How should we handle complexity? In both science and in art, there is tension between the holist view that the properties of any entity or system cannot be understood or explained by its parts alone, and the reductionist view, which holds that an entity or system can be understood or explained by reducing it to its component parts (Graham, 2013). As Kandel (2016) points out, reductionism in science and art serve different, but analogous, purposes. In science, reductionism is used to solve complex problems; in art, reductionism is used to evoke new emotional responses in art consumers. Scientific reductionism is a process of reducing and then rebuilding that often leads to new insights that would not be found in either a solely reductionist or holist view. For example, Kandel began his quest to understand human learning and memory by studying the sea slug (aplysia), and the insights gleaned from intensive study of a simple organism guided and shaped his experimentation leading to brain science (Kandel, 1979). Artistic reductionism also leads to new insights. Through reductionism artists peel away unnecessary details and discover a work's essential features. Consumers of art experience new and often unique affective reactions to art when a visual or musical composition is stripped to its barest parts. 1 Kandel's book, Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures, explores the commonalities between abstract art and brain science, arguing that both pursuits use reductionist methodologies in their search for higher level truths about human nature. One can adopt holism and accept complexity as an irreducible given, or embrace reductionism and work to disassemble and decompose complexity into simplicity. For