Kati Nowack Why do some people adore the realistic paintings from Adolph von Menzel whilst others love the impressionist paintings from Berthe Morisot or Max Liebermann? Preferences have been extensively studied for music and entertainment genres but insufficiently for visual art. Therefore, I presented almost 500 German participants aged between 20 and 78 years with paintings from four art movements: Realism, Impressionism, Expressionism, and Disturbed Realism. They were asked to rate how much they personally liked each painting on a scale from 1 (strongly dislike) to 5 (strongly like). Realist paintings in the study included paintings, for instance, from Adolph von Menzel, Gustave Courbet and Wilhelm Leibl. Examples for impressionsts in the study are Berthe Morisot, Max Liebermann and Joaquín Sorolla. Expressionst paintings involved, for example, art from Egon Schiele, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Edvard Munch. Finally, examples for disrupted realism are artworks from Alex Kanevsky, Mia Bergeron and Zoey Frank. Here, you can see some examples:
Some findings
Of all the 32 paintings, Gustave Courbet’s Fishing Boats on the Deauville Beach (1866) received the highest like ratings. Max Lieberman’s Parrot’s Avenue (1902) and Beer Garden in Munich (1884) landed on second and third place. A self-portrait (1912) from expressionist painter Alexej von Jawlensky received lowest preference ratings.
Generally, preference ratings were highest for the art movement of impressionism, followed by realism and disrupted realism. Preference ratings were lowest for expressionism.
Preferences were also influenced by gender, age and how often people engage with art. For instance, women showed an even higher preference for impressionist paintings than men. Men showed higher preferences ratings for expressionist paintings compared to women.
Older participants also showed greater admiration for expressionist, impressionist, and realist paintings compared to younger ones. This is in line with earlier findings showing that older people generally prefer representational art compared to younger people.
Finally, how stimulating we perceive an artwork to be (ranging from very calming to very exciting) also impacts upon our aesthetic preferences. Interestingly, more stimulating paintings generally received lower aesthetic preference ratings, whilst less stimulating paintings received higher aesthetic preference ratings.
(Please note that the full study/ manuscript is currently under review.)
What art movement do you love? Who is your favorite artist? Please feel free to leave a comment!
