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Theoretical model reveals art as a geometric projection resolving inner tension, suggesting beauty acts as a shared cognitive attractor.
We present a geometric framework for understanding art as a projec- tion of the artist’s local abstractor onto the contingent world. The primary impulse of art is not beauty—it is coherence. The artist projects to re- solve inner tension, and the artwork becomes a shared interface. Beauty is a shared attractor: a resonance between the artist’s and the viewer’s local geometries. Art is not a message—it is a recalibration.
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Theriault et al. (2026) studied this question.
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