The Art of Seeing

This is Part 2 of a series on the psychology of things. If you want to get a basic understanding of Mihaly’s work you can see Part 1 below.

“It fixed me like a statue a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, I do not know which, for I lost all ideas of time, even the consciousness of my existence.” – Thomas Jefferson on Marius Imprisoned at Minturnae by Drouais

What is good art?

In the ambitious study “The Art of Seeing: An Interpretation of the Aesthetic Encounter”, Csikszentmihalyi and his associates analyze how a person experiences and appreciates art. Through the use of questionnaires of art experts, both the reason why we like art, and what we can do to enjoy it more, are explored.

Artist as Neurotic

The connection between the artist and the subject has been analyzed before by another famous Psychologist. His take focuses on the anxiety of the artist’s life:

“An artist is originally a man who turns away from reality because he cannot come to terms with the renunciation of instinctual satisfaction which it at first demands, and who allows his erotic and ambitious wishes full play in the life of phantasy. He finds the way back to reality, however, from this world of phantasy by making use of special gifts to mould his phantasies into truths of a new kind, which are valued by men as precious reflections of reality. Thus in a certain fashion he actually becomes the hero, the king, the creator, or the favourite he desired to be, without following the long round-about path of making real alterations in the external world. But he can only achieve this because other men feel the same dissatisfaction as he does with the renunciation demanded by reality, and because that dissatisfaction, which results from the replacement of the pleasure principle by the reality principle is itself a part of reality.” ~ Freud On Metapsychology

Mihaly’s studies of Flow included people who got into Flow in many activities, including the workplace and in sports, but here he expands farther than Freud. He sees art as something that makes life “richer, more meaningful, and more enjoyable.”

The Head and the Heart

The book begins with the conflict between a rationalist intellectual analysis of art, and romantic feelings from the subject. Between rationalism and romanticism, by the end of this study, it finds a common ground where both can not only co-exist, but both the head and the heart can inform each other to increase the pleasure of the viewing subject. Part of the intellectual enjoyment of art is when the artwork starts to give the subject new understandings that were hidden and inaccessible before viewing the artwork.

At other times the subject has a mental model of perfection and the artwork actually achieves it. At it’s highest level, art can bring the audience an experience that transcends reality indicating how it could be.

The contribution from the romantic perspective is the sheer beauty emanating from the artwork. When the artwork projects a sense of order out of the chaotic world, it is reflected in the subject with the same pleasurable emotions that the subject gains from mastering the environment in the real world. Order out of chaos creates an emotional harmony in the subject, especially when the subject’s emotional needs are met by the artwork or a point of view of the subject is validated.

Different people, different experiences

Because each subject who visits an art gallery is different, artworks will resonate with different people based on their personal life story, their current skill level of interpretation, and the appropriate level of challenge the artwork presents to the subject.

The study says that “the aesthetic experience occurs when information coming from the artwork interacts with information already stored in the viewer’s mind. The result of this conjunction might be a sudden expansion, recombination, or ordering of previously accumulated information, which in turn produces a variety of emotions such as delight, joy, or awe. The information in the work of art fuses with information in the viewer’s memory – followed by the expansion of the viewer’s [awareness], and the attendant emotional consequences.” There are so many moving parts to art appreciation that it can be daunting for the beginner, but this complexity also allows the subject lots of opportunity to grow into the skill.

Art and Flow

To get into Flow while enjoying art creates a lot of challenges for the subject. There has to be an elimination of distractions, a goal of what the subject wants from the artwork, and feedback from the interaction with the artwork. The subject viewing the art also needs some prior skills in interpreting art, without which, the variety of accessible art diminishes.

When the art is really resonating with the subject it can almost go into a religious experience. One participant in the study described an artwork as “so beautiful that you could worship that thing.” This is a key to understanding all areas of pleasure in human life and how people rate their experiences. The more competent the experience, the more a subject feels a need to worship it and proselytize it to others.

Under the structure created by Monroe Beardsley (1982), and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1975), here is the summary of how you can improve your ability to enjoy art:

Fixed attention on activity or object.

Whether you force your attention on an object or it grabs your eye, attention has to be long enough to truly engage an artwork. One participant said, “for attention to be attracted to the object in the first place, a…set of conditions is necessary. The object must contain a set of visual ‘challenges’ that engages the interpretive skills of the beholder.” The artwork doesn’t always have to be pleasant at first when it gets your attention. A participant in the study had this to say about Pollack’s Number One:

“I was just indignant, furious. And my reaction was very strong – I really was quite convinced that this was a joke. But it was interesting enough that I kept seeing it over time, and by the time I had gone through part of college I was quite enthusiastic about it and I found it very exciting.”

A participant in the study said, “for a certain individual, there will be a reaction in some way. Either you like it or you don’t. But you might be taken in by something, it’s enough to hold your interest and get you rooted there for a while and start [you] thinking about some other things, places you might be led to from this starting point.”

As one engages with an artwork and fixes attention to it, more detail can be gleaned which may make the subject change their mind. Here’s another participant’s opinion of an artwork:

“When I first saw it I hated it and I thought to myself, ‘Hmm, that’s interesting. Why do you dislike it?’… And so that’s a good reaction to have. To not like something, it’s a real reaction. I remember going back to the gallery probably three times during that visit to New York, and forcing myself to look at that work. And the more I looked, the more I found, the more I liked, and the more I wanted to see more of that work.”

There is no guarantee that you will like a work if you continually fix attention to it. Another participant made it plain:

“Once in a while I make a bad mistake. I’ve bought something I thought was beautiful, and then I begin to see an emptiness in it that doesn’t get better, it only gets worse.”

Many participants felt that great works were “inexhaustible” or “bottomless.” When I read this it reminded me of a restaurant I was at where I was reading the book for Part 1 of this series. I was outside on the patio next to the sidewalk. There were very nice fake flowers on the table and a woman was walking past me on the sidewalk. She went greedily to the flowers to enjoy them, but when she got close enough to see the crosshatching, she exclaimed in disappointment “ohhhh there fake!” Like with anything in life if there is not enough depth in mystery, there will be boredom in the subject. Maybe even contempt.

Letting go of concerns about your past and your future.

When absorbed in an artwork, the subject is less likely to be worrying about their past or future. They may compare themselves to the artwork in communication with it, to understand themselves better, but they are not disconnected. Another participant suggested that he needed to be in the “right frame of mind” when looking at works of art. “As long as there isn’t a lot of competition for what I’m looking at,” whether internal or external, the possibility of an aesthetic experience will exist. “Sometimes,” he goes on, “I’ll be in sort of a distracted mood and come around the corner and see something that is just so searingly beautiful that it pushes out every other thought.” But for the most part, he insists, “I have to gear myself up to look; I have to say ‘okay, I’m going into this show or to this exhibition.'” There is an intention to take the art seriously and an openness to “put a part of yourself aside and allow the experience to take place.”

Loss of self-consciousness towards the object or activity.

One spoke of Edward Hopper’s painting of Nighthawks (1942): “I want to know what those people are doing next; I want to know where they came from and where they’re going.” This was a way for some of the participants to substitute one reality for another. A respondent felt that the process of visually experiencing a work of art led to a heightened awareness sometimes described as a loss of self or transportation outside the self.

“I think it absorbs, it involves all the senses in a unifying manner. Art is primarily visual, but it heightens your sense of the other, the outside, the thing experienced, and in the process, heightens your awareness of yourself, and even though you’re being fully absorbed and transported by an object perceived by the senses, you’re losing yourself at the same time you become yourself.”

Another respondent said, “very great objects give one a sort of a transcendent experience. It takes you out of the realm of everyday life. You lose the sense of where you are and become absorbed in the object. When that happens, whether it’s theater, or looking at art pictures, or reading a beautiful piece of prose, it moves you and transcends you. I think that’s part of what art is. It’s not common experience, it doesn’t happen that often, but it does happen with regularity.”

For a work of art to provide an aesthetic experience it must carry a complex load of information for the viewer to unravel. This is why it’s possible to go into these Flow states. But as a subject, one has to be able to keep up with the details to maintain that result.

Responding to challenges with adequate skills.

Like a prior respondent said, “I have to gear myself up to look.” Viewers must bring their knowledge and training to the encounter with the work of art. Paradoxically, museums have to balance providing the information for the viewer, to bring them up to speed, but not to the level that the viewer is using the guide as a crutch. At some point the viewer has to create their own questions so they can interact with the artwork. Then it becomes enjoyable when the subject is engaging the work themselves. One curator notes, “you can teach how something is composed, categorize it and show where it came from and the importance of the patronage and the personality of the artist and all these different facets,” but all of these things, “in themselves wouldn’t necessarily make somebody enjoy or appreciate a work of art.” What does happen is that “at some point…somehow…people sort of click on, and they suddenly begin to really love the process of looking at a work of art.” This dovetails with the need for the subject to have an intention to take the art seriously and eventually go beyond the museum guidance.

A person involved in museum education had clarity of the right balance for museum presentations:

“The challenge of making an audiovisual presentation and putting it in a museum is to take the work of art and find a way of transforming it or abstracting it or doing something with it which makes it accessible to the mind of the person who sees the picture or looks at the sculpture. I think there are very powerful ways that [audiovisuals] can do that. It can open up aesthetic awareness and perception, I think, in ways that are not generally understood, but are very powerful if done well…What I’d do is give them a ten minute audiovisual which takes a whole set of historical ideas and aesthetic viewpoints and all these other things and compresses it into a succinct statement which serves as a transition for the visitor between the neutrality of walking in, to the experience of being engaged with those works of art when they’re actually in the show – really thinking in relation to them.”

The activity doesn’t need external rewards, they are intrinsically satisfying.

By giving just enough skill to the viewer, they can then use that skill to take ownership of their experience. Hopefully if they have enough enjoyment they will develop skills on their own and practice on their own. Once the subject takes control of their knowledge and measures how well they are doing, they can start taking enjoyable pride in their successful art experiences.

Integrating the experience into the self to expand it.

As the experience is taken in, the subject transcends themselves. The subject is transported into experiences that are different from his or her normal life. Many masterpieces are quite old and time can be transcended when the self merges with an ageless realm of the absolute. By the end of the experience there’s a pleasure in how the subject’s skills are expanded. Some participants relished their experiences of mastery and accomplishment: “It’s conquering the object, having the power over it, not allowing the artist to put something over on you or keep a secret from you. In a certain sense, I hate to admit it, but there is the sense of power, in having an insight, having information.”

Literal minded viewers may scoff at the idea that the self is expanded. Yet for human consciousness, emotional reactions based on empathy, information about the artwork and the artist, and the active use of the viewer’s imagination, they can help the viewer connect with the artist’s point of view and transcend their own.

The Art of Seeing: An Interpretation of the Aesthetic Encounter ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Rick E. Robinson: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780892361564/

Part 1: The Meaning of Things: https://psychreviews.org/the-meaning-of-things-csikszentmihalyi-rochberg-halton/

Psychology: https://psychreviews.org/category/psychology01/