Jean-Pierre Changeux
Reason and Pleasure Publication date : June 1, 2002
What happens in the mind during the process of artistic creation? What are the mechanisms that govern mental activity when contemplating a painting? Where does the powerful and strange feeling of aesthetic pleasure come from? How can it be explained?
For a long time, artistic creation remained a mystery. But, for the past twenty years, the contributions of cognitive psychology and the neurosciences have begun to dispel the mystery.
In this book, illustrated with some little-known masterpieces of French and world art, Jean-Pierre Changeux, who is both an explorer of the brain and an art collector, takes the reader on a fabulous philosophical adventure at the very heart of the creative process.
Jean-Pierre Changeux teaches at the Collège de France and is a member of the French Academy of Science. He is a former president of the French National Advisory Committee on Ethics and the director of the Laboratory on molecular neurobiology at the Institut Pasteur. He is the author of LHomme neuronal and LHomme de vérité.
For a long time, artistic creation remained a mystery. But, for the past twenty years, the contributions of cognitive psychology and the neurosciences have begun to dispel the mystery.
In this book, illustrated with some little-known masterpieces of French and world art, Jean-Pierre Changeux, who is both an explorer of the brain and an art collector, takes the reader on a fabulous philosophical adventure at the very heart of the creative process.
Jean-Pierre Changeux teaches at the Collège de France and is a member of the French Academy of Science. He is a former president of the French National Advisory Committee on Ethics and the director of the Laboratory on molecular neurobiology at the Institut Pasteur. He is the author of LHomme neuronal and LHomme de vérité.