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How Does the Brain Perceive Art? | WIRED

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A clever neuroscience experiment showed most people's brains can't detect any difference between a real Rembrandt and a fake. The findings pair nicely with studies of wine tasting. Frontal Cortex blogger Jonah Lehrer reports.

Save this story Save this story In 1995, the Metropolitan Museum of Art mounted a controversial exhibition entitled "Rembrandt/Not Rembrandt," in which works considered to be genuine Rembrandts were displayed alongside those done by his students and admirers. (These lesser paintings are often dismissed as "the school of Rembrandt.") The point of the exhibition was to reveal the fine line between genius and imitation, authenticity and fakery. A hundred years ago, about 700 works were attributed to Rembrandt. Over the course of the 20th century, that number declined by 50 percent, as critics and

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