orientation of attention and the bottom-up perceptual facilitation of image construction. In other words, because untrained persons automatically apply the object-identification habit to viewing artworks, top-down control to reduce this habit may be necessary to engage aesthetic perception. This suggests that artists would show different levels of activation than non-artists. Aesthetic responses to different types of art and techniques has recently been explored. Cubism is the most radical departure from Western forms of art, with the proposed purpose of forcing the viewer to discover less unstable elements of the object to be represented. It eliminates interferences such as lighting and perspective angle to capture objects as they really are. This may be compared to how the brain maintains an object's identity despite varying conditions. Modern, representational, and impressionistic art has also been studied for the purpose of explaining visual processing systems. Yet aesthetic judgments exists in all domains, not just art. Frameworks The aesthetic triad Aesthetic experiences are an emergent property of interactions among a triad of neural systems that involve sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and meaning-knowledge circuitry. The visual brain segregates visual elements like luminance, color, and motion, as well as higher order objects like faces, bodies, and landscapes. Aesthetic encounters engage these sensory systems. For example, gazing at Van Gogh’s dynamic paintings evokes a subjective sense of movement and activates visual motion areas V5/MT+. Portraits activate the face area in the fusiform gyrus (FFA) and landscape paintings activate the place area in the parahippocampal gyrus (PPA). Beyond classifying visual elements, these sensory areas may also be involved in evaluating them. Beautiful faces activate the fusiform face and adjacent areas. The question of how much and what kind of valuation takes place in sensory cortices is an area of active inquiry. Looking at paintings that depict actions also engages parts of people’s motor systems. This engagement taps into the extended mirror neuron system. Mirror neurons, first discovered in monkeys, are neurons that respond to both the execution and perception of actions. A similar system exists in humans. This system resonates when people infer the intent of artistic gestures or observe the consequences of actions such as in Lucio Fontana’s cut canvases. This subtle motor engagement may represent an embodied element of our empathetic responses to visual art. The pleasure that people derive from looking at beautiful objects automatically engages general reward circuitry. For example, attractive faces activate the FFA and parts