Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Looking at Ophelia

I read an interesting post at The Art Fund about The power of viewing original art. It describes a study published in the in Advances in Clinical Neuroscience & Rehabilitation (ACNR) Journal (the full text of which can be read here: Looking at Ophelia: A comparison of viewing art in the gallery and in the lab.)

The purpose of the study was to compare the eye movements of people viewing John Everett Millais's Pre-Raphaelite painting Ophelia on a digital screen with those viewing it in a live gallery. They had participants wear something called a "mobile eye tracker" so they could collect data about the points on the painting where their gaze fixated.





They found an almost inverted trend in the way people looked at the image. People who viewed the painting on the monitor tended to focus mostly on Ophelia herself (her face and hands), while those viewing the real object tended to spend a lot more time investigating her surroundings (the undergrowth and flowers). They also studied the way people in the gallery moved around to examine the painting, focusing on details, and tilting their heads to align with Ophelia's.


The study questions whether viewing art in a museum is a genuinely different experience from viewing a digital image:

"Whether it is the texture and physicality of the artwork itself, the gallery environment or both that directs this wider exploration of the painting, it is clear that through the experience of the original the viewers are looking for more than just the most salient features. While digital images can capture increasingly high details to the point where the naked eye cannot see, they often lack this propensity to encourage the curiosity of the viewer; thus museums, art galleries and the art and objects they hold, still have the power to enthrall their patrons and make us look at the world in a different way."

I definitely agree that viewing art (and artifacts) in a museum "encourages the curiosity" of the viewer in ways that digital images cannot. Our "information overload" syndrome causes us to glance at the image, go "oh yes, that's nice" and then we are immediately flitting and clicking onto some other distracting subject. Actually being in the location with the physical object, giving it your full attention, examining it from all angles, admiring the brush strokes and colors, the artistry and detail and human skill: you just can't get that from pixels. The article talks about the "aura" possessed by original works. I think this is an accurate description of that quality that gets lost in translation to the digital world. Like the Art Fund says, museums and galleries "continue to have the power to enthrall us with the magic of an original piece."

1 comment:

  1. I would definitely agree with what this study demonstrated. Art is really so much more enjoyable in-person. It is great to have access to so much online but seeing it in person is an experience that no computer can replicate. Thank you for sharing!

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