Dislike Abstract Art? Try it again with a Less-Cluttered Mind

(Photo: Denis Kuvaev/Shutterstock)

(Photo: Denis Kuvaev/Shutterstock)

The last time you visited an art museum, did you find the abstract paintings sort of … annoying? Were you drawn to the landscapes and portraits, but turned off by the squiggles and dots?

New research suggests this preference may reflect your personality. But it also may be a sign that you’ve simply got too much on your mind, or that the physical environment—the gallery itself—leaves something to be desired.

An Italian research team led by psychologist Antonio Chirumboloreports people with a strong need for cognitive closure—that is, to have quick, definitive answers to vexing questions—are less likely to appreciate abstract art.

While that’s not surprising, the researchers note that while this desire for certainty is a constant for some people, it can be induced in others. If environmental cues are unwittingly prompting this mindset, they are effectively making people less open to abstract art.

“Curators of exhibitions of modern and abstract art should take into account environmental factors which may induce greater need for closure in visitors, and thus negatively affect viewers’ implicit evaluation of the artworks.”

In the online journal PLoS One,Chirumbolo and his colleagues describe two experiments. The first featured 60 women between the ages of 19 and 30, none of whom had any training in art or architecture.

After filling out a questionnaire designed to measure their dispositional need for closure, they completed an Implicit Association Task in which a series of images (abstract and figurative) and words (positive and negative) flashed onto a computer screen. Researchers noted how quickly and accurately they categorized each word and image.

Overall, “participants tended to exhibit an implicit preference for figurative art over abstract art,” the researchers report. But this tendency was exaggerated for those with a high need for cognitive closure.

The second experiment featured 54 women between the ages of 19 and 28, again with no art training. After their baseline need for closure was established, they were randomly assigned to a “high cognitive load condition” in which they were instructed to memorize nine numbers, or a “low cognitive load condition” in which they told to memorize one number. They then completed the same categorization task.

Again, those who were inherently inclined to seek closure showed an implicit dislike for abstract art. But so did those who were distracted by the need to memorize nine numbers. Indeed, the effect of the cognitive overload was distinct from, and stronger than, the participants’ baseline need for closure.

Chirumbolo and his colleagues explain that in situations where “information processing is more costly and effortful, the desire for unambiguous and stable knowledge predominates, and anything which runs counter to this is perceived as unpleasant and displeasing.”

In other words, if distractions are soaking up too much of your brain power, you have little tolerance for ambiguity. You want to get a strong sense of what you’re looking at and move on.

With this in mind, “Curators of exhibitions of modern and abstract art should take into account environmental factors which may induce greater need for closure in visitors, and thus negatively affect viewers’ implicit evaluation of the artworks,” the researchers write. Anything that reduces viewers’ cognitive load, from simple-to-navigate galleries to clear, understandable explanatory labels accompanying the works, will help.

“Beauty is not an intrinsic characteristic,” Chirumbolo and his colleagues conclude. “Judgments about beauty are individual and subjective, and depend on psychological factors.”

So if you hated that Jackson Pollock exhibit, think back to your state of mind on the day you visited the gallery. If your mental to-do list was long and distracting, you may want to go back in a more relaxed state. You may find the experience much more enjoyable.

What is Abstract Art?

Wassily Kandinsky (Russian, 1866-1944). Picture with a Circle (Bild mit Kreis), 1911. Oil on canvas. 54 11/16 x 43 11/16 in. (139 x 111 cm). Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi.  © 2009 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

Wassily Kandinsky (Russian, 1866-1944). Picture with a Circle (Bild mit Kreis), 1911. Oil on canvas. 54 11/16 x 43 11/16 in. (139 x 111 cm). Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi.  © 2009 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

Definition:

noun ) -  Abstract art can be a painting or sculpture (including assemblage ) that does not depict a person, place or thing in the natural world -- even in an extremely distorted or exaggerated way. Therefore, the subject of the work is based on what you see: color, shapes, brushstrokes, size, scale and, in some cases, the process (see action painting). Abstract art began in 1911 with such works as Picture with a Circle (1911) by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944). 

Kandinsky believed that colors provoke emotions. Red was lively and confident; Green was peaceful with inner strength; Blue was deep and supernatural; Yellow could be warm, exciting, disturbing or totally bonkers; and White seemed silent but full of possibilities. He also assigned instrument tones to go with each color: Red sounded like a trumpet; Green sounded like a middle-position violin; Light Blue sounded like flute; Dark Blue sounded like a cello, Yellow sounded like a fanfare of trumpets; and White sounded like the pause in a harmonious melody.

These analogies to sounds came from Kandinsky's appreciation for music, especially that by the contemporary Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). Kandinsky's titles often refer to the colors in the composition or to music, for example "improvisation."

The French artist Robert Delaunay (1885-1941) belonged to Kandinsky's Blue Rider (Die Blaue Reiter) group, and with his wife, Russian-born Sonia Delaunay-Turk (1885-1979), they both gravitated toward abstraction in their own movement Orphism or Orphic Cubism.

Source: http://arthistory.about.com/od/glossary_a/...