Abstract expressionism within the context of neuroaesthetics

Aesthetics, scientifically defined for the first time by the 18th-century thinker Baumgarten as the foundation of sensory perception, has had countless definitions up to the present day and has been included in many disciplines. Empirical aesthetics, an experimental perspective on the term, was introduced by the 19th-century physicist and psychologist Gustave Fechner, who believed that the pleasure derived from objects and their visual appeal was not solely due to their physical properties. In the years following Fechner, philosophers and scientists influenced by his work conducted numerous studies, including Gestalt psychology, on aesthetics and the appreciation of aesthetic objects. One of these research areas is neuroaesthetics, a term coined by Semir Zeki in 1999, an interdisciplinary scientific field examining the neural basis of aesthetic experience in the human brain. In the context of the master's thesis titled "Abstract Expressionism Within the Context of Neuroaesthetics," the definition, purpose, research area, and findings of the field of neuroaesthetics, which emerged at the beginning of the 21st century, have been investigated. The Abstract Expressionism movement has been examined with the interdisciplinary perspective brought by neuroaesthetics. This study examines scientific research in neuroaesthetics, the works of 20th-century American artists and contemporary Turkish painters active after the 1950s who contributed to Abstract Expressionism. Within the research context, the abstract expressionist approaches in Melda Orhan's paintings are specifiaclly analyzed.