Sometimes It Really Is All About Presentation
Tonight I stumbled upon this article from the BBC about the difference in response to a painting that is perceived to be created by an esteemed painter as opposed to those perceived to be imitations or fakes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16032234
The Oxford based study scanned the brains of people viewing images of Rembrandt paintings. Some of the paintings were authentic and some of them were imitations. And much more pleasure was observed in the people who believed that they were viewing the work of Rembrandt himself. According to the article,
This found that the responses to viewing an authentic old master were deeply pleasurable, likened to tasting good food or winning a bet.
This warm glow of aesthetic pleasure was absent when the viewers looked at an image they had been told was fake. Instead the brain activity was associated with strategy and planning, as though the subject was trying to work out why this was not an authentic painting.
Some of you may recall my recent post “What’s in a Frame.” This really gets back to that whole argument for me. In this case, the frame is the presentation of the work of a world renown established artist. This is coming to a viewing to see one of the greats. And I can’t claim to be above such perception changes. I personally spent years completely unable to enjoy movies on a computer while everyone else was getting into doing just that. I couldn’t enjoy them because to me the computer was where the unfinished footage went, so just by virtue of being on a monitor, I would be signaled to look critically and find whatever needed fixing in the footage before me. That’s pretty good evidence right there that I’m someone who needs that cue to go ahead and enjoy too. So maybe I should stop waving my arms around with so many rants about how art should be judged on it’s own merit and not because of the write up next to it. I don’t know though. I might be more inclined to own up to my own hypocrisy on that one than give up the good fight for art for art’s sake.
Rembrandt self portrait (or is it)