How Art Works

A Psychological Exploration

Ellen Winner

The first book to illuminate art through philosophical and psychological approaches
Examines explicit philosophical questions about the arts and their surprising answers
Reveals how social scientists have investigated art and uncovers paths for exploration

How Art Works

A Psychological Exploration

Ellen Winner

Description

There is no end of talk and of wondering about 'art' and 'the arts.' This book examines a number of questions about the arts (broadly defined to include all of the arts). Some of these questions come from philosophy. Examples include:

· What makes something art?
· Can anything be art?
· Do we experience "real" emotions from the arts?
· Why do we seek out and even cherish sorrow and fear from art when we go out of our way to avoid these very emotions in real life?
· How do we decide what is good art? Do aesthetic judgments have any objective truth value?
· Why do we devalue fakes even if we -- indeed, even the experts--- can't tell them apart from originals?
· Does fiction enhance our empathy and understanding of others? Is art-making therapeutic?

Others are "common sense" questions that laypersons wonder about. Examples include:

· Does learning to play music raise a child's IQ?
· Is modern art something my kid could do?
· Is talent a matter of nature or nurture?

This book examines puzzles about the arts wherever their provenance - as long as there is empirical research using the methods of social science (interviews, experimentation, data collection, statistical analysis) that can shed light on these questions. The examined research reveals how ordinary people think about these questions, and why they think the way they do - an inquiry referred to as intuitive aesthetics. The book shows how psychological research on the arts has shed light on and often offered surprising answers to such questions.

How Art Works

A Psychological Exploration

Ellen Winner

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
I. INTRODUCTION
1. Perennial Questions
2. Can This Be Art?
II. ART AND EMOTION
3. Wordless Sounds: Hearing Emotion in Music
4. Feeling Like Crying: Emotions in the Music Listener
5. Color and Form: Emotional Connotations of Visual Art
6. Emotions in the Art Museum: Why Don't We Feel Like Crying?
7. Drawn to Pain: The Paradoxical Enjoyment of Negative Emotion in Art
III. ART AND JUDGMENT
8. Is It Good-Or Just Familiar?
9. Too Easy to Be Good? The Effort Bias
10. Identical! What's Wrong with a Perfect Fake?
11. "But My Kid Could Have Done That!"
IV. WHAT ART DOES - AND DOES NOT - DO FOR US
12. Silver Bullets: Does Art Make Us Smarter?
13. The Lives of Others: Fiction and Empathy
14. Does Making Art Improve Well-Being?
V. MAKING ART
15. Who Makes Art and Why?
VI. CONCLUSION
16. How Art Works
Notes
References
Index

How Art Works

A Psychological Exploration

Ellen Winner

Author Information

Ellen Winner is Professor of Psychology at Boston College and Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. She directs the Arts and Mind Lab, which focuses on cognition in the arts in typical and gifted children as well as adults. She received the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Research by a Senior Scholar in Psychology and the Arts from Division 10 in 2000.

How Art Works

A Psychological Exploration

Ellen Winner

Reviews and Awards

Featured in the New York Times and in the Wall Street Journal

"Ambitious, covering everything from figurative paintings to abstract expressionism, tonal music, novels, and theatre. This is an engaging project, and How Art Works is exhilarating in part because Winner actually has some answers." -- The New Yorker

"This shift from philosophical analysis to a robust empirical approach of experiment and observation is the starting point of this book, which is a fascinating account of social scientists' investigations of art through interviews, experiments, data collection, and statistical analysis. Winner touches on a variety of topics ranging from music and emotion, fiction and empathy, the Mozart effect, and perfect fakes and forgeries, to Hockney's theory of optical aids, effort bias, artistic prodigies, deliberate practice and talent, and our curious enjoyment of negative emotions. Recommended for all readers." --Choice

"In this thoughtful, judicious, and fascinating book, you'll find our best current answers to all the questions that thinking people ask about art, including what it is, what makes it great, whether it is universal, why we make and enjoy it, and whether it is good for us. How Art Works will be the place to look for knowledge on how art works for years to come." --Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works and Enlightenment Now

"Never have the links between the world of the arts and the sciences of the mind been so carefully and fruitfully drawn as they are in Winner's new book." -- David Olson, University Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto

"If you read one book on the psychology of art, make it this one. Ellen Winner gives us a book that celebrates the importance of art even as she remains grounded in experimental data and avoids hyperbole. She asks deceptively simple questions. What is art? Why do we make art? Does art make us better people? The clarity of her logic and the elegance of her prose as she answers these and other incisive questions makes this book a delight to read." --Anjan Chatterjee, MD, FAAN, Elliott Professor of Neurology and Director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, Author of The Aesthetic Brain: How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and Enjoy Art

"How Art Works collects and critically examines the aggregate of much historical theory and modern research on art. It is therefore worth reading for those who want a sharp and friendly breakdown of the inner-workings of the human experience of art. Winner's survey offers a framework to ask reflectively what art is, while leaving room to consider the question for oneself." -- Riding the Dragon blog