When we wander through an art gallery, soaking up the myriad styles and disciplines on display, we tend to make snap judgments about what we adore and what we dismiss. We convince ourselves that these judgments spring from pure personal taste: we look, we evaluate, and then, with confidence, we declare a painting, drawing, or sculpture to be bad, good, great, or a masterpiece. It feels like a straightforward, no‑brainer process – we know art when we see it, right? Not quite. In reality, the brain’s response to art is tangled up in a host of subtle, sometimes bizarre influences that can make us fall head‑over‑heels for a piece or turn us away in an instant. Below are ten fascinating, and admittedly a little crazy, factors that shape our love or hate of art.
10 Crazy Things That Influence Our Art Taste
10 Being Told
Fact: Simply Being Told That Something Is Art Changes Our Response To It
Recently, a group of Dutch scientists from Erasmus University in Rotterdam ran a series of experiments involving 24 student volunteers. Each participant was hooked up to an EEG – a device that records electrical activity in the brain – and asked to rate a collection of pictures for likability and attractiveness. Half of the images depicted pleasant scenes, while the other half showed less appealing content. Crucially, the students were also informed that some of the pictures were designated as “art” and others were described as mere photographs of real‑world events.
The researchers discovered that when participants were told a picture was a work of art, their emotional response became “subdued on a neural level.” In other words, labeling an image as art prompts us to step back mentally, allowing us to scrutinize its shapes, colors, and composition more analytically, as lead researcher Noah Van Dongen explains.
9 Where It’s Shown
Fact: Where The Art Is Displayed Affects Our Appreciation Of It
A work of art is a work of art – whether it hangs on a pristine gallery wall or leans against a garage door, it should, in theory, be judged the same way. Yet a 2014 experiment by a research team at the University of Vienna suggests otherwise. Two groups of volunteers experienced the same exhibition: one group viewed it inside a museum, the other in a laboratory setting. While they explored the pieces, a mobile eye‑tracking device recorded how long each participant looked at each artwork.
After the viewing session, participants rated each piece on liking, interest, understanding, and perceived ambiguity. The findings were clear – museum‑goers spent more time on each work, reported higher liking scores, and found the pieces more interesting. The researchers concluded that museums foster a focused, enduring aesthetic experience, and that context dramatically modulates the relationship between art experience and viewing behavior.
8 Hunter‑Gatherer Instincts
Fact: The Hunter‑Gatherer Era Differentiated What Men And Women Find Aesthetically Pleasing
Imagine a disagreement with the opposite sex about the merit of a painting – the root of that clash might trace back to our ancient evolutionary roles. Camilo J. Cela‑Conde and colleagues hooked up ten female and ten male university students to a magneto‑encephalography (MEG) scanner, then showed them hundreds of images ranging from fine‑art paintings to natural objects, landscapes, and urban scenes.
The brain scans revealed a striking sex difference: when evaluating art, men exhibited activation primarily on the right hemisphere, whereas women showed bilateral activation. The authors propose that these patterns reflect the divergent visual‑spatial demands of our hunter‑gatherer ancestors – men, who hunted, needed to process expansive landscapes and thus favor larger, open‑configuration artworks; women, who gathered, focused on smaller, static patches, leading them to prefer compact spatial arrangements.
7 Exposure
Fact: We Prefer The Art That We Are Exposed To More Often
Think of that catchy song you once disliked on first hearing, only to grow fond of after a few repeats. This phenomenon is known as the “mere‑exposure effect,” where repeated exposure breeds preference. James Cutting, a psychologist at Cornell University, ran a brief experiment: students were flashed impressionist artworks for just two seconds each. Some pieces were established classics; others were comparable but non‑canonical. The non‑classics were displayed four times more often than the classics.
Surprisingly, participants favored the repeatedly shown non‑classics over the celebrated works. A control group that saw each piece equally often still gave higher ratings to the classic paintings, underscoring how exposure frequency can sway our aesthetic judgments.
6 Electroshock Therapy
Fact: Jolting Your Brain With Electricity Enhances Our Love Of Classic Art
Zaira Cattaneo of the University of Milan Bicocca gathered twelve participants to assess a series of paintings. The twist? Each participant evaluated the artworks twice – once after receiving a mild electric current to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and once after a sham (placebo) procedure.
The DLPFC is a brain region involved in emotional regulation. After the real stimulation, participants rated paintings depicting everyday moments significantly higher than before. Neurologist Anjan Chatterjee of the University of Pennsylvania suggests that this mild brain‑zap may boost mood, hinting at potential therapeutic uses for conditions like anhedonia, where individuals struggle to experience pleasure.
5 Ambiguity
Fact: The More Ambiguous A Work Of Art The More We Like It
In daily life we crave clarity – clear price tags, unmistakable road signs. Yet when it comes to art, ambiguity seems to be a magnet for our curiosity. A study involving 29 participants aged 18‑41, none of whom had formal art training, presented ambiguous works by René Magritte and Hans Bellmer.
Results showed a direct correlation: the higher participants judged a piece’s ambiguity, the more they appreciated it. The ambiguous artworks sparked “flashes of understanding” that participants found enjoyable, even when the pieces remained partially mysterious. Interestingly, subjective solvability – the feeling of having solved the ambiguity – did not predict liking and was even negatively linked to interest and emotional involvement.
4 No Info Please
Fact: Providing Information About A Work Of Art Diminishes Our Appreciation Of It
More context doesn’t always equal more enjoyment. Psychologist Kenneth Bordens of Indiana University‑Purdue University, Fort Wayne, reported a study where 172 undergraduates – most with limited art knowledge – examined two paintings and two sculptures representing Impressionist, Renaissance, Dada, and Outsider styles.
Initially, each student received a broad definition of art and a card indicating the style of the work. Half of the participants then received additional contextual information: a detailed style definition, historical background, and the artists’ intentions. Participants rated each piece on a 1‑7 scale for personal liking and how well it matched their internal idea of art.
The findings were striking: participants who received the extra context perceived the works as aligning less closely with their internal standards, suggesting that excessive information triggers more conscious processing and a more critical stance, ultimately dampening appreciation.
3 Abstraction? Sacré Bleu!
Fact: We Appreciate Abstract Art More In A Foreign Language Context
Psychology introduces the concept of “psychological distancing,” the perceived space between ourselves and an object. Elena Stephan of Bar‑Ilan University and colleagues explored how this distancing influences abstract‑art appreciation.
They hypothesized that encountering abstract works while operating in a foreign language creates enough mental distance to shift attention away from everyday pragmatic processing, thereby enhancing aesthetic appreciation. Their experiments confirmed that participants evaluated abstract paintings more favorably when the task was presented in a non‑native language compared to their native tongue.
2 Patterns
Fact: Seeing Patterns In A Work Of Art Is Our Sweet Spot
Our brains are hard‑wired to love patterns – a skill that helped our Neanderthal ancestors survive. Recognizing recurring motifs triggers a pleasurable response via the brain’s opioid system.
Jim Davies, a professor at Carleton’s Institute of Cognitive Science, emphasizes that pattern recognition is crucial for art appreciation. He notes that when viewers fail to detect a pattern, boredom sets in rapidly. Thus, the presence of recognizable patterns in a piece is a key driver of aesthetic enjoyment.
1 Mona Lisa . . . Yawn
Fact: The Mona Lisa Only Became A Masterpiece After It Was Stolen
Absence truly makes the heart grow fonder. While today the Mona Lisa enjoys unrivaled fame, there was a period when interest in Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait was relatively modest. The turning point? Not critics or scholars, but a daring theft.
On the night of August 21, 1911, Italian construction worker Vincenzo Peruggia and a few accomplices, disguised in workmen’s smocks, slipped into the Louvre, lifted the painting, and exited through a back stairwell. It took 26 hours for anyone to notice the canvas was missing.
The theft sparked worldwide headlines, wanted posters, and a surge of public curiosity. Songs were written, police stations swarmed with inquiries, and the Mona Lisa transitioned from a relatively obscure masterpiece to a cultural icon adored by the masses. In short, a single brazen heist propelled the painting into legendary status.