The psychology of art is the scientific study of cognitive and emotional processes precipitated by the sensory perception of aesthetic artefacts, such as viewing a painting or touching a sculpture. It is an emerging multidisciplinary field of inquiry, closely related to the psychology of aesthetics, including neuroaesthetics.Tinio, P. P., & Smith, J. K. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of the psychology of aesthetics and the arts. Cambridge University Press, 2014. . .Mather, G., The psychology of visual art: eye, brain and art. Cambridge University Press, 2013). . .
The psychology of art encompasses experimental methods for the qualitative examination of psychological responses to art, as well as an empirical study of their neurobiological correlates through neuroimaging.Mather, G., The Psychology of Art. Routledge, 2020. . .Funch, B. S., The psychology of art appreciation. Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997. .Brown, S., Gao, X., Tisdelle, L., Eickhoff, S. B., & Liotti, M., Naturalizing aesthetics: brain areas for aesthetic appraisal across sensory modalities. Neuroimage, Vol. 58, Issue 1, 2011, pp. 250-258. .Cela-Conde, C. J., Agnati, L., Huston, J. P., Mora, F., & Nadal, M. (2011). The neural foundations of aesthetic appreciation. Progress in Neurobiology, Vol. 94, Issue 1, 2011, pp. 39-48. .
History
1880-1950 One of the earliest to integrate psychology with art history was Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945), a Swiss art critic and historian, whose dissertation Prolegomena zu einer Psychologie der Architektur (1886) attempted to show that architecture could be understood from a purely psychological (as opposed to a historical-progressivist) point of view.Mark Jarzombek. The Psychologizing of Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Another important figure in the development of art psychology was Wilhelm Worringer, who provided some of the earliest theoretical justification for expressionist art. The Psychology of Art (1925) by Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) is another classical work. Richard Müller-Freienfels was another important early theorist.
The work of Theodor Lipps, a Munich-based research psychologist, played an important role in the early development of the concept of art psychology in the early decade of the twentieth century. His most important contribution in this respect was his attempt to theorize the question of Einfuehlung or "empathy", a term that was to become a key element in many subsequent theories of art psychology.
Numerous artists in the twentieth century began to be influenced by the psychological argument, including Naum Gabo, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and somewhat Josef Albers and György Kepes. The French adventurer and film theorist André Malraux was also interested in the topic and wrote the book La Psychologie de l'Art (1947-9) later revised and republished as The Voices of Silence.
1950-present Though the disciplinary foundations of art psychology were first developed in Germany, there were soon advocates, in psychology, the arts or in philosophy, pursuing their own variants in the USSR, England (Clive Bell and Herbert Read), France (André Malraux, Jean-Paul Weber, for example), and the US.
In the US, the philosophical premises of art psychology were strengthened—and given political valence—in the work of John Dewey.Alan Ryan, John Dewey and the High Time of American Liberalism. W.W. Norton 1995. His Art as Experience was published in 1934, and was the basis for significant revisions in teaching practices whether in the kindergarten or in the university. Manuel Barkan, head of the Arts Education School of Fine and Applied Arts at Ohio State University, and one of the many pedagogues influenced by the writings of Dewey, explains, for example, in his book The Foundations of Art Education (1955), that the aesthetic education of children prepares the child for a life in a complex democracy. Dewey himself played a seminal role in setting up the program of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, which became famous for its attempt to integrate art into the classroom experience.Wattenmaker, Richard J.; Distel, Anne, et al. (1993). Great French Paintings from the Barnes Foundation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 6, 13–14. .
The growth of art psychology between 1950 and 1970 also coincided with the expansion of art history and museum programs. The popularity of Gestalt psychology in the 1950s added further weight to the discipline. The seminal work was Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality (1951), that was co-authored by Fritz Perls, Paul Goodman, and Ralph Hefferline. The writings of Rudolf Arnheim (born 1904) were also particularly influential during this period. His Toward a Psychology of Art (Berkeley: University of California Press) was published in 1966. Art therapy drew on many of the lessons of art psychology and tried to implement them in the context of ego repair.see for example: Arthur Robbins and Linda Beth Sibley, Creative Art Therapy. (Brunner/Mazel, 1976). Marketing also began to draw on the lessons of art psychology in the layout of stores as well as in the placement and design of commercial goods.See for example, Creating images and the psychology of marketing communication, Edited by Lynn R. Kahle & Chung-Hyun Kim (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006).
Art psychology, generally speaking, was at odds with the principles of Freudian psychoanalysis with many art psychologists critiquing what they interpreted as its reductivism. Sigmund Freud believed that the creative process is an alternative to neuroses. He felt that it was likely a sort of defence mechanism against the negative effects of neuroses, a way to translate that energy into something socially acceptable, which could entertain and please others. The writings of Carl Jung, however, had a favorable reception among art psychologists given his optimistic portrayal of the role of art and his belief that the contents of the personal unconscious and, more particularly, the collective unconscious, could be accessed by art and other forms of cultural expression.
By the 1970s, the centrality of art psychology in academy began to wane. Artists became more interested in psychoanalysisGriselda Pollock (ed.), Psychoanalysis and the Image. (Oxford: Blackwell. 2006). and feminism,Catherine de Zegher (ed.), Inside the Visible. (MIT Press, Boston, 1996) and architects in phenomenology and the writings of Wittgenstein, Lyotard and Derrida. As for art and architectural historians, they critiqued psychology for being anti-contextual and culturally naive. Art historian Erwin Panofsky argued that historians should focus less on what is seen and more on what was thought.Michael Podro The Critical Historians of Art (Yale University Press, 1982).Dana Arnold and Margaret Iverson (eds.) Art and Thought. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2003. Today, psychology still plays an important role in art discourse, though mainly in the field of art appreciation.
Because of the growing interest in personality theory—especially in connection with the work of Isabel Briggs Myers and Katherine Briggs (developers of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator)—contemporary theorists are investigating the relationship between personality type and art. Patricia Dinkelaker and John Fudjack have addressed the relationship between artists' personality types and works of art; approaches to art as a reflection of functional preferences associated with personality type; and the function of art in society in light of personality theory.
Aesthetic Experience
Art viewing reflect one's experience, knowledge, preference, and emotions. The aesthetic experience encompasses the relationship between the viewer and the art object. In terms of the artist, there is an emotional attachment that drives the focus of the art. An artist must be completely in-tune with the art object in order to enrich its creation. As the piece of art progresses during the creative process, so does the artist. Both grow and change to acquire new meaning. If the artist is too emotionally attached or lacking emotional compatibility with a work of art, then this will negatively impact the finished product. According to Bosanquet (1892), the "aesthetic attitude" is important in viewing art because it allows one to consider an object with ready interest to see what it suggests. However, art does not evoke an aesthetic experience unless the viewer is willing and open to it. No matter how compelling the object is, it is up to the beholder to allow the existence of such an experience.
In the eyes of Gestalt psychologist Rudolf Arnheim, the aesthetic experience of art stresses the relationship between the whole object and its individual parts. He is widely known for focusing on the experiences and interpretations of artwork, and how they provide insight into peoples' lives. He was less concerned with the cultural and social contexts of the experience of creating and viewing artwork. In his eyes, an object as a whole is considered with less scrutiny and criticism than the consideration of the specific aspects of its entity. Artwork reflects one's "lived experience" of own life. Arnheim believed that all psychological processes have cognitive, emotional, and motivational qualities, which are reflected in the compositions of every artist.
Psychological research
Overview: bottom-up and top-down processing Cognitive psychologists consider both "bottom-up" and "top-down" processing when considering almost any area of research, including vision. Similar to how these terms are used in software design, "bottom-up" refers to how information in the stimulus is processed by the visual system into colors, shapes, patterns, etc. "Top-down" refers to conceptual knowledge and past experience of the particular individual. Bottom-up factors identified in how art is appreciated include abstract vs figurative painting, form, complexity, symmetry and compositional balance, laterality and movement. Top-down influences identified as being related to art appreciation include prototypicality, novelty, additional information like titles, and expertise.
Abstract versus figurative art Abstract paintings are unique in the explicit abandonment of representational intentions. Figurative or representational art is described as unambiguous or requiring mild interpretation.
The importance of meaning The popular distaste for abstract art is a direct consequence of semantic ambiguity. Researchers have examined the role of terror management theory (TMT) concerning meaning and the aesthetic experience of abstract versus figurative art. This theory suggests that humans, like all life forms are biologically oriented toward continued survival but are uniquely aware that their lives will inevitably end. TMT reveals that modern art is often disliked because it lacks appreciable meaning, and is thus incompatible with the underlying terror management motive to maintain a meaningful conception of reality. Mortality salience, or the knowledge of approaching death, was manipulated in a study aimed at examining how aesthetic preferences for seemingly meaningful and meaningless art are influenced by intimations of mortality. The mortality salience condition consisted of two opened ended questions about emotions and physical details concerning the participant's own death. Participants were then instructed to view two abstract paintings and rate how attractive they find them. A test comparing the mortality salience condition and the control found that participants in the mortality salience condition found the art less attractive.