Articles

C’è un altro modo di guardare l’arte

Freedberg, David A.

For eight years now I have been dedicating myself to studies that I will illustrate to you, and over twenty years that I realized how it was impossible to study emotional reactions to the work of art without understanding the principles of the then still young cognitive neuroscience. During my research I encountered a lot of resistance to the interdisciplinary approach that I proposed; especially by the professors of history, literature, and history of art. Instead, the scientists were open and ready to cooperate. In Italy the reactions have generally been more positive than elsewhere, perhaps because, as Salvatore Settis rightly wrote in a recent article in the "Sole 24 Ore", the great book on art and the brain (and perhaps the only serious one), was written by two Italians, Lamberto Maffei and Adriana Fiorentini, in 1995. And perhaps also because Giacomo Rizzolatti, Vittorio Gallese, Leonardo Fogassi, Luciano Fadiga and their group from Parma with the discovery of visuomotor neurons which they call mirror neurons, have opened a new path to understanding not only emotions, but also the intentions of others.

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More About This Work

Academic Units
Art History and Archaeology
Published Here
August 24, 2022