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Fitness Files: Working out at the museum

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Last week, I went on an art outing with my friend Jolie, a former docent from the Orange County Museum of Art.

She discussed the Getty Villa exhibits. I listened.

I may be a marathon runner, but Jolie walks my legs off. “My docent” is not particularly dedicated to fitness, but her art-endurance — ability to stand before one painting — causes my legs to crumble. Still, I’m fascinated by her description of artists, their influences and techniques.

Jolie has a demanding job. Extracting herself for an art day is difficult. However, at the end of last week’s outing, she said, “I feel like I’ve been on vacation.”

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Many agree that viewing art takes us away, opens our minds, presses the pleasure button. But Jolie’s comment made me wonder: What’s so rewarding about tramping around an art museum?

In a series of pioneering brain-mapping experiments, Semir Zeki, a London professor of neurobiology, found that looking at art compares to the pleasure of being in love. According to https://www.artfund.org, “Zeki concluded that viewing art triggers a surge of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine into the orbito-frontal cortex of the brain, resulting in feelings of intense pleasure “similar to states of love and desire.”

Zeki pioneered the field of neuroaesthetics, which uses brain-imaging techniques to map the brain as it processes art.

David Freedberg, professor of art at Columbia University, cites Zeki when he reports that seeing a painting of Degas’ ballerinas activates the same areas in the viewer’s primary motor cortex as the dancer’s movement. “Viewers of Degas’ ballerinas sometimes report that they experience the sensation of dancing — the brain mirrors actions depicted on the canvas,” he writes.

Our recent art outing was to the Getty Villa, located on prime property in Pacific Palisades. Views of the azure Pacific from the Getty’s hilltop location are enhanced by the villa’s architecture. Inspired by the Villa of the Papyri, excavated from the ash of Mt. Vesuvius, visitors experience the sensation of walking through the ancient site of Herculaneum.

I spent most time in the Cycladic room with simplified marble figurines. Mounted upright, their balanced symmetry appealed to my sense of design. Their directness contrasted to the ornate antiquities in the other exhibits and connected me to artists living in 2000 BC.

In short, my particular neuro-aesthetic framework selected the prehistory over the Greco-Roman figures.

Jolie concentrated on the Byzantine period, losing herself in 1,000 years of history, from pagan to religious art. Admiring the advanced handiwork in mosaics, frescoes, sculptures, jewelry and glass from Greek collections, she traced the far-reaching influence of the Roman Empire.

Jolie and I, drawn to different exhibits, were transported beyond the moment. We took a cerebral trip across time to feel the movement of the hands of ancient artists, thus sharing their dedication to the creation of beauty.

Jolie is right. The day at the Getty Villa was a visual vacation.

The dancer/choreographer Twyla Tharp puts it this way: “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.”

Newport Beach resident CARRIE LUGER SLAYBACK is a retired teacher who ran the Los Angeles Marathon at age 70, winning first place in her age group. Her blog is lazyracer@blogspot.com.

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