Seriously, most of the abstract expressionists started out as figurative painters. They had real eyes for colour, texture, shape and contrast. They also tended to put way more time and physical effort (if not conscious thought) into their work than people give them credit for. Making a stylish mess is hard.
2Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Angelina Hawley-Dolan, Department of Psychology, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Ave., Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 E-mail: hawleyan@bc.edu
Abstract
Museumgoers often scoff that costly abstract expressionist paintings could have been made by a child and have mistaken paintings by chimpanzees for professional art. To test whether people really conflate paintings by professionals with paintings by children and animals, we showed art and nonart students paired images, one by an abstract expressionist and one by a child or animal, and asked which they liked more and which they judged as better. The first set of pairs was presented without labels; the second set had labels (e.g., “artist,” “child”) that were either correct or reversed. Participants preferred professional paintings and judged them as better than the nonprofessional paintings even when the labels were reversed. Art students preferred professional works more often than did nonart students, but the two groups’ judgments did not differ. Participants in both groups were more likely to justify their selections of professional than of nonprofessional works in terms of artists’ intentions. The world of abstract art is more accessible than people realize.
FYI the cruddy formatting is not abstract art itself. It is just Vanilla being what it is.
Comments
Seeing the Mind Behind the Art
People Can Distinguish Abstract
Expressionist Paintings From Highly Similar Paintings by Children,
Chimps, Monkeys, and Elephants
1Department of Psychology, Boston College
2Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Abstract
Museumgoers often scoff that costly
abstract expressionist paintings could have been made by a child and
have mistaken paintings
by chimpanzees for professional art. To test
whether people really conflate paintings by professionals with paintings
by children
and animals, we showed art and nonart students
paired images, one by an abstract expressionist and one by a child or
animal,
and asked which they liked more and which they
judged as better. The first set of pairs was presented without labels;
the
second set had labels (e.g., “artist,” “child”)
that were either correct or reversed. Participants preferred
professional
paintings and judged them as better than the
nonprofessional paintings even when the labels were reversed. Art
students preferred
professional works more often than did nonart
students, but the two groups’ judgments did not differ. Participants in
both
groups were more likely to justify their selections
of professional than of nonprofessional works in terms of artists’
intentions.
The world of abstract art is more accessible than
people realize.
FYI the cruddy formatting is not abstract art itself. It is just Vanilla being what it is.