Research tells us that people with Parkinson’s “see” or appreciate art differently than those without Parkinson’s. We're also learning that the neurological changes associated with the disease can affect how artists create and approach their work. Insights such as these hold out enormous potential in telling us more about the cognitive processes underlying aesthetic experiences generally, while shining a light on the workings of the human mind more broadly.
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The Link Between Art and Parkinson’s Disease
Podcast | Substantial Matters: Life and Science of Parkinson’s (Episode 152, July 2023)
An interview with Professor Bas Bloem, Director of the Parkinson’s Foundation’s Center of Excellence at Radboud University Medical Center (Nijmegen, Netherlands) that explores the emerging importance of incorporating art in the treatment of PD and the role of dopamine for enhancing people’s enjoyment and creativity.
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Miguel Ángel Payano’s new show is a document of his voyage from New York to Beijing and back. What he never expected was a Parkinson’s diagnosis
Article | New York Times (April 2023)
“I don’t want to be the Parkinson’s artist. But I inhabit this body, and this body is the medium through which these works are created, and if the medium is being affected, that’s going to resonate in the work.”
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Movement in Aesthetic Experiences: What We Can Learn from Parkinson Disease
Scientific paper | Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (July 2021)
“People with Parkinson disease demonstrated stable and internally consistent preferences for abstract art, but their perception of movement in the paintings was significantly lower than controls in both conditions. The patients also demonstrated enhanced preferences for high-motion art and an altered relationship between motion and aesthetic appreciation.”
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An objective evaluation of the beholder’s response to abstract and figurative art based on construal level theory
Scientific paper | PubMed (August 2020)
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What Parkinson’s Reveals About the Artistic Spark
Article | American Scientist (July 2020)
“In case reports published during the past two decades, medical doctors have noted that their patients have an intriguing relationship with art. These case reports along with studies that we have conducted provide support for new theories about why and how Parkinson’s patients might experience an increased desire, and even ability, to create art.”
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Parkinson’s disease and changes in the appreciation of art: A comparison of aesthetic and formal evaluations of paintings between PD patients and healthy controls
Scientific paper | PubMed (November 2019)
From the abstract: We compared a cohort of PD patients against age-matched healthy controls, asking participants to rate paintings using scales of liking and beauty and terms pertaining to artworks' formal and conceptual qualities previously designed to provide a rubric for symptom identification. We found no evidence for PD-related differences in liking or beauty. However, PD patients showed higher ratings on assessed “emotionality,” potentially relating to the tie between PD, dopamine pathways, and emotion/reward.
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What paint can tell us: A fractal analysis of neurological changes in seven artists
Journal article | Neuropsychology (2017)