Fine Art Collector | Spring 2013

Art for the soul

and sheer velocity of everyday life, that’s a singularly valuable kind of freedom to be able to feel. Castle Galleries artist Alexander Millar couldn’t agree more – in fact, he considers art a lifesaver. "Art was my saving grace. I went through a very low stage, when things couldn't have been worse. But art soothed me. I'd go and sit in a certain cafe in Newcastle and sketch people. That, for me, was a meditation. And that was like therapy. It was incredibly cathartic." The meditative state that Millar cites perhaps pinpoints the place where art touches the soul in the most intimate of ways. Whichever side of the easel you may be, to be lost in a piece of art is to stop thinking and to start feeling. The subcon- scious takes over – giving the highly rational conscious mind a rest – and this can make way for a welter of emotions. “Art is an emotion” Millar recalls some of his early Glasgow shows, and his amazement at seeing the profound effects of his work on those who came to view it. “I saw some women of a certain age, and perhaps who shared my background, crying when they looked at the pictures. It was because they understood the feelings I felt when I painted them, that nostalgia of my childhood, that point in time.” While Millar didn’t necessarily intend his work to bring people to tears, he certainly sees emotional expression as his biggest driver. “You paint from the heart, not from the brain. Art is an emotion. What you put on a canvas bounces off and hits people where it matters.” Unlocking and expressing emotions has been key for Rachel Lozano, and she believes she owes a good deal of that to art. Diagnosed with cancer in

her teens, her survival chances at one stage were rated at zero percent. “I used art to express physical pain through paintings. I would also use it as a way of dealing with things that my peers couldn’t possibly understand, like facing death at age 19.” Overcoming those bleak odds, she is now cancer-free and is so passionate about the power of art therapy, that she is mid-way through her Art Therapy Masters. “I want to be able to give that gift back.” When it comes to art, emotion emerges as the vital synapse where artist and appreciator can experience a connection that goes deeper than the aesthetic or the medium. Consider, then, when you next take time to enjoy art that touches or inspires you. That connection you forge with the artist, by responding to their creative motivation is a mirror into their soul – and perhaps, into your own.

Artist Alexander Millar was deeply moved when he witnessed the emotive effect his paintings had on those who viewed his early Glasgow shows

Did you know? Neuroaesthetics, a new discipline in aesthetics attempts to understand how the brain responds to art, explains Laura McBeth In an interesting marriage of science and phi- losophy (long considered uncomfortable bedfel- lows), researchers are attempting to understand how the human brain responds to art. Neuroaesthetics, is relatively recent terminology coined to explain the coming together of aesthet- ics (a branch of philosophy concerned with the interpretation of art and beauty) and neurology (the medical and scientific study of the brain and nervous system) to investigate the experience of beauty and art on the level of brain function and subsequent mental states. Researchers are hoping to answer important questions, that have had scholars and scientists puzzled for some time. Questions such as, what is happening in our brain when we look at a beautiful painting? Why, since the earliest known

civilisations, have we expressed ourselves through art? How have we evolved a need for this type of expressionism, and does artistic expression actu- ally have some sort of survival value for us? One theory is that there is an area of the brain’s cortex that is more active when looking at or experiencing something that the person regards as beautiful. Perhaps unsurprisingly, studies have shown that this area of the brain is also the area involved in producing emotional responses to events or stimuli. I say unsurprisingly, because philosophers, artists and art appreciators have long suspected that the connection to a piece of art is an emotional one. Whether it is a watercolour by a family friend or a masterpiece in the Louvre, there is something that connects us to a piece of art, something that is sometimes indescribable and often indisputable. But, to have this scientifically proven, could rede- fine the way we understand art and its relevance, or even necessity, in civilisa- tions past and present.