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kestrellBy Tom Jacobs
http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture/fear-heightens-appreciation-of-abstract-art-39728/
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A newly published study
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2012-03016-001/
finds people are more likely to be moved and intrigued by abstract paintings if they have just experienced a good scare. This suggests the allure of art may be “a byproduct of one’s tendency to be alarmed by such environmental features as novelty, ambiguity, and the fantastic,” argues lead author Kendall Eskine, a research psychologist at Loyola University New Orleans.
....Their study was inspired by 18th-century philosopher Edmund Burke,
who argued there is a strong link between fear and our experience of the sublime. To test this thesis, the researchers conducted an experiment featuring 85 Brooklyn College students.
....“Fear was the only factor found to significantly increase sublime feelings,” the researchers report. Having just been jolted by that frightening film clip
“resulted in significantly higher sublime scores than all other conditions, which did not differ significantly from each other.”
This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, according to Eskine and his colleagues, Natalie Kacinik and Jesse Prinz.
“At its core, fear is an emotional mechanism that increases survival chances by motivating fight, flight, or freezing responses to threatening situations,” they write. “Fear seizes one’s attention, halts current plans, and increases vigilance.”
As they point out, this dynamic is echoed in Burke’s description of the
experience of the sublime,
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/burke/edmund/sublime/
which the philosopher called “that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended.”
“The capacity of a work of art to grab our interest and attention, to remove us from daily life, may stem from its ability to trigger our evolved mechanisms
for coping with danger,” the researchers conclude.
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http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture/fear-heightens-appreciation-of-abstract-art-39728/
block quote start
A newly published study
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2012-03016-001/
finds people are more likely to be moved and intrigued by abstract paintings if they have just experienced a good scare. This suggests the allure of art may be “a byproduct of one’s tendency to be alarmed by such environmental features as novelty, ambiguity, and the fantastic,” argues lead author Kendall Eskine, a research psychologist at Loyola University New Orleans.
....Their study was inspired by 18th-century philosopher Edmund Burke,
who argued there is a strong link between fear and our experience of the sublime. To test this thesis, the researchers conducted an experiment featuring 85 Brooklyn College students.
....“Fear was the only factor found to significantly increase sublime feelings,” the researchers report. Having just been jolted by that frightening film clip
“resulted in significantly higher sublime scores than all other conditions, which did not differ significantly from each other.”
This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, according to Eskine and his colleagues, Natalie Kacinik and Jesse Prinz.
“At its core, fear is an emotional mechanism that increases survival chances by motivating fight, flight, or freezing responses to threatening situations,” they write. “Fear seizes one’s attention, halts current plans, and increases vigilance.”
As they point out, this dynamic is echoed in Burke’s description of the
experience of the sublime,
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/burke/edmund/sublime/
which the philosopher called “that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended.”
“The capacity of a work of art to grab our interest and attention, to remove us from daily life, may stem from its ability to trigger our evolved mechanisms
for coping with danger,” the researchers conclude.
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