For all the studies considering how we relate to artwork and artists that are producing fascinating results, there are others that are duds.
Studies
Posted inNews
Why Artworks Are Like People
Ever since critic and theorist Walter Benjamin penned his landmark essay in 1936, it’s been accepted as a kind of common wisdom that the aura of the artwork has withered in the (never-ending) age of mechanical reproduction. But a new study suggests the aura hasn’t vanished entirely yet, and perhaps it never will.
Posted inNews
Study Suggests Children’s Drawings Reveal How Smart They Are
Think your four-year-old might be an artistic prodigy? While early drawing ability doesn’t mean your child will be the next Picasso, a new study suggests it may indicate brightness.
Posted inNews
Study Finds Making Art May Keep Our Brains Healthy
We’ve all heard about art’s psychological and physiological effects. Researchers have found, for instance, that a lunchtime jaunt to an art gallery can reduce work-related stress, and that creating art might even help cancer patients. But what about art’s neurological impact — can picking up a paintbrush actually change your brain?
Posted inArt
Study Finds We Prefer Art Made by Individuals over Collectives
It’s common wisdom by now that the art market system thrives on brand-name, star-driven principles: individuals sell, groups not so much (and this despite the fact that many individuals don’t make their art alone). But why? Do we really think solo artists make more valuable work than collectives?
Posted inNews
NEA Captures Data on Artists with Day Jobs
Not long ago we wrote about a study that took up the question of who is an artist, examining some of the ways in which defining creative workers is difficult. On Monday the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) added to the conversation by releasing a new data set called “Keeping My Day Job: Identifying U.S. Workers Who Have Dual Careers as Artists.”
Posted inNews
Scientists Use Artistic Sunsets as Time Capsules of Climate Change
In a study published today, Greek and German researchers have compiled the results of looking at sunsets in 310 works from the Tate and National Gallery in London. The focus is on sunsets because they can potentially show what the climate was like in the past and help improve climate change models for the future.
Posted inNews
What Makes an Artist an Artist?
The question of who, exactly, is an artist — what that word means, who defines herself by it — has always been a tricky one. All sorts of surveys define “artist” in their own way and then move on with results, but a new study in the journal Poetics takes up the root question itself.
Posted inNews
Eccentric Artists Make Good Art (or So We Think)
We all know the stereotype of artists being a little … you know, different, but two researchers are now saying that if you’re perceived as being eccentric, people will think you make better art.
Posted inNews
The Topography of Emotion: New Study Maps Feelings in the Body
A new study by a team of Finnish researchers recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS) analyzes where we feel emotions in our bodies.
Posted inOpinion
Better Art Appreciation Through Brain Stimulation
A new study has found that electronic stimulation to a certain part of the brain could help you appreciate art better. Science!
Posted inOpinion
Want to Be an Artist? Try a Little Narcissism
A new study has found that narcissistic people are more likely to consider themselves creative and do creative things than their non-narcissistic counterparts. Um … we needed a study to tell us that?
