Today, I want to look more closely at beauty, and art. Throughout this article, I will share my mother’s artwork and words, while also referring to well-known artists and scientific research to explore a central question: why does art move us? Art surrounds us in architecture, parks, clothing, sculpture, the human body, and the natural world. Its beauty comes from a combination of sensory design, emotional impact, and personal meaning. Color, light, shape, texture, and pattern draw the eye, but art becomes powerful when it connects with memory, culture, identity, or feeling.

The science behind art appreciation is still young, but scientists are using brain imaging, such as functional MRI, to study what happens when we judge something as beautiful. Similar studies examine responses to paintings, sculptures, interiors, faces, dance, and even mathematical formulas.

Why do we find some art beautiful and other art ugly? Scientists point to the “aesthetic triad.”

First is sensory-motor response: how we perceive color, shape, and movement. When a painting suggests motion, our mind can create embodied resonance, making the viewer feel connected to the action.

Second is emotion-valuation: how art makes us feel and whether we enjoy that feeling. Beautiful art activates pleasure-related brain areas, and studies show that gently stimulating certain regions of the brain can change aesthetic preferences.  For example, stimulating parts of the brain can shift how people rate faces, bodies, and artworks, including abstract art or art depicting humans.

Third is meaning-knowledge: the personal meaning we create from art. Meaning is not fixed inside the artwork; it forms in the viewer, which is why the same piece can affect people differently.

These scientific ideas help explain why people may spend hours looking at a painting or invest deeply in a single work of art. Beyond visual appeal, art can create recognition, memory, and emotional response. Three qualities are especially important: universality, color, and texture.

UNIVERSALITY

Every work of art has the potential to create a universal connection. Regardless of form, art communicates something the artist wants us to see, feel, or understand. When viewers receive that message, it can spark joy, sorrow, reflection, or recognition. Even a simple landscape can remind someone of a familiar place, a memory, or a shared human experience. My mother’s art often creates this kind of connection by linking the viewer, the people in the painting, and the theme of the work.

” A beautiful piece of art is one that conquers the theme but also pays homage to it.” 

-Robert McIntosh

Let me share with you the Legend of Gelert & The Tragic Mistake

The medieval legend of Gelert illustrates how art can awaken memory, regret, and moral reflection. According to the story, Prince Llywelyn returned from a hunt to find his infant son’s cradle overturned and blood on his faithful hound, Gelert. Believing the dog had killed the child, the prince struck him down, only to discover moments later that Gelert had saved the baby from a wolf. Gourlay Steell’s painting “Llywelyn and His Brave Hound, Gelert” captures the devastating moment of realization. For me, this kind of art evokes the pain of past mistakes and the lessons we carry forward from them.

COLOURS

Color shapes how we experience a work of art. We often associate blue with water or sky, and green with grass or nature, so artists can use familiar colors to comfort us or unexpected colors to make us pause. Colors can harmonize when placed near similar tones, while complementary colors create contrast and visual energy. In my mother’s art, color helps set mood, guide attention, and strengthen the emotional message of each piece.

TEXTURE

Texture gives artwork depth, presence, and physical appeal. Highlights, shadows, and surface details can make a flat image feel layered or three-dimensional. When texture is effective, viewers may feel drawn into the scene rather than simply looking at it from a distance. My mother’s art uses texture to create atmosphere and invite a stronger emotional connection.

Beauty is subjective, and people may respond differently to the same work of art. Research suggests that personal relevance strongly influences aesthetic experience: the more a work connects to a viewer’s memories, identity, interests, or sense of the world, the more powerful it may feel. Symmetry, complexity, and composition matter, but they do not fully explain why one person finds a piece moving while another does not.

Studies published in Psychological Science support this idea, suggesting that art becomes more compelling when viewers see a connection to their own lives. A painting may speak to someone’s hobbies, personality, relationships, memories, or values. This helps explain why my mother’s art often feels personal: she brings specific characters and settings into a scene so viewers can connect the image to past events or familiar emotions.

Great artworks can also carry us beyond ourselves. A painting may offer a glimpse of another time, place, landscape, or way of seeing. When an image connects quickly to something in our own experience, we can enter it more deeply. These works can transport us to a sunset, a field of flowers, autumn color, a stormy shore, a fishing scene, or a quiet walk-through nature.

Art often feels like a doorway into another world. A Chinese legend tells of the painter Wu Daozi, whose work was so vivid that he stepped into one of his own landscapes and disappeared. Although this story is mythical, it expresses a familiar truth: art can make viewers feel as if they are crossing a threshold, even while they remain physically in place.

Art and the Viewer’s Mind

When we engage deeply with art, our mind and the artwork begin to interact. For example, when viewing the Mona Lisa, we may shift between seeing a painted figure and sensing the presence of a person looking back.

The artwork invites us to draw on memory, imagination, and embodied experience.  This interaction can change how we understand both the artwork and us. Aesthetic experience allows us to revisit memories, imagine new possibilities, and reflect on emotions without the demands of real-life interaction. That is why encounters with art can feel both personal and transformative.

Art expands thought beyond ordinary reason and routine perception. It invites imagination, association, memory, and emotion to work together. Whether realistic, abstract, familiar, or unfamiliar, art can reshape how we see the past, understand the present, and imagine the future.