The development of neuroscience in the study of brain and cognition has in the recent decades prompted the emergence of new explanations on the psychophysiology of mental processes, including intuition, dreams, consciousness and aesthetic experience that break off with the dualism between the spiritual and the physical. In the light of these findings, intuition as an unconscious inner feeling or a spontaneous, irrational insight of truth is understood primarily as a bodily, visceral phenomenon, dependent on the action of the neuronal or brain substrate. In the past, artists saw intuition as a means of establishing an inner connection with the transcendent, the unknown and the invisible. As a source of inspiration, it enabled artists to reveal the mysterious and magical aspects of reality. Unlike traditional mystical descriptions of intuition as “enlightenment” or “inspiration”, many modern and contemporary artists have invented new forms of intuitive creation with the intention of surpassing the personal and the familiar. In view of neuroscientific findings within the field of intuition, the article also outlines a concise and critical analysis of the selection of artworks that were on display during the two exhibitions this year in Venice (the exhibition Intuition at the Palazzo Fortuny and the Venice Biennale Viva Arte Viva) and, by taking a stroll through the creative procedures and poetics of the works, illuminates the artistic strategies of expressing spirituality, capturing the intuitive, magical, transcendent and subliminal within art.
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