Art

Stone-Ferrier studied paintings depicting 17th-century Dutch neighborhoods and her findings highlight how art can convey important social information.  A press release related to Stone-Ferrier’s work reports that “The importance of knowing what’s going on in your neighborhood and upholding its honor is at least as old as comparable societal expectations in 17th-century Netherlands, according to a new book by a University of Kansas art historian.

Chen, Ruttan, and Feinberg studied how art becomes sacred and their findings are likely applicable to other sorts of objects/situations.  The researchers report that they “used art as a case study to develop and test a theory wherein collective transcendence beliefs—beliefs that an object links the collective to something larger and more important than the self, spanning space and time—are a key determinant of the sacredness of objects. . . .

Spence studied art linked to bodily sensations.  He shares that “In recent years, there has been something of an explosion of interest in those artworks and installations that directly foreground the bodily senses [often referred to as proprioceptive (or prop.) art]. . . . The entertainment/experiential element of such works cannot be denied, especially in an era where funding in the arts sector is so often linked to footfall. At the same time, however, a number of the works appear to be about little more than entertainment/amusement.

Trupp and colleagues learned that there are significant psychological benefits to looking at visual art and cultural content electronically, even for brief periods of time.  The researchers report that “When experienced in-person, engagement with art has been associated—in a growing body of evidence—with positive outcomes in wellbeing and mental health. . . . Participants [in this study] . . .

Straffon and colleagues assessed people’s responses to artworks that they created.  The researchers report that “Self-made objects tend to be favored, remembered, valued, and ranked above and beyond objects that are not related to the self. On this basis, we set out to test whether the effects of self-relevance would apply to visual art, and via what mechanisms. In three studies, participants created abstract paintings that were then incorporated in a dot-probe task, pairing self-made and other-made stimuli. Our findings confirm that attention and preference are higher for self-made (vs.

Crawford and Juricevic studied the use of metaphors in art. They share that they “analyze[d] the literal and metaphorical use of the pictorial device of exaggerated size in 59 well-known works of art sampled from across history. Exaggerated size was chosen for analysis because it is often used literally (e.g., to depict an actual giant) or metaphorically (e.g., to depict an existential concern). . . . when metaphoric and literal information conflicts [in art], viewers favor metaphoric interpretations. . . .

In a study with applications beyond the specific research question investigated, Garay, Perez, and Pulga probed responses to color palettes used in paintings.  They report that “Most existing literature has ignored the potential effects that color intensity may have on art prices. . . . We examine 1627 paintings executed by the “Big Five” Latin American artists (Rivera, Tamayo, Lam, Matta, and Botero), and sold at Sotheby’s and Christie’s between 2003 and 2017, to analyze this impact.

Gore and colleagues studied the effects of seeing art on anxiety among cancer patients.  They report that they compared anxiety levels for “three groups (participants who observed an electronic selection of artwork with and without guided discussion, and a control group that did not engage in either dedicated art observation activity).  . . .  [average] anxiety scores were significantly lower among those who participated in guided art observation, compared to [the  control group]. . . .