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GESTURAL PAINTING AND VIEWER EMBODIMENT: INSIGHTS FROM NEUROAESTHETICS
Abstract
This paper examines the embodied dimension of gesture and movement in painting through an interdisciplinary dialogue between artistic practice and neuroaesthetics. It explores how brushstrokes, textures, and compositional rhythms convey the artist’s presence and elicit embodied and affective responses from viewers. While painting remains a static medium, its gestural qualities evoke sensations of motion and resonance within the observer’s body. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative and phenomenological approach grounded in visual analysis and comparative case studies. It focuses on selected works by Joan Mitchell (No Rain, 1976), Cy Twombly (Untitled (Bacchus), 2008), and Jackson Pollock (One: Number 31, 1950). These artists exemplify distinct relationships between movement, materiality, and perception, providing a framework through which to investigate how visual traces invite kinaesthetic empathy and embodied resonance. Drawing on research in neuroaesthetics, particularly the concepts of embodied simulation and mirror-neuron activation, the paper discusses how the observation of implied motion in painting can trigger sensorimotor responses in the viewer [1][3][10]. Rather than producing new neuroscientific data, the study bridges artistic reflection and scientific theory, highlighting painting as a field where perception and action coalesce in an embodied dialogue between artist and viewer.
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References12
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