Preference for Art Predicted by Personality
Research Links Traits to Preferences for Artistic Styles
Art Judged by its Consumers
Despite the wealth of work probing the mind of the artistic genius there has been relatively little interest in the people who enjoy the fruit of their creative endevours, and the differences between them. A team of psychologists from the University of London led by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic aimed to rectify this by asking 91,692 participants to rate 24 different paintings corresponding to cubism, renaissance, impressionism, and Japanese art. They then completed a personality questionnaire which gave them scores corresponding to the "Big Five" traits generally agreed by psychologists to constitute the fundamentals of personality.
Gender and Age Differences in Art Preference
As well as differences in personality, the Chamorro-Premuzic found that gender and age play a part. It found that men tended to prefer cubist and renaissance art, whereas women preferred traditional Japanese paintings and impressionism. Younger people preferred the more modern forms of abstract and cubist art, whereas older people preferred impressionism and Japanese art. Despite this however, art preferences were more dependent on personality traits than on demographic factors.
Previous Studies in Art Preference
Interest in the personality differences relating to people's choice of painting dates back half a century. Some of these suggested conservatism, schizotypy, tolerance for ambiguity and, in particular, sensation seeking as potential differentiators between people.
Adrian Furnham and John Walker from University College London found that thrill and adventure seekers veered toward representational art, as did those who were highly conscientious (who had already been shown previously to have a "conservative" ,as opposed to modern, taste for art). Those with high levels of disinhibition preferred abstract and pop art, as did participants scoring highly on neuroticism. Pop art also tended to be favoured by those scoring low on agreeableness.
Personality of Artist Versus Viewer
The interesting question that follows from these results is whether the personality of the viewer corresponds to that of the artist. "Maybe," says Professor Furnham. "That's certainly true of certain styles like surrealism." Unfortunately, given the impossibility of retrospective personality testing, it's a question that will have to be answered by future generations.
Links
Test your personality: http://similarminds.com/big5.html
Sources
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Stian Reimers, Anne Hsu and Gorkan Ahmetoglu (2008) "Who art thou? Personality predictors of artistic preferences in a large UK sample: The importance of openness." British Journal of Psychology, 00, 1–16.
Furnham, Walker (2001) "The influence of personality traits, previous experience of art, and demographic variables on artistic preference." Personality and Individual Differences, 31(6), 997-1017.
Adrian Furnham, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic (2004) "Personality, intelligence, and art." Personality and Individual Differences, 36, 705–715.
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