Art appreciation involves the whole body, not just the brain.

Beautiful and surprising art can change heart-rate variability.

Powerful art can alter both heart rate and skin conductance.

Our bodies provide measurable clues to our emotional response to art.

When viewing art, some museum-goers get that loving feeling. They like what they see. A few go so far as to have a religious experience of sorts and report sensations of euphoria. We usually think of these perceptions as originating in the brain, and, of course, they do. But the brain does not appreciate art in isolation. The rest of the body joins in the experience as well.

Psychologist Wolfgang Tschacher and colleagues from institutes in Switzerland and Germany demonstrated this in a study of 373 visitors to the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen in Switzerland. Using a specially designed glove worn on the visitor’s right hand, the researchers wirelessly measured movement, heart rate, and skin conductance while they wandered through the museum. Sixty-five percent of the participants were female, and the average age was 47. Each visitor spent about 28 minutes in........

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