is outside him: his perceptions. Moreover, in the collective consciousness art is the representation of the beautiful, and the beautiful makes us feel better. The recognition of the beautiful activates the same areas as the feeling of love; it produces a richer activity in the observer than if the work were to act only on the amygdala, for example. Vassily Kandinsky wrote that art elevates people. For me, it carries the world, despite what we do with it today. “Beauty will save the world”, as Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote 3 .
1 Earlier essays:
Art enhances the viewer’s cognitive acuity: “A system designed to adapt to its environment”, Guillaume Bottazzi, 2022
Art reconnects with beauty, Guillaume Bottazzi, 2021
Priorities in art, neuro-aesthetics and its orientations, Guillaume Bottazzi, 2021
The Neuroaesthetics of Guillaume Bottazzi, Guillaume Bottazzi, 2021
Guillaume Bottazzi and the joy of inhabiting, The in situ works of Guillaume Bottazzi reveal new environmental paradigms, Guillaume Bottazzi, 2020
Senses and art, Guillaume Bottazzi, 2020
Supermodern abstraction, Guillaume Bottazzi, 2020
Brain and art, Guillaume Bottazzi, 2016
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2 Pierre Bourdieu – La Distinction. Critique sociale du jugement, 1979
3 Fiodor Dostoïevski, The Idiot, 1887
