Culture and Art

Brinkman and colleagues found that people from Austria and from Japan literally use their eyes differently when looking at European and Japanese art and photographs. The researchers report that “Possibly those differences are related to reading/writing systems, but also to different cognitive expectations toward pictures: the equivalence of image and calligraphy in the Japanese tradition versus the habit to make and see pictures as window-like perspectival views of reality in the European Renaissance tradition. . . . for Japanese (and possibly Chinese as well) looking at a painting might be to a certain degree related to reading calligraphy, rather than looking at the world through a window. Writing with ideograms (Kanji) is per se a pictorial act. More importantly, in contrast to European paintings, traditional Japanese paintings have no sharp demarcation between calligraphy and painted image. Japanese scrolls used to decorate the walls of particular rooms (Kakemono/Kakejikus) can consist of images—with or without calligraphy—or of pure calligraphy.”

Hanna Brinkman, Jan Mikuni, Zoya Dare, Hideaki Kawabata, Helmut Leder, and Raphael Rosenberg.  “Cultural Diversity in Oculometric Parameters When Viewing Art and Non-Art.” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, in press, https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000563

Perceptions of Apartment Life (06-15-23)