Neurological

Fountain, Duchamp, 1917
Tate Modern's collection & image

It turns out that our intentions, whether making or viewing art, are what make the art.  Two hundred years ago (!) Immanuel Kant philosophized that in order to appreciate art, we have to detach our emotions from the viewing of the work and think and look critically at the formal elements of the art.  If we know that what we're looking at is art (and this is not always obvious these days), then our approach and our response to viewing the work is different than if we assume it's an everyday object.  Perhaps we thought the Duchamp urinal, titled "Fountain," was just left out temporarily while the plumber installs a new one and plans to haul away that dirty old fixture?  No, we saw it in an art gallery or a museum or in an art history text, so we knew that despite Duchamp's cutting edge use of the ready-made so easily confused with banal real life, it is art.  We thought philosophically (or were asked to) about the difference between art and the everyday object and the impactful idea of synthesizing the two.  Even "Duchamp described his intent with the piece was to shift the focus of art from physical craft to intellectual interpretation." (quoted from Wikipedia)

A new study by Dutch scientists explores this emotional connection to viewing art versus everyday life, and the finding correlates with Kant's theory.  Quoted from the lead researcher Noah van Dongen (Erasmus University, Rotterdam):

“This work suggests that when we expect to be dealing with an artwork, our brain responds differently than when we expect to be dealing with reality.  When we think we are not dealing with reality, our emotional response appears to be subdued on a neural level. This may be because of a tendency to ‘distance’ ourselves from the image, to be able to appreciate or scrutinize its shapes, colours, and composition instead of just its content. We know that our brains may have evolved with ‘hard-wired’ mechanisms that allow us to adjust our response to objects depending on the situation. What this work indicates, is that Kant’s two century old theory of aesthetics*, where he proposed that we need to emotionally distance ourselves from the artwork in order to be able to properly appreciate it, might have a neurological basis and that art could [be] useful in our quest to understand our brain, emotions, and maybe our cognition.”

Yay, art could be useful!
(laughing out loud to myself)

Here's the link to the article I read on Science Daily's site:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160918180006.htm