Reappraising abstract paintings after exposure to background information.

ABSTRACT: Can knowledge help viewers when they appreciate an artwork? Experts' judgments of the aesthetic value of a painting often differ from the estimates of naïve viewers, and this phenomenon is especially pronounced in the aesthetic judgment of abstract paintings. We compared the changes in aesthetic judgments of naïve viewers while they were progressively exposed to five pieces of background information. The participants were asked to report their aesthetic judgments of a given painting after each piece of information was presented. We found that commentaries by the artist and a critic significantly increased the subjective aesthetic ratings. Does knowledge enable experts to attend to the visual features in a painting and to link it to the evaluative conventions, thus potentially causing diffe

SUBMITTER: Park SA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4422661 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature