Interest

We love looking at art. We put it on our walls. We see it at museums. And if we’re inspired, we may even create it. What is it about our art experience that makes it so enjoyable? We can appreciate art as one of those things we do simply for a pleasurable experience—such as when we listen to music, watch a movie, or read a novel. For most of us, these activities capture our attention and spark an emotional response . Although our survival does not depend on such activities, our lives would seem so much less enjoyable without them.

Whenever the word “genius” is used, a small but magnificent group of names usually follows . Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Raphael, Beethoven and Mozart are the automatic choices . For the modern era, two giants stand above all others: Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso . They are in so many ways connected, especially because both of them redefined the way we consider the world we live in and both of them had brilliant new concepts of space. For Einstein, it meant the universe and man’s place in it were suddenly better known. For Picasso, the breakthrough was cubism, a way of looking at objects in space that was completely unlike any artistic vision before.