Book description
Is science the only path to knowledge? In this sparkling and
provocative book Jonah Lehrer, author of The Decisive Moment, explains
that when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first.
Taking a group of celebrated writers, painters and composers, Lehrer
shows us how artists have discovered truths about the human mind - real,
tangible truths - that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for
example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George
Eliot understood the brain's malleable nature; how the French chef
Escoffier intuited umami (the fifth taste); how Cézanne worked out the
subtleties of vision; and how Virginia Woolf pierced the mysteries of
consciousness. It's a riveting tale of art trumping science, again and
again.
