Beauty and aesthetics
Emerging therapies
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Could that tingle down the spine be a way to rediscover joy?
In new research, scientists have looked into the potential benefits of giving people with depression the aesthetic chills
by Shayla Love
Beauty and aesthetics
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Why art seems more beautiful when you can see yourself in it
Research suggests that people find artworks more aesthetically pleasing when they’re personally relevant to them in some way
by Matt Huston
Communication and language
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What is the secret to an evocative smell description?
Many languages have very few odour-related words, so conveying what a scent is like requires knowing your audience
by Giulia Martina
Philosophy of art
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To master the art of close looking, learn to hold time still
Visual literacy is a skillset that’s rarely taught, but it begins with learning how to look – and how to hold time still
by Grace Linden
Artists and art history
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Is the attunement of abstract art and music more than a metaphor?
How does the abstract art of Kandinsky and Klee imitate the meaning and emotion in the music of Shostakovich and Bach?
by Michelle Liu
Beauty and aesthetics
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Beauty is not an ornament to the good life, it is at its heart
Why does the hand want to draw what the eye sees as beautiful? Why do we respond to beauty by creating the beautiful?
by Nick Riggle
Music
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They’re playing our song! The philosophical puzzle of cover songs
Can a song be both the original and a copy? Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, and the ‘crazy’ philosophical puzzle of song covers
by P D Magnus
Beauty and aesthetics
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What happens if we make the Mona Lisa more symmetrical?
The Golden Ratio and symmetry are two universal rules of beauty. The problem is they conflict with one another
by Manil Suri
Personality
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Dietrich showed how adopting a persona can reveal one’s true self
Kaloprosopia – the art of crafting a persona, as Marlene Dietrich and David Bowie did – can help us access a truer self
by Sam Mills
Artists and art history
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The art of Mughal India is best appreciated with all the senses
Experience the multiple layers of sensory pleasure and meaning conveyed through scented flowers in the art of Mughal India
by Bharti Lalwani & Nicolas Roth
The body and physical health
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Body positivity is fixated on beauty – here’s how to fix that
Body positivity is stuck in the shallow. We should move beyond beauty and towards health, pleasure and acceptance
by Céline Leboeuf
Beauty and aesthetics
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Gardening with Heidegger: from mystery to truth, via the earth
The garden as a source of authority beyond human wisdom – on Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of gardening for truth
by F Bailey Norwood