The Science of Art

'Hindu artists often speak of conveying the rasa, or 'essence', of something in order to evoke a specific mood in the observer. But what exactly does this mean? What does it mean to 'capture the very essence' of something in order to 'evoke a direct emotional response'? The answer to these questions, it turns out, provides the key to understanding what art really is. ... what artist tries to do (either consciously or unconsciously) is to not only capture the essence of something but also to amplify it in order to more powerfully activate the same neural mechanism that would be activated by the original object.' (Ramachandran and Hirstein, 1999 p. 17)