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The Ryerson & Burnham Libraries collection contains a wide variety of resources that can be used to locate information on artists and their works. Our open shelf collection in the reading room contains reference sources, such as dictionaries, directories, encyclopedias, and indexes. We have strong collections of artist files, auction catalogs, books, exhibition catalogs, journals, and newspapers in the library collection, and the Ryerson and Burnham Archives collections also contain papers for individual artists and arts organizations, as well as a collection of artists’ oral histories.

This research guide provides recommendations for research sources and strategies to locate information on both prominent and obscure artists and their works. Prior to beginning your research, we recommend that you compile as much information about the artist or artwork of interest to you as possible. Do you know the artist’s name, the artwork’s title, the approximate dates the artist worked or the piece was created, or the geographic area where the artist lived or the object was created? If you are working on an artwork in your collection, have you examined it to see whether it contains any signatures or marks, labels, or annotations (you may wish to remove the frame to fully examine the object)? Recording this information and bringing an outline of keywords or research objectives as well as clear, closeup images of any signatures or markings to the library with you will provide you with a strong starting point for your research.

Getting Started

The Ryerson and Burnham Libraries’ catalog will lead you to articles, artist files, books, and exhibition catalogues for an artist. For best results, use the Library Catalog search scope, and enter the artist’s name, last name, first name (example: Monet, Claude). The following resources will also be helpful in learning more about specific artists and their artworks.

Catalogues Raisonnés

Look for a piece in the most comprehensive catalogue of the artist’s known works. Please note these are not available for all artists. The International Foundation for Art Research maintains a free database of published and forthcoming catalogues raisonnés.

In the library catalog, search the Library Catalog scope for: [Artist’s name; Last Name, First Name] – Catalogues raisonnés (example: Hopper, Edward – Catalogues raisonnés).

Artist Files

The Ryerson & Burnham Libraries have over 35,000 artist files, which contain small exhibition catalogs, checklists, clippings, images, and fliers for artists, galleries, museums, and art schools. These are described in the catalog: the location and material type is Pamphlets. See also the New York Public Library’s artists file on microfiche (call number 1990 3).

Biographical Reference Resources

• Who’s Who in American Art This subscription resource is also available digitally in the reading room.
• Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975
• Dictionary of Artists (Bénézit) This subscription resource is also available digitally in the reading room.
• Allgemeines Kunstler-Lexikon This subscription resource is also available digitally in the reading room.
• Contemporary Artists

Ryerson Index

Look for articles on an artist, particularly if the artist was in the Chicago area and was active in the early to mid-20th century. This includes references to the Art Institute of Chicago Scrapbooks .

Full Title :   I ndex to Art Periodicals (1962)

Signature Directories

If you do not have the name of the work you are researching, but it has a signature, try resources such as these.

•      American Artists: Signatures & Monograms, 1800-1989
•      Marks & Monograms: The Decorative Arts, 1880-1960
•      The Visual Index of Artists’ Signatures & Monograms
•      Artists’ Monograms & Indiscernible Signatures: An International Directory, 1800-1991

Reproduction Indices

Track down works that reproduce a painting, such as World Painting Index or Art Reproductions .

Art Dictionaries

Art dictionaries are useful for biographies, introductions to periods of art, and the bibliographies that accompany entries; the Grove Dictionary of Art and Oxford Art Online (this subscription resource is available in the reading room) are good examples. Works such as the Dictionary of Art Terms can also be useful for definitions and explanations of terms and periods of art, as well as illustrations and diagrams for entries.

Articles on Art, Artists, and Related Topics

These subscription resources provide citations and some full-text articles on art, artists, and related topics. Unless otherwise noted, they are available onsite at the Art Institute of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago campus. Faculty, students, and staff at the Art Institute of Chicago and School of the Art Institute of Chicago can also access most of these resources from other locations with an ARTIC username and password via the Art, Architecture, and Design Resources Page .

Newspaper Databases

The Libraries subscribe to online regional and national newspaper databases, which can be used to locate biographical or exhibition information.

These resources are accessible in the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries via the Newspapers Resources Page .

Auction Databases

The Libraries subscribe to a number of auction databases, most of which cover auctions from the last 20 years. 

These resources are accessible in the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries via the Auction Resources Page.

Researching Artworks in a Museum Collection

Objects currently on display in the Art Institute galleries can usually be found in Collections Online . The record may include an image, information from the wall label, and occasionally an exhibition history and bibliography of titles that mention the artwork. CITI is the museum’s internal collection database, which includes information on all artworks in the Art Institute’s collection. If an item is not on display in the galleries, this may be the best starting point. Please ask at the reference desk for CITI access.

For objects that are on display in other museums and institutions, the subscription ARTstor database, available in the reading room, contains a growing survey of major works of art, as well as specialized image collections.

Search by museum collection, artist, or keyword. ARTstor is available from the Image Databases page .

Catalog of Museum or Department

Consult the catalogs of a museum’s collection or a museum department’s collection. For example: American Arts at the Art Institute of Chicago . You can find these by searching the library catalog for the museum and department name and the term catalogs (for example, Art Institute of Chicago. Department of Textiles — Catalogs).

Beyond the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries

Area Libraries

Check libraries and/or historical societies in the area that the artist was from or was most active for information including newspaper articles and pamphlet files. Try “Find a library near you,” available here: https://www.worldcat.org/libraries .

Chicago Artists’ Archive at Chicago Public Library

This archival collection is available at the Harold Washington Branch of Chicago Public Library (8th floor). Files may contain: resumes, newspaper articles, artists’ books, gallery flyers, videos, press clippings, letters, photographs, some original artwork, and CDs. To find out if a particular artist is included in the collection you can call (312) 747-4300 or consult the list available here: http://www.chipublib.org/fa-chicago-artists-archive/ .

Collections that Have Works by the Artist

Once you discover which museum collections hold pieces by an artist, check with these institutions for information. 

Union Catalogs

The Chicago Collections Consortium contains digitized items from the archives and special collections of various Chicago-area institutions, including scrapbooks, photographs, and other printed material for local art-related topics. Access the free online portal here: http://explore.chicagocollections.org .

WorldCat is a catalog of library catalogs worldwide that contains records for libraries’ holdings of books, journals, manuscript collections, newspapers, and digital and audiovisual resources. It is available thorough subscription in the reading room, or in a free version .

Archival Collections

Look for collections of an artist’s papers in library collections around the world search WorldCat or ArchiveGrid .

For American artists, try the Archives of American Art: http://www.aaa.si.edu/ .

Art Information on the Internet

Conduct broad searches for anything on an artist’s name. Using quotation marks around the artist’s name can help limit, as can adding keywords outside the quotation marks.

“Claude Monet”

“Claude Monet” watercolor

“Claude Monet” artist

Searching Google Images, Google Books, and Google Scholar can also be very useful.

The entries in this free online encyclopedia often include bibliographies, references, and links to related entries.

Biographical Information

Consult sites created by museums, libraries, archives, galleries, and others that provide information on artists.

Art in Context

Artcyclopedia

 For artists about whom little professional literature is available, try genealogical resources such as census documents, city directories, county histories, and local newspaper collections. Many of these resources are freely accessible online.

ChicagoAncestors

Chronicling America

FamilySearch

Internet Archive

  Image Searching

If you have a digital image of the item you are trying to identify, run it through a reverse image search to locate images of similar items on the Internet.

Google Images

Art-Related Services

Appraisal and Conservation

Staff at the Art Institute of Chicago cannot provide authentication or appraisal services, and our conservation staff are not able to accept inquiries on works of art in personal collections. You can locate advice on these topics in our research guide on Appraisal and Conservation Resources for Art .

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Art History Resources

Guidelines for analysis of art.

• Formal Analysis Paper Examples
• Guidelines for Writing Art History Research Papers
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Knowing how to write a formal analysis of a work of art is a fundamental skill learned in an art appreciation-level class. Students in art history survey and upper-level classes further develop this skill. Use this sheet as a guide when writing a formal analysis paper. Consider the following when analyzing a work of art. Not everything applies to every work of art, nor is it always useful to consider things in the order given. In any analysis, keep in mind: HOW and WHY is this a significant work of art?

Part I – General Information

• In many cases, this information can be found on a label or in a gallery guidebook. An artist’s statement may be available in the gallery. If so, indicate in your text or by a footnote or endnote to your paper where you got the information.
• Subject Matter (Who or What is Represented?)
• Artist or Architect (What person or group made it? Often this is not known. If there is a name, refer to this person as the artist or architect, not “author.” Refer to this person by their last name, not familiarly by their first name.)
• Date (When was it made? Is it a copy of something older? Was it made before or after other similar works?)
• Provenance (Where was it made? For whom? Is it typical of the art of a geographical area?)
• Location (Where is the work of art now? Where was it originally located? Does the viewer look up at it, or down at it? If it is not in its original location, does the viewer see it as the artist intended? Can it be seen on all sides, or just on one?)
• Technique and Medium (What materials is it made of? How was it executed? How big or small is it?)

Part II – Brief Description

In a few sentences describe the work. What does it look like? Is it a representation of something? Tell what is shown. Is it an abstraction of something? Tell what the subject is and what aspects are emphasized. Is it a non-objective work? Tell what elements are dominant. This section is not an analysis of the work yet, though some terms used in Part III might be used here. This section is primarily a few sentences to give the reader a sense of what the work looks like.

Part III – Form

This is the key part of your paper. It should be the longest section of the paper. Be sure and think about whether the work of art selected is a two-dimensional or three-dimensional work.

Art Elements

• Line (straight, curved, angular, flowing, horizontal, vertical, diagonal, contour, thick, thin, implied etc.)
• Shape (what shapes are created and how)
• Light and Value (source, flat, strong, contrasting, even, values, emphasis, shadows)
• Color (primary, secondary, mixed, complimentary, warm, cool, decorative, values)
• Texture and Pattern (real, implied, repeating)
• Space (depth, overlapping, kinds of perspective)
• Time and Motion

Principles of Design

• Unity and Variety
• Balance (symmetry, asymmetry)
• Emphasis and Subordination
• Scale and Proportion (weight, how objects or figures relate to each other and the setting)
• Mass/Volume (three-dimensional art)
• Function/Setting (architecture)
• Interior/Exterior Relationship (architecture)

Part IV – Opinions and Conclusions

This is the part of the paper where you go beyond description and offer a conclusion and your own informed opinion about the work. Any statements you make about the work should be based on the analysis in Part III above.

• In this section, discuss how and why the key elements and principles of art used by the artist create meaning.
• Support your discussion of content with facts about the work.

General Suggestions

• Pay attention to the date the paper is due.
• Your instructor may have a list of “approved works” for you to write about, and you must be aware of when the UA Little Rock Galleries, or the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Galleries (formerly Arkansas Arts Center) opening April 2023, or other exhibition areas, are open to the public.
• You should allow time to view the work you plan to write about and take notes.
• Always italicize or underline titles of works of art. If the title is long, you must use the full title the first time you mention it, but may shorten the title for subsequent listings.
• Use the present tense in describing works of art.
• Be specific: don’t refer to a “picture” or “artwork” if “drawing” or “painting” or “photograph” is more exact.
• Remember that any information you use from another source, whether it be your textbook, a wall panel, a museum catalogue, a dictionary of art, the internet, must be documented with a footnote. Failure to do so is considered plagiarism, and violates the behavioral standards of the university. If you do not understand what plagiarism is, refer to this link at the UA Little Rock Copyright Central web site: https://ualr.edu/copyright/articles/?ID=4
• For proper footnote form, refer to the UA Little Rock Department of Art website, or to Barnet’s A Short Guide to Writing About Art, which is based on the Chicago Manual of Style. MLA style is not acceptable for papers in art history.
• Allow time to proofread your paper. Read it out loud and see if it makes sense. If you need help on the technical aspects of writing, contact the University Writing Center at 501-569-8343 or visit the Online Writing Lab at https://ualr.edu/writingcenter/
• Ask your instructor for help if needed.

Further Information

For further information and more discussions about writing a formal analysis, see the following sources. Some of these sources also give information about writing a research paper in art history – a paper more ambitious in scope than a formal analysis.

M. Getlein, Gilbert’s Living with Art (10th edition, 2013), pp. 136-139 is a very short analysis of one work.

M. Stokstad and M. W. Cothren, Art History (5th edition, 2014), “Starter Kit,” pp. xxii-xxv is a brief outline.

S. Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing About Art (9th edition, 2008), pp. 113-134 is about formal analysis; the entire book is excellent for all kinds of writing assignments.

R. J. Belton, Art History: A Preliminary Handbook http://www.ubc.ca/okanagan/fccs/about/links/resources/arthistory.html is probably more useful for a research paper in art history, but parts of this outline relate to discussing the form of a work of art.

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Art History Research at Yale: How to Research Art

• How to Research Art
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Books about Writing

Starting Your Research

Before you begin conducting research, it’s important to ask yourself a few questions:

1. What’s my topic? Review your assignment closely and choose an appropriate topic. Is this topic about a single artist or an art movement? Is it a study of one work or a body of works? How long is the paper—will you need a basic overview, or detailed analysis? Guiding questions such as these can help you determine what the best approach to your research will be. If you aren’t sure where to start, you can ask your professor for guidance, and you can always contact an Arts Librarian using their contact information on this page.

2. Which sources are best for my topic? With infinite time, you would want to read everything available, but there are often resources that are more applicable depending on your research topic. How to Find Art Resources provides more detailed information about choosing helpful sources based on general topics. Watch this video for brief instructions on how to find information on a work of art at the Yale University Art Gallery.

3. How will I manage and cite my sources? When you turn in your paper or presentation, you will need to provide citations in keeping with the preferred citation style. Keeping on top of your citations as you work through your research will save time and stress when you are finishing your project. All Yale students have access to tools to keep citations organized, generate a bibliography, and create footnotes/endnotes. For a quick guide, see How to Cite Your Sources , and more guidance is available on the Citation Management guide .

Related Guides for Art History Research at Yale

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What is Art? - A research on the concept and perception of Art in the 21st Century

The concept of Art and Artist has had a continuous evolution and countless definitions throughout history. But, are there really common concepts to define and perceive them in ancient and classic art as well as in modern? This thesis focuses on the current (year 2017) perception of what is considered art and what is considered an artist by ordinary people, out of what art and philosophy books tell.

Related Papers

Most modern definitions of art fail to successfully address the issue of the ever-changing nature of art, and rarely even attempt to provide an account which would be valid in more than just the modern Western context. This article develops a new theory which preserves the advantages of its predecessors, solves or avoids their problems, and has a scope wide enough to account for art of different times and cultures. An object is art in a given context, it is argued, iff some person(s) culturally competent in this context afforded it the status of a candidate for appreciation for reasons considered good in this context. This weakly institutional view is supplemented by auxiliary definitions explaining the notions of cultural contexts, competence and good reasons for affording the status. The relativisation to contexts brings increased explanatory power and scope, and the ability to account for the diversity of art.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Journal of Arts and Humanities

Zachary Isrow

Art is a creative phenomenon which changes constantly, not just insofar as it is being created continually, but also in the very meaning of ‘art.’ Finding a suitable definition of art is no easy task and it has been the subject of much inquiry throughout artistic expression. This paper suggests a crucial distinction between ‘art forms’ and ‘forms of art’ is necessary in order to better understand art. The latter of these corresponds to that which we would typically call art such as painting, singing, etc. The former corresponds to the form out of which these take shape, movement, speech, etc. With this distinction set out, it becomes clearer that art and the aesthetic is rooted in the properties of the ‘thing’ such as the color, shape, and the texture, rather than the product of creation itself. Thus, the future of art will bring a new aesthetic in which these properties become recognized as art and as such there will be an aesthetic of everyday life.

Jakob Zaaiman

The traditional conception of art is about sensual beauty and refined taste; modern art on the other hand has introduced an entirely unexpected dimension to the visual arts, namely that of 'revelatory narrative'. Classical art aspires to present works which can be appreciated as sensually beautiful; modern art, when it succeeds, presents us instead with the unsettling narrative. This radical difference in artistic purpose is something relatively new, and not yet fully appreciated or understood.

Journal of the Institute of Engineering

Alexandra Mouriki

Thomas Adajian

Roczniki Kulturoznawcze

Andrzej Derdziuk

The presented statement is part of the volume it covers a variety of responses from people who interact with art in different ways. The aim is to suggest to the participant of the contemporary world a new, personal perspective to rethink what is this area of our world that we label with art; thoughts with and without theoretical suggestions - reflections by the creators and reflections by the audience, teaching humility and uniqueness, perhaps - forming a fresh perspective on art.

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Research Art is Everywhere. But Some Artists Do It Better Than Others.

By Kavior Moon

Kavior Moon

Related Articles

In the global south, labeling a research project "art" can be a tool for evading censorship, when does artistic research become fake news forensic architecture keeps dodging the question.

How did this come to be? On the institutional front, art schools have been establishing programs and centers for “artistic research” and “research-creation,” particularly in Canada and across Europe, for more than 20 years. In 1997 the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki established an early notable doctoral program for artists; two decades later, PhD degrees in art are available in multiple countries. Globally renowned curators such as Catherine David, Okwui Enwezor, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, and Ute Meta Bauer made their careers organizing large-scale international exhibitions often laden with research-based art and organized within a curatorial framework predicated on theory. Now, there are professional artists with research-based practices teaching their students various research methodologies and encouraging the production of yet more research-based works.

The current trend has an even longer historical trajectory when related to artists and their motivations. One might find traces in the work of Leonardo da Vinci or 17th-century naturalists such as Maria Sibylla Merian. Hito Steyerl, a contemporary research artist par excellence, describes the formal and semiotic investigations of Soviet avant-garde circles in the 1920s as formative for research art today. In her 2010 essay “Aesthetics of Resistance? Artistic Research as Discipline and Conflict,” Steyerl discusses authors, photographers, and self-proclaimed “factographers”—including Dziga Vertov, Sergei Tretyakov, Lyubov Popova, and Aleksandr Rodchenko—whose epistemological debates centered on terms such as “fact,” “reality,” and “objectivity.” From Constructivism, in which artists were redefined as designers, technicians, and engineers engaged in developing new approaches to constructing forms, emerged the program of Productivism and the associated method called “factography.”

Factographers aimed to chronicle and analyze modern life, particularly through texts, photography, and film. They did not claim to portray reality objectively and impartially (as opposed to conventional documentary makers) but rather to actively transform reality through ideological acts of signification, through new modes of production and collective reception. As Steyerl reminds us, “fact comes from [the Latin] facere , to make or to do.”

Another pivotal moment in the historical development of research-based art came with the conceptual turn in art in the 1960s and ’70s, particularly with the emergence of institutional critique. Moving away from formalist painting and sculpture, Conceptual artists contended that the idea or concept of an artwork (not its physical form) was the art. Texts, diagrams, photographs, and other forms of matter-of-fact documentation feature heavily in the works of Conceptual artists Joseph Kosuth, the Art & Language group, Mel Bochner, Hanne Darboven, and Christine Kozlov, among others. From this point of view, art can be seen as a transmission of “information,” the term curator Kynaston McShine used to title his landmark Conceptual art survey at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1970.

WITH ARTISTS INCLINED TOWARD INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE like Hans Haacke, one begins to see research not just informing the work of art but becoming an essential part of its content. A significant early example is Haacke’s Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971 (1971), which was made using extensive information that Haacke found in the New York County Clerk’s records. The work is simply a presentation of facts: it comprises 142 photographs of building facades and empty lots, maps of the Lower East Side and Harlem indicating each property’s location, and texts and charts detailing information about transfer of ownership, land value, and mortgage lenders.

With prolonged viewing, one notices that the many corporations that owned the properties were actually run by notorious landlord Harry J. Shapolsky and his relatives and associates, who bought, sold, and mortgaged the properties within their own real estate group. The shell corporations effectively obscured the properties’ ownership ties to the Shapolsky family as well as the tax advantages these inside deals conferred. One of the city’s biggest slumlords at the time, Shapolsky had previously been indicted for bribing building inspectors and convicted of rent-gouging.

For institutional critique artists, research became a key means to investigate and expose various social systems and the sociopolitical context of the art world. In doing so, the aim was to show how what we consider “art” is not timeless but in fact socially constructed, powerfully conditioned by the conventions and normalizing practices of art institutions. Haacke’s Shapolsky et al. was one of the reasons the artist’s major solo show at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum that year was famously canceled after then director Thomas Messer accused Haacke of “muckraking,” calling his work “extra-artistic” and a potential “alien presence” within the museum.

Although Haacke clearly made visible the machinery behind one of the most lucrative real estate operations in New York, the more fundamental threat, art historian Rosalyn Deutsche has pointed out, was how his work would have framed a series of slum properties against the museum’s pristine space, revealing it as a highly controlled space of material privilege. Deutsche persuasively argues that Haacke’s work implicitly raises questions about how proprietorial interests shape not only urban space but cultural spaces as well—a line of inquiry that Haacke and other institutional critique artists would develop in subsequent research-based works.

THE LAST MOMENTOUS SHIFT in the 20th century occurred around the 1980s and ’90s, as more and more artists used research to inform their works reflecting feminism, postcolonialism, queerness, and other forms of identity politics. An early example is Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum Document (1973–79), a six-part series that juxtaposes documentation of the artist’s experience as a new parent and the development of her son during the first six years of his life with research on the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan. A feminist critique of Conceptual art as well as Lacanian psychoanalysis, Post-Partum Document presents the mother-child relationship as an intersubjective exchange of signs between mother and child.

During these decades, artists often used archival materials or the form of the archive in their works, making research-based art to recuperate overlooked histories and marginalized figures or groups. In her landmark Import/Export Funk Office (1992–93), Renée Green presented books, magazines, photographs, cassette tapes, videotaped interviews, and other source materials taken from both her library and that of German cultural critic Diedrich Diederichsen, creating an extensive audiovisual archive of international hip-hop and African diasporic culture in the United States and Germany. Hal Foster termed this tendency “an archival impulse,” looking at the works of Tacita Dean, Sam Durant, and Thomas Hirschhorn.

Another artistic approach entails questioning the authority and authenticity of archives by pointing out their inherent biases. Between 1989 and 2004, Walid Raad developed a collection of both found and fabricated materials—documents, notebooks, photographs, news clippings, interview transcripts, and videos—related to the Lebanese Civil War (1975–91). His archival displays, presented under the guise of an imaginary foundation named “The Atlas Group,” blend fact and fiction to deconstruct the truth claims of documentary media, and bespeak distrust of official narratives, while also exploring the links between history, memory, trauma, and fantasy.

ONE CAN SEE a variety of research-based approaches in the practices of numerous artists today, applied with varying degrees of success. Some critics have voiced skepticism of much research-based art currently in vogue. In a 2019 lecture at the Kunsthalle Wien, Claire Bishop decried many research-based artworks as “information overload” and mere “aggregation” without hierarchy or narrative in ways that are symptomatic of our “browsing” habits in the internet age.

While a number of artists have used research as a crucial component in large-scale works—Steyerl in her immersive installations, Hirschhorn in his sprawling “monuments” to various critical theorists—others favor a more understated mode: pared-back, subtle, and visually economical. These artists often start by researching objects, ideas, events, or sites, and pair their installations with detailed supplemental texts that make one reconsider the presented materials in light of what can’t immediately be seen, often intangible issues of historical context, social injustice, and the law.

Maria Eichhorn, a second-generation institutional critique artist, bridges that now-established approach with the practices of younger research-based artists. For the 1997 edition of Skulptur Projekte Münster, she used the production fee she received to purchase a plot of land near the center of the show’s host city. Declaring the vacant lot a public sculpture, she titled her project Acquisition of a plot, Tibusstraße, corner of Breul, communal district of Münster, plot 5, drawing attention to the site’s recent history: years prior, residents had mobilized to stop the building of luxury condominiums there, and formed a tenants association to protect the availability of affordable housing.

Eichhorn exhibited a copy of the plot’s purchase contract and deed in the Landesmuseum, alongside a booklet detailing her research into the origins of cities in Europe, the historical establishment of land registers and real property, and the problem of affordable housing in present-day Munster. Instead of installing a piece of decorative “plop art,” Eichhorn prompted visitors to reflect on the economic and social realities of everyday urban spaces and the conflict of public and private interests. At the end of the exhibition, the artist sold the plot back to the city and donated its resale value to the area’s tenants association.

More recently, Eichhorn has focused on goods unlawfully obtained by the German state. For her 2003 exhibition “Politics of Restitution” at the Lenbachhaus in Munich, she worked with historian Anja Heuss to research the provenance of 15 paintings in the Lenbachhaus’s art collection on permanent loan from the Federal Republic of Germany. After World War II and until 1962, the Allies sought to return art objects stolen by the Nazis; after that, the remaining 20,000 or so unclaimed items were declared state property. Heuss determined that 7 of the 15 paintings were likely stolen or forcibly taken from their Jewish owners. Eichhorn displayed these paintings so as to reveal the markings on the reverse that document how they changed hands over time. She also exhibited another painting in the Lenbachhaus’s collection that was formally restituted just a year earlier to the heirs of its original Jewish owner.

Chronicling how these paintings got to where they are begs a follow-up question: what other objects currently in public collections were wrongfully taken by the state? Eichhorn’s 2017 Documenta project built on her work at Lenbachhaus, but dealt more actively with restitution. In Kassel, she created a project called “The Rose Valland Institute,” to investigate the looting of all forms of Jewish-owned property, not just artworks, since 1933. Her multiroom installation centered around a towering shelf filled with books from the main public library in Berlin. A wall text claimed that the nearly 2,000 volumes on view were once owned by Jewish persons and unlawfully acquired by the municipal library in 1943. Eichhorn also displayed photos, auction records, inventory lists, and other documents related to the confiscation of Jewish-owned assets, artworks, books, and other material possessions, as well as a reference library of publications on these issues.

Viewers also learned from accompanying texts that the Rose Valland Institute is an actual functioning organization, based in the Neue Galerie in Kassel for the run of the exhibition (and now in Berlin), whose mission is to return the looted items to their rightful owners or their descendants. Eichhorn’s project provokes viewers to actively question how objects in the country’s public collections were acquired, and to make their own restitution claims or provide other pertinent information.

Like Eichhorn, Cameron Rowland displays found objects accompanied by detailed handouts that elucidate the dark histories the objects index. Rowland’s work often addresses racialized exploitation and its ongoing effects, such as a piece titled Assessment (2018) that comprises an 18th-century English grandfather clock once housed at a plantation in South Carolina, and three 19th-century receipts that show property taxes were collected on slaves, clocks, and livestock alike in slaveholding states.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Rowland displayed Assessment alongside used everyday objects—leaf blowers, a hedge trimmer, a stroller, and bicycles—placed casually around the gallery. These items were purchased at police auctions of goods taken through civil asset forfeiture, a legal proceeding in which law enforcement can seize without warrant property believed to be connected to illegal activity. Originating in the English Navigation Act of 1660 to maintain England’s monopoly on trade with its colonies and West Africa, civil asset forfeiture has since thrived in the United States. Today, it is practiced by police departments as well as federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Astoundingly, Rowland notes in their text that in 2013, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency under DHS, contributed $1 billion in seized property to the Treasury Forfeiture Fund.

Just as property taxes on slaves were used to fund state governments in the antebellum South, auction sales from civil asset forfeiture are used to fund the agencies that seize properties. Together, the objects in Rowland’s show link issues of property concerning enslaved and undocumented people to highlight the dispossession and profiteering that results when groups of people are denied the protections of citizenship.

Where Eichhorn has focused on restitution, Rowland spotlights reparations. For Disgorgement (2016), part of an exhibition at Artists Space in New York, Rowland established an entity called the Reparations Purpose Trust, evidenced by framed legal documents on view there. Through this trust, they purchased shares of the insurance company Aetna, Inc., which had once profited from issuing insurance policies on the lives of slaves to slaveowners. The trust is to hold these company shares until the US government passes a law to make financial reparations for slavery, at which point the trust will dissolve and give its shares to the federal agency responsible for making the payments.

Where Rowland has focused on reparations, Gala Porras-Kim proposes mediation as a form of redress. In her project “Precipitation for an Arid Landscape” (2022), first presented at Amant in Brooklyn, she displayed works centered on Maya objects collected by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. In several large drawings, collectively titled “Offerings for the Rain at the Peabody Museum,” she depicts objects found in the Chichén Itzá cenote, a sacred Maya sinkhole in Mexico. These objects were originally deposited as offerings to Chaac, the Maya god of rain, lightning, and thunder, but between 1904 and 1911, the American diplomat and archaeologist Edward H. Thompson dredged them up.

A circular enclosure in the center of the gallery displayed photographs, documents, letters, newspaper clippings, and other publications from the Peabody archives and elsewhere, enabling viewers to learn about the troubling circumstances that brought the objects into the museum. Thompson purchased property around the cenote in order to access it before smuggling the artifacts into the US; an 1897 Mexican law made exporting antiquities illegal.

In a framed letter to the Peabody Museum’s director, part of a work titled Mediating with the Rain (2021–), Porras-Kim points out that the desiccated condition of the Chaac objects is at odds with their intended wet state. The objects were meant to remain in the cenote, where they had been preserved in water. Exposure to air and the excessive dryness of the museum’s climate-controlled storage rooms have permanently changed their physical composition. Now, she notes, the objects are “just dust particles held together through conservation methods.” Porras-Kim suggests opening a dialogue on how the objects could at least regain what she calls their “dignitary interests” and thus be spiritually restituted in some form. One idea she has proposed is to designate the objects as owned by the rain and “on loan” to the museum.

In combining artistic research and institutional critique, artists like Porras-Kim and the others surveyed here are critically interrogating the institutions thought to be arbiters of authority. In other words, they are researching research to question the norms of knowledge production and to challenge the status quo. Rather than conducting investigations in order to present conclusive results, they unsettle and expand how we can see the world with all its inglorious pasts. 

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Thinking, Making, Writing: Art Research Paper

• Art Research Paper
• Analyzing Your Work of Art
• Art Vocabulary Booklet
• Looking Exercises
• Making a Mind Map
• Researching Your Topic
• Citation Info
• Examples of Past Art Research Papers

The Assignment

The paper focuses on one work of your art created and critiqued in a Studio Foundations course . It includes a description of your art and a thoughtful presentation on one question you wish to investigate. Your research on your question may focus on themes, sources of inspiration, techniques, tools, or methods.

The Big Picture: The Art Research Paper in Context

Your Art Research Paper is the culmination of your Thinking, Making, Writing course. It is meant to create mindfulness about your process of making art or design. You can see the process mapped out in the diagram above on the left. The right diagram shows how the Art Research Paper is an interdisciplinary project, tying together your experiences working with your Liberal Arts and Studio Foundation faculty, the MassArt librarians, the ARC staff, and others. 

This guide will help walk you through the Observe and Research stages depicted on the diagram on the left. Feel free to follow the pages of this guide in sequence or jump in wherever you wish.

• Next: Analyzing Your Work of Art >>
• Last Updated: Feb 27, 2024 3:58 PM
• URL: https://massart.libguides.com/tmw

Reflections on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Works of Art

Yusa, I. M. M. ., Yu, Y. ., & Sovhyra, T. . (2022). REFLECTIONS ON THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN WORKS OF ART. Journal of Aesthetics, Design, and Art Management , 2(2), 152-167. https://doi.org/10.58982/jadam.v2i2.334

16 Pages Posted: 17 May 2023

I Made Marthana Yusa

Institut Bisnis dan Teknologi Indonesia (INSTIKI)

Guangdong University of Technology

Tetiana Sovhyra

Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts

Date Written: Oktober 24, 2022

Purpose: This paper aims to reflect on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in works of art, examining its impact on the creative process, aesthetics, and audience reception, then provide a critical reflection on the use of AI in works of art, examining its potential benefits and drawbacks and exploring the ethical considerations involved. The paper examines the use of AI in works of art, with a focus on the methodologies and case studies that demonstrate the potential and challenges of this emerging field. Research methods: The paper presents case studies of notable artworks that utilize AI, discusses the potential benefits and drawbacks of AI in art, and explores the ethical considerations involved. Through a review of the literature and analysis of six case studies, we explore the aesthetic, technical, and social dimensions of AI-generated art, as well as the ethical and critical debates surrounding its production and reception. Findings: The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of critical engagement and continued reflection on the use of AI in art. Our findings suggest that AI can offer new modes of creative expression and engagement, but also raise questions about the role of human agency and interpretation in the artistic process. Implications: AI-generated art offers new opportunities and challenges for artists, scholars, and audiences, and that future research should focus on developing ethical guidelines, exploring collaborative practices, and examining the social and political implications of AI-based art. Case studies of AI-generated art can help us understand the potentials and limitations of this field by providing specific examples of how AI is being used to create art, and how artists and audiences are engaging with these works. These studies can provide insights into the creative processes, technical challenges, and social implications of AI-generated art.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence (AI), AI-generated art methodology, Next Rembrandt, Sunspring, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Refik Anadol

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

I Made Marthana Yusa (Contact Author)

Institut bisnis dan teknologi indonesia (instiki) ( email ).

Jl.Tukad Pakerisan no.97, Panjer Denpasar, Bali 80225 Indonesia +62 361-256-995 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.instiki.ac.id/

Guangdong University of Technology ( email )

Kyiv national university of culture and arts ( email ), do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on ssrn, paper statistics, related ejournals, artificial intelligence ejournal.

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Art History Analysis – Formal Analysis and Stylistic Analysis

Typically in an art history class the main essay students will need to write for a final paper or for an exam is a formal or stylistic analysis.

A formal analysis is just what it sounds like – you need to analyze the form of the artwork. This includes the individual design elements – composition, color, line, texture, scale, contrast, etc. Questions to consider in a formal analysis is how do all these elements come together to create this work of art? Think of formal analysis in relation to literature – authors give descriptions of characters or places through the written word. How does an artist convey this same information?

Organize your information and focus on each feature before moving onto the text – it is not ideal to discuss color and jump from line to then in the conclusion discuss color again. First summarize the overall appearance of the work of art – is this a painting? Does the artist use only dark colors? Why heavy brushstrokes? etc and then discuss details of the object – this specific animal is gray, the sky is missing a moon, etc. Again, it is best to be organized and focused in your writing – if you discuss the animals and then the individuals and go back to the animals you run the risk of making your writing unorganized and hard to read. It is also ideal to discuss the focal of the piece – what is in the center? What stands out the most in the piece or takes up most of the composition?

A stylistic approach can be described as an indicator of unique characteristics that analyzes and uses the formal elements (2-D: Line, color, value, shape and 3-D all of those and mass).The point of style is to see all the commonalities in a person’s works, such as the use of paint and brush strokes in Van Gogh’s work. Style can distinguish an artist’s work from others and within their own timeline, geographical regions, etc.

Methods & Theories To Consider:

Expressionism

Instructuralism

Postmodernism

Social Art History

Biographical Approach

Poststructuralism

Museum Studies

Visual Cultural Studies

Stylistic Analysis Example:

The following is a brief stylistic analysis of two Greek statues, an example of how style has changed because of the “essence of the age.” Over the years, sculptures of women started off as being plain and fully clothed with no distinct features, to the beautiful Venus/Aphrodite figures most people recognize today. In the mid-seventh century to the early fifth, life-sized standing marble statues of young women, often elaborately dress in gaily painted garments were created known as korai. The earliest korai is a Naxian women to Artemis. The statue wears a tight-fitted, belted peplos, giving the body a very plain look. The earliest korai wore the simpler Dorian peplos, which was a heavy woolen garment. From about 530, most wear a thinner, more elaborate, and brightly painted Ionic linen and himation. A largely contrasting Greek statue to the korai is the Venus de Milo. The Venus from head to toe is six feet seven inches tall. Her hips suggest that she has had several children. Though her body shows to be heavy, she still seems to almost be weightless. Viewing the Venus de Milo, she changes from side to side. From her right side she seems almost like a pillar and her leg bears most of the weight. She seems be firmly planted into the earth, and since she is looking at the left, her big features such as her waist define her. The Venus de Milo had a band around her right bicep. She had earrings that were brutally stolen, ripping her ears away. Venus was noted for loving necklaces, so it is very possibly she would have had one. It is also possible she had a tiara and bracelets. Venus was normally defined as “golden,” so her hair would have been painted. Two statues in the same region, have throughout history, changed in their style.

Compare and Contrast Essay

Most introductory art history classes will ask students to write a compare and contrast essay about two pieces – examples include comparing and contrasting a medieval to a renaissance painting. It is always best to start with smaller comparisons between the two works of art such as the medium of the piece. Then the comparison can include attention to detail so use of color, subject matter, or iconography. Do the same for contrasting the two pieces – start small. After the foundation is set move on to the analysis and what these comparisons or contrasting material mean – ‘what is the bigger picture here?’ Consider why one artist would wish to show the same subject matter in a different way, how, when, etc are all questions to ask in the compare and contrast essay. If during an exam it would be best to quickly outline the points to make before tackling writing the essay.

Compare and Contrast Example:

Stele of Hammurabi from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), ca. 1792 – 1750 BCE, Basalt, height of stele approx. 7’ height of relief 28’

Stele, relief sculpture, Art as propaganda – Hammurabi shows that his law code is approved by the gods, depiction of land in background, Hammurabi on the same place of importance as the god, etc.

Top of this stele shows the relief image of Hammurabi receiving the law code from Shamash, god of justice, Code of Babylonian social law, only two figures shown, different area and time period, etc.

Stele of Naram-sin , Sippar Found at Susa c. 2220 - 2184 bce. Limestone, height 6'6"

Stele, relief sculpture, Example of propaganda because the ruler (like the Stele of Hammurabi) shows his power through divine authority, Naramsin is the main character due to his large size, depiction of land in background, etc.

Akkadian art, made of limestone, the stele commemorates a victory of Naramsin, multiple figures are shown specifically soldiers, different area and time period, etc.

Iconography

Regardless of what essay approach you take in class it is absolutely necessary to understand how to analyze the iconography of a work of art and to incorporate into your paper. Iconography is defined as subject matter, what the image means. For example, why do things such as a small dog in a painting in early Northern Renaissance paintings represent sexuality? Additionally, how can an individual perhaps identify these motifs that keep coming up?

The following is a list of symbols and their meaning in Marriage a la Mode by William Hogarth (1743) that is a series of six paintings that show the story of marriage in Hogarth’s eyes.

• Man has pockets turned out symbolizing he has lost money and was recently in a fight by the state of his clothes.
• Lap dog shows loyalty but sniffs at woman’s hat in the husband’s pocket showing sexual exploits.
• Black dot on husband’s neck believed to be symbol of syphilis.
• Mantel full of ugly Chinese porcelain statues symbolizing that the couple has no class.
• Butler had to go pay bills, you can tell this by the distasteful look on his face and that his pockets are stuffed with bills and papers.
• Card game just finished up, women has directions to game under foot, shows her easily cheating nature.
• Paintings of saints line a wall of the background room, isolated from the living, shows the couple’s complete disregard to faith and religion.
• The dangers of sexual excess are underscored in the Hograth by placing Cupid among ruins, foreshadowing the inevitable ruin of the marriage.
• Eventually the series (other five paintings) shows that the woman has an affair, the men duel and die, the woman hangs herself and the father takes her ring off her finger symbolizing the one thing he could salvage from the marriage.

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150+ Captivating Art Research Paper Topics Ideas

Updated 20 Jun 2024

Choosing the right topic for an art research paper is crucial for your academic success. If you pick one you’re passionate about, you can showcase your knowledge, creativity, and critical thinking and provide a unique perspective on the subject matter. You can engage and entice the reader and ensure your research stays viable in the future. Exploring unique art research paper topics can be daunting, but if you're short on time, you might opt to pay someone to write my paper for a well-researched and insightful piece.

People have been creating art for centuries, so there are countless art research paper topics to choose from. To pick the right one, you should:

• Choose an art branch - There are literature, music, film, performing (e.g., theater and dance) and visual arts (e.g., painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, etc.), other branches to choose from.
• Select a specific aspect - You can opt for an artistic movement, a specific period, a particular artist, or decide to analyze a specific work of art.
• Come up with several ideas - Brainstorm different ideas you’re interested in analyzing and conduct research to find relevant information on each. That way, you’ll discover numerous art research topics to use as inspiration. Make sure there are enough credible sources to support your research.
• Narrow down your topic - Lock in on one or two ideas that will help you write a detailed, thought-provoking, and engaging research paper.

To help you narrow down the list, we’ve rounded up some of the most interesting art topics for research papers. Read on to get some inspiration for your writing assignment.

Riveting Modern Art Research Paper Topics

Modern art brings innovation in movements, forms, and styles, replacing conservative values in the spirit of experimenting with shapes, lines, and colors. Check out some of the most enticing topic ideas.

• Breaking Away from Conventions: The Unique Style of Modern Art
• Impressionism vs. Cubism: The Elements of Time and Light
• The Rise of Digital Arts
• Graffiti: Vandalism or Art?
• Urban Street Art: The Mystery of Banksy
• The Eclectic Style of “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt
• The Influence of Modern European Art on American Artists
• The Impact on Japanese Art on Van Gogh’s Paintings
• Art and Feminism: Contemporary Themes Driving the Movement
• Printmaking in the 21st century
• The Evolution of Abstract Expressionism in Contemporary Art
• The Role of Feminism in Shaping Modern Art Movements
• The Intersection of Art and Artificial Intelligence: Creative Collaborations
• Political Activism Through Modern Art: Case Studies and Analysis
• Minimalism in Modern Art: Philosophical Underpinnings and Aesthetic Principles

Most Interesting Art History Research Paper Topics

Art history teaches you to analyze the visual and textual evidence in various artworks to understand how different artists saw the world and expressed their emotions. Here are some of the most exciting topics.

• Artistic Freedom vs. Censorship: Art in Nazi Germany
• From Canvas to Camera: Photography as Art
• Gothic Art in Medieval England
• The Death of the Author: Barthes’s Theory Debunked
• The History of Abstract Expressionism
• Art and Culture: An Intellectual History
• Expressionism in Western Europe
• Hidden Messages in Famous Works of Art
• Art as Propaganda in France and America
• Wartime Art: A Visual History of Warfare
• A History of Neoclassical Art
• Victorian Beauty Standards in Art
• Constructivism: The Birth of the Russian Avant-Garde
• Gothic Culture: History, Literature, and Visual Arts
• The Rise of Sequential Art: The History of Comics and Graphic Novels

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Art Topics on Ancient Civilizations

Artworks dating back millennia reveal a lot about different ancient civilizations. Their artistic contributions are still significant today, especially in modern architecture. If you want to analyze their artwork, here are some of the best art research topics you can use.

• Symbolism in Ancient Egyptian Art
• The Art History of Ancient Rome
• Ancient Greek Sculpture: The Art of Classical Greece
• Primeval Musical Instruments in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt
• Ancient Roman vs. Classical Greek Art
• The Impact of the Mayan Civilization on Ancient Art and Culture
• The Influence of Mayan Culture in Modern Architecture
• Egyptian Pyramids vs. Mayan Pyramids: Is There a Hidden Connection?
• Ancient Art History: The Origins and Purpose of Writing
• The Impact of Ancient Civilizations on Art History
• The Incas and Their Influence on Modern Art
• The Role of Religion and Culture in Aztec Art
• Ancient Chinese Art: The Role of Chinese Philosophy and Religion
• Chinese Ritual Bronzes: Understanding the Ancient Ritual Vessels
• Mythology in the Artworks of Ancient Civilizations

Engrossing Art Research Paper Topics on Artist Biography

Analyzing the life and work of a particular artist can help you understand them better and uncover the symbolism and hidden meanings in their work. Let’s go over some engaging art topics for research papers, covering some of the most influential artists in history.

18th century:

• William Blake: A Misunderstood Artist, Poet, and Visionary
• Francisco de Goya: Changing the World Through Art
• Eugène Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art
• Madame Tussaud and Her Lasting Impact on Art
• The Life and Career of William Turner
• Ludwig van Beethoven: The Mystic Principles in Romantic Art, Literature, and Music
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Life and Work of the Musical Genius
• The Artistic Journey of Jean-Honoré Fragonard
• The Influence of Neoclassicism on Jacques-Louis David's Works
• The Portraiture Legacy of Thomas Gainsborough

19th century:

• Vincent Van Gogh: The Misunderstood Genius Ahead of His Time
• Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Innovative Elements and Principles of Art
• Gustav Klimt: The Master of Symbolism
• Claude Monet and His Vision of Light and Color
• Edgar Degas: A Storyteller of Modern Parisian Life
• Paul Cézanne: The Father of Modern Art
• The Romantic Imagination of William Blake
• The Innovations of Eugène Delacroix in Color and Form
• Gustave Courbet: Realism and Rebellion in 19th Century Art
• The Mystical Landscapes of John Constable

20th century:

• Pablo Picasso: The Father of Cubism
• Frida Kahlo: Surrealism Through Magical Realism
• The Surreal World of Salvador Dalí
• Andy Warhol: The American Pop Art King
• Jackson Pollock: The Face of Abstract Expressionism
• Georgia O’Keeffe: The Mother of American Modernism
• Louise Bourgeois: A Revolutionary in Abstract Sculpture and Installation Art
• The Evolution of Pablo Picasso's Artistic Style
• The Role of Surrealism in Salvador Dalí's Career
• The Abstract Expressions of Jackson Pollock

Thought-Provoking Art Research Topics on Different Epochs

Every creative epoch brought something new to the art world. If you focus on a specific creative epoch in art history, you can explore a whole world of unique artistic and literary styles, techniques, themes, and all the influential artists that used them. Here are some of the epochs and related topics to choose from.

• The Dramatic Use of Light and Shadow in Caravaggio's Paintings
• The Influence of the Counter-Reformation on Baroque Art
• The Architectural Innovations of Gian Lorenzo Bernini
• The Emotional Expression in Peter Paul Rubens' Works
• The Role of Allegory in Baroque Sculpture

Romanticism

• The Depiction of Nature in the Works of Caspar David Friedrich
• The Romantic Hero in the Paintings of Eugène Delacroix
• The Influence of Literature on Romantic Art
• The Exploration of the Sublime in J.M.W. Turner's Landscapes
• The Representation of National Identity in Francisco Goya's Art

Impressionism

• The Influence of Japanese Woodblock Prints on Impressionist Artists
• The Role of Urbanization in the Works of Edgar Degas
• The Use of Light and Color in Claude Monet's Paintings
• The Everyday Life in the Art of Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• The Evolution of Outdoor Painting in the Impressionist Movement

Post-impressionism

• The Symbolic Use of Color in Vincent van Gogh's Works
• The Exploration of Pointillism by Georges Seurat
• The Influence of Primitivism on Paul Gauguin's Art
• The Structural Innovations in Paul Cézanne's Paintings
• The Emotional Depth in the Art of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
• The Analytical Cubism of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque
• The Influence of African Art on Cubist Works
• The Evolution of Synthetic Cubism
• The Impact of Cubism on Modern Sculpture
• The Role of Fragmentation in Cubist Art
• The Exploration of the Unconscious in Salvador Dalí's Art
• The Influence of Freud's Theories on Surrealist Artists
• The Role of Automatism in Surrealist Painting
• The Use of Symbolism in René Magritte's Works
• The Intersection of Surrealism and Literature in the Works of Max Ernst

Compelling Renaissance Essay Topics

Marking the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern world, the Renaissance was a period of cultural and artistic rebirth. If you’re looking for compelling art essay topics on this fervent era, here are some ideas for inspiration.

• Humanism and Naturalism in Renaissance Art
• Religious Symbolism in Renaissance Art
• Leonardo da Vinci and His Influence on Renaissance Art
• Michelangelo’s David: An Icon of the Italian Renaissance
• The Sistine Chapel: Michelangelo’s Immortal Masterpiece
• The Transcendent Influence of Raphael’s Paintings
• “The Birth of Venus” by Botticelli: Mythology and Realism
• The Influence of Science on Renaissance Art and Culture
• The Harlem Renaissance: Driving Social Change Through Art
• The Unity of Art and Music in the Renaissance Era
• The Role of Patronage in the Development of Renaissance Art
• The Influence of Classical Antiquity on Renaissance Humanism
• The Architectural Innovations of Filippo Brunelleschi
• The Impact of the Printing Press on Renaissance Literature and Art
• The Evolution of Portraiture in the Italian Renaissance

Fascinating Photography Topics Ideas

As a type of visual art, photography has the power to evoke emotions, change perspectives, and transform the viewer’s knowledge and perception of art. If you want to dig deeper into photography, here are some cool art essay topics to start with.

• The History of Photography
• Camera Obscura: The Ancestor of the Modern Photography
• The Significance and Social Impact of War Photography
• The Mystery of Vivian Maier and Her Secret Street Photography
• The Role of Ansel Adams on Establishing Photography Among the Fine Arts
• Architectural Photography in the Modern Age
• The Role of Photography in the Film Industry
• How Digital Technology Has Changed Photography
• Self-Portrait Photography: The Art of Selfies
• The Psychological Impact of Photography
• The Evolution of Documentary Photography in the 20th Century
• The Role of Photography in Social Justice Movements
• The Influence of Digital Technology on Contemporary Photography
• Exploring the Ethics of Photojournalism
• The Intersection of Fine Art and Commercial Photography

Best Architecture Research Paper Topics

Architecture is an ever-evolving art form that shapes the world and allows for both practical and expressive designs. Check out some of the best art topics for research papers on architecture.

• The Influence of Roman Architecture on Modern Design
• Gothic Architecture: Key Elements of the Iconic Style
• Art Nouveau vs. Art Deco: A Comparison of the Modern Art Movements
• Rococo Architecture: The Characteristics of Late Baroque
• Constructivism in Art and Architecture
• Sustainability in African Architecture
• The Influence of Eastern Art on Western Architecture
• The Egyptian Pyramids: The Mystery Behind the Construction
• The Influence of Art and Literature on Design and Architecture
• The Marriage of Art and Architecture in Contemporary Design
• Urban Architecture: The Internet of Things and Smart City Design
• Architectural Wonders: Famous Architects and Their Masterpieces
• The Relationship Between Ancient and Modern Architecture
• Innovative Design Styles Shaping the Future of Architecture
• Islamic Architecture and Its Influence on Western Art

Theater Research Paper Topics

Theater helps us see different perspectives, understand different cultures, and dig deeper into our humanity. Thanks to actors’ dramatic performances that make the characters come alive before our eyes, we can experience stories in an attention-grabbing way. Find inspiration for your story in the following topics.

• The History of Greek Theater
• The Influence of Ancient Greek Theater on Modern Theater
• Samuel Beckett and the Theater of the Absurd
• The Cultural Evolution of Theater
• Theater as Art: A Force for Social and Cultural Change
• William Shakespeare and His Contribution to English Drama and Theater
• Elizabethan Theater vs. Modern Theater
• The History of Broadway
• The Role of Music in Theater
• Improvisation and Expression in Contemporary Theater
• The Evolution of Tragedy from Ancient Greece to Modern Theater
• The Role of Women in Shakespearean Plays
• The Influence of Bertolt Brecht's Epic Theater on Contemporary Performance
• The Impact of Technology on Modern Theater Productions
• The Significance of Ritual and Tradition in Indigenous Theatrical Practices

Intriguing Art Research Topics on Different Cultures

Every culture is unique, being an ensemble of different social norms, values, beliefs, and material traits. As such, it influences unique art forms that represent people’s emotions, experiences, and worldviews. If you want to analyze how different cultures influence art, check out these interesting topics.

• The Role of Cultural Identity in the Creation of Art
• The Pop Art Movement and Its Influence on American Culture
• Hollywood vs. Bollywood: Similarities and Differences
• Japanese Calligraphy: The Fine Art of Writing
• Traditional Dance Forms: Understanding Different Cultures Through Dance
• The Influence of Chinese Traditional Clothing on Japanese Culture
• Ancient Egyptian Culture: Art Principles and Traditions
• Poetic Realism in the Iranian Cinema
• French vs. American Artists: Cultural Differences Impacting Their Work
• Asian and African Tribal Art and Their Effects on Modern Art Movements
• The Symbolism in Traditional African Masks and Sculptures
• The Role of Calligraphy in Islamic Art
• The Influence of Native American Art on Contemporary Design
• The Evolution of Ukiyo-e and its Impact on Western Art
• The Significance of Color and Patterns in Indian Textile Art

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Art Research Basics

• Getting Started
• Welcome to Art Research Basics

Understand Your Assignment

Create some research questions to guide your inquiry.

• Know Your Sources
• Find Your Sources
• Cite Your Sources

James Baldwin on Art

Brainstorm Search Terms

Below are some basic search terms that work well in our databases. A research librarian can also help you identify additional terms supporting your specific assignment.

Art history

Baroque art

Medieval art

Photography, 

art - Combine this subject term with names of specific artistic movements, geographic regions, time periods, etc. (for example: African American Art  or Art, Africa)

names of specific artists

The content of your paper is dictated by your professor's assignment prompt. Read it carefully, as following the guidelines laid out by your professor is crucial to your success. If the assignment prompt confuses you, consider attending your professor's office hour or emailing them for clarification.  MJC research librarians are happy to help you understand the guidelines laid out in your assignment.

Check out these useful links providing guidance and tips for students tasked with writing about art. These links are meant to serve as a supplement to your professor's assignment prompt and the material in this guide.

• Writing about Paintings From the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University, this handout provides specific information on how to analyze paintings.
• Writing about Photography From the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University, this handout is part of their amazing Visual Rhetoric/Visual Literacy Series. It focuses on how to write about photography.
• Guidelines for Analysis of Art Writing a formal analysis of a work of art is one of the fundamental skills learned in art appreciation class. This handout guides students through the process.

Research questions will keep you focused and on task. Sometimes your professor will include specific questions they want addressed within the prompt.  A research librarian can also help you develop questions based on the parameters of the assignment.

Below are some generic questions that can help you get started on researching an artistic movement or era :.

Why is this movement important to art history?

What characteristics are common to works in this movement?

What is the history of this movement? When, why and how did it begin?

Who are the important artists of the movement? What are the important works?

What subsequent movements/artists has this movement and its artists inspired?

Based on my research, what do I think about this movement's significance to American art history?

Here are some useful questions focusing on a specific work of art :

Who is the artist? Provide biographical information about him/her.

What is the medium of the work of art? Can you provide a physical description?

Can you describe the different artistic elements present in the work (line, shape, light, color, texture, space, time, motion, etc.)

What is the affect of these various elements?

In what country/culture was this work created? When?

What other art was being created in this culture at this time?

To what artistic movement does this work of art belong? Describe it.

In what ways is the chosen work of art representative of the movement? In what ways is it unique?

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Cite an Artwork

Captions & Figures

• Print Source
• Electronic Source
• Other Source

MLA: Labels, captions, and source information

Illustrations appear directly embedded in the document, except in the case of manuscripts that are being prepared for publication. (For preparing manuscripts with visual materials for publication, see Note on Manuscripts below.) Each illustration must include a label, a number, a caption and/or source information.

• The illustration label and number should always appear in two places:  the document main text (e.g. see fig. 1) and near the illustration itself (Fig. 1).
• Captions  provide titles or explanatory notes.
• Source information  documentation will always depend upon the medium of the source illustration. If you provide source information with all of your illustrations, you do not need to provide this information on the Works Cited page.

• All visuals/illustrations that are not tables or musical score examples (e.g. maps, diagrams, charts, videos, podcasts, etc.) are labeled Figure or Fig.
• Refer to the figure in-text and provide an Arabic numeral that corresponds to the figure. Do not capitalize figure or fig .
• MLA does not specify alignment requirements for figures; thus, these images may be embedded as the reader sees fit. However, continue to follow basic MLA Style formatting (e.g. one-inch margins).
• Below the figure, provide a label name and its corresponding arabic numeral (no bold or italics), followed by a period (e.g. Fig. 1.). Here, Figure and Fig .  are capitalized.
• Beginning with the same line as the label and number, provide a title and/or caption as well as relevant source information in note form (see instructions and examples above). If you provide source information with your illustrations, you do not need to provide this information on the Works Cited page.

Figures Example

In-text reference:

Some readers found Harry’s final battle with Voldemort a disappointment, and recently, the podcast,  MuggleCast  debated the subject (see fig. 2).

Figure caption (below an embedded podcast file for a document to be viewed electronically):

Fig. 2. Harry Potter and Voldemort final battle debate from Andrew Sims et al.; “Show 166”;  MuggleCast ; MuggleNet.com, 19 Dec. 2008, www.mugglenet.com/2015/11/the-snape-debate-rowling-speaks-out.

• The descriptor Example only refers to musical illustrations (e.g. portions of a musical score). Example is often abbreviated Ex .
• Refer to the example in-text and provide an Arabic numeral that corresponds to the example. Do not capitalize example or ex .
• Supply the illustration, making sure to maintain basic MLA Style formatting (e.g. one-inch margins).
• Below the example, provide the label (capitalized Example or Ex . ) and number and a caption or title. The caption or title will often take the form of source information along with an explanation, for example, of what part of the score is being illustrated. If you provide source information with your illustrations, you do not need to provide this information on the Works Cited page.

Print Source Caption Example

Fig. 4. Frank Duveneck, Portrait of Maggie Wilson, Oil on board, 38.10 x 30.48 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Unsuspected Genius: the Art and Life of Frank Duveneck, by Robert Neuhaus  (San Francisco: Bedford Press, 1987) 227.

Electronic Source Caption Example

Fig. 9. Amasis Painter, Lekythos; Women Weaving, 17.15 cm height, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Accessed Jan. 12, 2007 from the Reed College CONTENTdm database <http://cdm.reed.edu/u?/vrcwork,38536>.

Other Source Caption Example

Fig. 13. Columbia River at Dawn. Personal photograph by author. 13 March 2008.

MLA Citations

• Original Work of Art
• Image from Web
• Reproduction from Print

MLA: An Original Work of Visual Art

To cite an original work of visual art (a lithograph, painting, photograph, sculpture, etc.) in an institution such as a museum or in a private collection, follow this format:

Artist’s last name, first name. Title of artwork. Year. Medium. Name of institution/private collection housing artwork, city where institution/private collection is located.

Evans, Walker. Penny Picture Display. 1936. Photograph. Museum of Mod. Art, New York. Heckman, Albert. Windblown Trees. N.d. Lithograph on paper. Private collection.

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn. Aristotle with a Bust of Homer. 1653. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Seurat, Georges. Man Leaning on a Fence. 1880-81? Graphite on paper. Collection of André Bromberg, n.p.

For more information, see section 5.7.6, “A Work of Visual Art,” in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed.

An Image/Reproduction of a Work of Visual Art from the Web

To cite an image/reproduction of a work of visual art from the Web, follow this format:

Artist’s last name, first name. Title of artwork. Year. Name of institution/private collection housing artwork. Title of database or website. Publisher/sponsor of database or website. Medium consulted. Date of access.

Note about publisher/sponsor: When known, include if it is not related to the housing institution/collection; is a parent entity of

the database or website; or offers the source in additional formats.

Braun, Adolphe. Flower Study, Rose of Sharon. c. 1854. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Grove Art Online. Oxford

University Press. Web. 2 June 2011.

Currin, John. Blond Angel. 2001. Indianapolis Museum of Art. IMA: It’s My Art. Web. 9 May 2007.

Eggleston, William. Memphis. c. 1969. Museum of Mod. Art.

Academy of Art University Collection, LUNA. Academy of Art University. Web. 27 Apr. 2011.

Lange, Dorothea. The Migrant Mother. 1936. Prints and Photographs Div., Lib. of Cong. Dorothea Lange:

Photographer of the People. Web. 9 May 2007.

For more information, see section 5.6.2.d, “A Work on the Web Cited with Publication Data for Another Medium Besides Print,” in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed.

URLs are now an optional component of a citation, but it is still recommended to include this information if the reader will not be able to locate a resource without it, or it is part of an instructor’s requirements.

When providing a URL, enclose the complete address in angle brackets following the date of access, period, and a space. End the entire entry with a period after the closing angle bracket:

Artist’s last name, first name. Title of artwork. Year. Name of institution/private collection housing artwork. Title of database or website. Publisher/sponsor of database or website. Medium consulted. Date of access. <URL>.

Cloix, Emmanuel. BROUSSAI 2 visu. 2007. Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 1 June 2011. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BROUSSAI_2_visu.jpg>.

Koul, Anirudh. Golden Gate Bridge – Photographing World’s Most Photographed Place. 2008. Flickr. Yahoo! Inc. Web. 1 June 2011. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/anirudhkoul/2535955996/>.

Moore, Albert. A Garden. 1869. Tate Britain. Art Project. Google. Web. 1 June 2011. <http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/tate/a-garden-152>.

For more information, see section 5.6.1, “Citing Web Publications: Introduction,” in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed.

An Image/Reproduction of a Work of Visual Art from a Print Source

To cite an image/reproduction of a work of visual art from a print source, follow this format:

Artist’s last name, first name. Title of artwork. Year. Name of institution/private collection housing artwork. Title of print source. Author/editor’s first name last name. Publication city: Publisher, year. Page/plate number. Medium of reproduction.

Eakins, Thomas. Spinning. 1881. Private collection. Thomas Eakins. Ed. Darrel Sewell. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art in assn. with Yale UP, 2001. Plate 91. Print.

Kahlo, Frida. The Two Fridas. 1939. Museo de Art Moderno, Mexico City. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. 12th ed. Ed. Fred S. Kleiner, Christin J. Mamiya. Vol. 2. Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006. 774. Print.

Moholy-Nagy, Lászlò. Photogram. N.d. Museum of Mod. Art, New York. The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography. Ed. Richard Bolton. Cambridge: MIT P, 1989. 94. Print.

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What Is Art Good For? The Socio-Epistemic Value of Art

Aleksandra sherman.

1 Department of Cognitive Science, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Clair Morrissey

2 Department of Philosophy, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Scientists, humanists, and art lovers alike value art not just for its beauty, but also for its social and epistemic importance; that is, for its communicative nature, its capacity to increase one's self-knowledge and encourage personal growth, and its ability to challenge our schemas and preconceptions. However, empirical research tends to discount the importance of such social and epistemic outcomes of art engagement, instead focusing on individuals' preferences, judgments of beauty, pleasure, or other emotional appraisals as the primary outcomes of art appreciation. Here, we argue that a systematic neuroscientific study of art appreciation must move beyond understanding aesthetics alone, and toward investigating the social importance of art appreciation. We make our argument for such a shift in focus first, by situating art appreciation as an active social practice. We follow by reviewing the available psychological and cognitive neuroscientific evidence that art appreciation cultivates socio-epistemic skills such as self- and other-understanding, and discuss philosophical frameworks which suggest a more comprehensive empirical investigation. Finally, we argue that focusing on the socio-epistemic values of art engagement highlights the important role art plays in our lives. Empirical research on art appreciation can thus be used to show that engagement with art has specific social and personal value, the cultivation of which is important to us as individuals, and as communities.

“What art does is to coax us away from the mechanical and toward the miraculous. The so-called uselessness of art is a clue to its transforming power. Art is not part of the machine. Art asks us to think differently, see differently, hear differently, and ultimately to act differently, which is why art has moral force.” — Jeanette Winterson (Winterson, 2006 )

Introduction

Traditionally, discussion of the nature of the arts and their role in our daily lives and communities lay within the purviews of criticism, art history, and philosophy. Within the last century, there has been a growing interest by psychologists and more recently, neuroscientists, to scientifically investigate art experiences and appreciation. Broadly, questions central to this investigation include:

• What happens when we experience a work of art? Specifically, what are the perceptual, emotional, and cognitive processes mediating our responses to art?
• Can one account for variations in taste? And if so, how does one's psychology and biology contribute to those preferences?
• What is common about the experiences one has across different forms of art? What is distinct?
• Are our responses to art universal or culturally and historically situated?
• Are art experiences pleasurable and how is the response distinct from other pleasurable experiences?

To scientifically investigate these questions, psychologists often ask viewers to rate the aesthetic appeal of an artwork, to rate their preferences for it compared to other artworks, and to indicate their emotional responses to various works. Typical questions might include: how much do you like the artwork; how aesthetically pleasing is the artwork; and how emotionally moving is the artwork? Researchers might then analyze the extent to which ratings reflect the formal features of that artwork—e.g., how balanced the composition is, how prototypical the depictions are, or perhaps how much the statistical structure within the image parallels natural scene statistics. As such, psychologists have identified a variety of formal features that seem to influence aesthetic and preference scores, including symmetry, color, contrast, aspect ratio, prototypicality, natural scene statistics, and complexity (e.g., Berlyne, 1971 ; McManus, 1980 ; Taylor et al., 1999 ; Shortess et al., 2000 ; Graham and Field, 2008 ; Schloss and Palmer, 2011 ). Similar questions have been explored in other domains of art including music and literature (e.g., Rentfrow and Gosling, 2003 ; Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 ). Furthermore, many researchers have demonstrated that individual differences, be they stable or transient, can influence preferences and judgments. For instance, culture and experience (e.g., Reber et al., 2004 ; Bullot and Reber, 2013 ), expertise and knowledge (e.g., Winston and Cupchik, 1992 ; Silvia, 2006 ) and current emotional state (e.g., Eskine et al., 2012 ) shape judgments. Additionally, individual differences in perceptual capacities, such as visual-object working memory (VOWM) are associated with preferences for formal features such as visual complexity within visual artworks (Sherman et al., 2015 ). These findings aim to illustrate the importance of accounting for the between and within subject variability in preferences, emotional responses, or beauty judgments.

A complementary approach, neuroaesthetics, is concerned with investigating the neurobiological substrates of aesthetic experience. For example, studies employing fMRI often task participants with making aesthetic or emotion-related judgments, and have demonstrated that art appreciation activates a distributed network in the brain subserving three core neural systems: sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and meaning-knowledge. Important regions linked to aesthetic evaluation and preference for art include areas related to domain-specific processing such as the visual system for visual art (e.g., the lingual gyrus, middle occipital lobe), memory recognition (e.g., fusiform gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus), higher-order conceptual integration (e.g., anterior temporal lobe), emotion and reward (e.g., the anterior insula, caudate/striatum), valuation (e.g., anterior and ventromedial prefrontal cortices), and more recently metacognition (e.g., structures within the default mode network such as posterior cingulate cortex) (for reviews and meta-analyses, see Di Dio and Gallese, 2009 ; Brown et al., 2011 ; Chatterjee and Vartanian, 2014 ; Vartanian and Skov, 2014 ).

Notably, although the aesthetic sciences broadly concern themselves with explaining art appreciation 1 , what can be gleaned from the above findings is that they have, up to this point, primarily investigated experiences of the aesthetic. That is, scientists have privileged investigating individual judgments of beauty or preference, many times ignoring socially-relevant outcomes of art appreciation or the social context of art creation and art appreciation. This is the the case within both the psychological and neuroaesthetics literatures. For example, neuroaesthetics research typically uses art (paintings, music, poetry, dance performance) as a stimulus to determine the neural mechanisms associated with preference, beauty, sublimity, and pleasure-based responses (e.g., Blood and Zatorre, 2001 ; Kawabata and Zeki, 2004 ; Vartanian and Goel, 2004 ; Jacobsen et al., 2006 ; Ishizu and Zeki, 2011 ; Lacey et al., 2011 ; Brattico, 2015 ).

Empirically investigating art appreciation in this way, however, risks conflating the arts with aesthetics. That is, it risks reducing the study of the nature of the arts to their ability to cause a particular feeling of disinterested joy or pleasure in a beholder. This reduction is reflected in (i) the way neuroaesthetics frames and understands art—namely, as an object that one contemplates and experiences in a disinterested manner, (ii) in the focus researchers place on measuring judgments related to beauty, liking, and pleasure as primary “outcomes” of the art experience, and (iii) in the contexts in which aesthetic experience is studied, often in labs on computers, removed from social and historical contexts, and in the visual arts, over short viewing times rarely exceeding 15 seconds.

The prevailing use of these measures and contexts implies that what defines an art experience is the pleasure caused by interacting with something aesthetically pleasing, and that the primary scientific task is describing the perceptual and emotional processes related to, or which constitute, a moment of liking or joy. Such a reduction limits the range of human experiences and capacities identified as appropriate objects of scientific investigation in this field. Moreover, “able to cause aesthetic experience” is a philosophically dubious conception of the nature of the arts, and can be particularly problematic in cases where “beauty” or “disinterested pleasure” is not a productive theoretical framework for evaluation of an artwork, as in some modern and contemporary art forms (e.g., see Carroll, 2012 for review). Similar methodological critiques have been presented within music as well as other domains of art (e.g., Sloboda et al., 2001 ; Brown and Dissanayake, 2009 ). For instance, within the domain of music, much of the research investigates individuals' cognitive and emotional responses to passively listening to a musical piece (as well and the perceptual features that prompt such a response) discounting the social functions of the work.

Frameworks from the history of philosophical aesthetics and contemporary methodological discussion within empirical aesthetics can be particularly instructive for psychologists and neuroscientists interested in investigating the arts. As indicated above, philosophical attempts to define the nature of art by appeal to the kind of experience often studied by aesthetic science have been criticized for failing to fully capture or appreciate the social, cultural, or historical situatedness of the art-object or the person whose experience is being studied. Some empirical contextualist theories take a similar stance, recommending scientific investigations that go beyond the “basic exposure” mode of art appreciation, noting that the kind of knowledge one would gain from perceptual exploration removed from historical understanding is “shallow at best” (Bullot and Reber, 2013 ). Rather, psychology must embrace an enriched understanding of art appreciation by investigating how, for example, an individual causally reasons about the observable features and attributions of an artwork, “mindreads” or attempts to cognitively model the artist and her intentions, experiences discovery or understanding-based emotions, and generates theories about the relevant content, form, and function of the artwork (Bullot and Reber, 2013 ).

Relatedly, we suggest that the current scientific research on art appreciation discounts what many would consider the very essence of art: its communicative nature, its capacity to encourage personal growth, its ability to reveal deep aspects of the human condition, to challenge preconceptions, to help us reconceptualize a question we are grappling with, and to provide clarity on ambiguous concepts or ideas. A host of philosophical, art-historical, and critical theories of the nature of the arts, art appreciation, and artistic creative practice suggest a more general theoretical shift away from the project of empirically studying art-objects by focusing on individuals' phenomenological experiences, and toward one which recognizes that individual psychological experiences or habits are shaped by engaging with the arts as part of our communities and social fabrics (e.g., see Carroll, 2012 for review). For instance, some philosophers and scientists alike have claimed that the arts, broadly conceived, have moral value, suggesting that engaging with art can be potentially transformative, for it encourages us to consider the welfare and good of other people, enhancing both our moral compass and self-knowledge (e.g., Nussbaum, 1990 ; Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 ).

Our primary goal here is to argue that a systematic scientific study of art appreciation must explain the potentially broad-ranging and diverse social outputs of arts engagement, and thus, must go beyond measurements of aesthetic pleasure or liking. We advocate for the need to embrace an expanded empirical research program characterized by reframing the arts as socio-epistemically valuable —that is, specifically useful for gaining knowledge and insights about oneself and society. Importantly, we suggest that an empirical research program that recognizes the arts as social practices (which we expand in Section Arts-Appreciation as Socio-epistemically Valuable) can potentially unify prior research and more clearly specify the types of investigations needed to achieve a fuller understanding of art appreciation.

For instance, information-processing accounts of art appreciation aim to understand the relationship between inputs (e.g., formal features, transient individual differences like emotional or mood states, and more sustained individual differences in personality, culture, historical contexts, or expertise), processing mechanisms unfolding related to the art experience (e.g., the psychological and neurobiological substrates of perceptual, cognitive, and emotional processes, or disruptions to one's self-schema), and outputs (e.g., appraisals/judgments of liking, epiphany/transcendence, self/other-understanding; well-being). Fitting to our art-as-social-practice view, we suggest that researchers might begin to investigate the information-processing system through the lens of socially-related outputs, such as self and other understanding, rather than through the lens of aesthetic outcomes of art (see Table ​ Table1). 1 ). That is, how do brain structures like the default mode network, which is recruited during art appreciation, contribute to socio-epistemic outcomes of art appreciation like self-understanding? This focus may reveal the need to develop experimental approaches better suited to evaluating the nature of the arts which recognize how creative practices and appreciation are cultivated socially, over long periods of time, and sustained both at the community and the personal level.

Factors influencing art appreciation.

An information processing account of art appreciation denoting self and other referential processing as well as the immediate and longitudinal socio-epistemic outcomes. Note that this table lists factors and processing mechanisms relevant to art appreciation but does not highlight the temporality or connectivity between the factors. For a review of models that differ on these dimensions, see Pelowski et al. ( 2016 ) .

Below, we start by framing the arts as social practices that are embodied, enactive, and communicative. Although our art as social practice organization is not in contrast to information processing accounts, it importantly allows us to focus empirical evaluations on the cluster of skills that are developed through art appreciation. Among these skills, we focus specifically on those we refer to as socio-epistemic, and demonstrate that self- and other-understanding are both socially relevant and meaningfully cultivated through sustained art engagement.

Arts-appreciation as socio-epistemically valuable

We begin by situating arts engagement, and specifically art appreciation, as a communicative, dialogic, dynamic, and transformative practice rather than as passive contemplation of beautiful, pleasurable, or otherwise aesthetically interesting objects. We argue that an “art as social practice” framing like this raises more relevant, interesting, and psychologically rich questions about the arts than does the traditional framing of art appreciation as reducible to aesthetic experience.

The arts as social practices

In Art Rethought: The Social Practices of Art (2015), Wolterstorff argues that we should adopt MacIntyre's account of social practices as a framework for understanding the nature of the arts (Wolterstorff, 2015 ). MacIntyre ( 1984 ) defines social practices as:

…coherent and complex form[s] of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended (p. 187).

As forms of human cooperative activity, they exist within social groups, both large and small, and persist through time. Consider, for example, the social practice of portraiture, a genre of painting which depicts a human subject, often in which the face is the main theme. This genre has existed historically across many, varied communities, and the genre develops and is shaped by the cultural, economic, and moral commitments of various social groups, in addition to the artistic styles and technological developments within these communities. “Painting a portrait” is done with respect to norms, standards, and expectations of the genre that are, in an important sense, public. Moreover, these norms and standards constitute criteria for having created an excellent portrait. That is, we can individually and collectively deliberate and debate about whether some particular artwork is a portrait, or is a good portrait. Furthermore, accomplishments such as ‘mastering the ability to depict a complex emotional expression in a two-dimensional medium’ (Leonardo DaVinci's Mona Lisa ), or ‘successfully communicating the cruelty of poverty and dignity of poor people by rendering sympathetically and beautifully the humanity of someone who is poor’ (e.g., Dorothea Lange's, Migrant Mother ), are goods that can only be achieved through the practice of portraiture. Finally, the genre, itself, develops throughout time, within different communities. There are innovations in portraiture with respect to artistic style and with respect to technology. Consider, for example, how Henri Matisse's Green Stripe (Portrait of Madame Matisse) both radically departs from and conforms to the norms of the practice, or how the invention of photography changes and informs the meaning of “creating a portrait.” Matisse's innovation and the development and use of photography for artistically depicting human faces, both enrich our understanding of the aims of art and the possibilities of human experience.

By following this emphasis on the arts as practices, we mean to shift attention to art creation and art appreciation as activities “we do,” from the conception of art appreciation as passive reception of perceptual information from art-objects. In doing so, we do not commit ourselves to any particular theory or definition of art, be it the institutional view (Danto, 1964 ; Dickie, 1974 ), which holds that artworks are artifacts that have been identified as such by persons appropriately situated with respect to “the artworld,” 2 or the historical (Levinson, 1979 ) or narrative views (Carroll, 1988 ), which hold that artworks can be identified by relationships to existing artworks. Instead, we follow these traditions, and others in anthropology and sociology (e.g., Becker, 1982 ; Dissanayake, 1990 ; Gell, 1998 ; Harrington, 2004 ), in their recognition that both arts appreciation and art creation, whatever they may be, are culturally situated within human communities 3 . We contend that this very foundational and basic recognition is largely absent or significantly downplayed in current empirical work, and it is this sense of social—longstanding practices, embedded in the fabric and life of communities—that is foundational to our proposed framework.

The arts and socio-epistemic skills

One model for how to understand art appreciation as active engagement in a practice can be found in Kieran ( 2012 ). There, he argues that art appreciation is an intrinsically valuable skill that allows one to cultivate “excellences of character,” because practiced arts engagement allows one to better imagine and critically examine not only aesthetic qualities of artworks, but also “artistic originality, emotional expression, insight and moral understanding.” (p. 23) This notion of skill has a few different features that matter a great deal to an expanded empirical research program: (1) art appreciation is learned through sustained practice, suggesting its intrinsic relationship to the culture and community, or, at least, to other people; (2) is a capacity that is developed over non-trivial lengths of time; and (3) may be relevant to other domains, as skills can be transferable.

Drawing from other philosophical literature on art appreciation, we see a focus on what we refer to as socio-epistemic skills. Included in this category may be capacities like good judgment, richer sensitivity to detail, or, following Hume, “delicacy of imagination, good sense, comparative experience, and freedom from prejudice” (Kieran, 2012 , p. 23). What makes these skills social is their relationship to one's ability to better understand oneself and other people, and to potentially revise one's own moral, political, or social commitments 4 . Although the mechanism for enhanced understanding of self and others is not fully theorized in the philosophical literature, it is often taken to be developing a kind of sensitivity to detail, context, or nuance (e.g., Murdoch, 1970 ; Nussbaum, 1990 ; Carroll, 1998 ).

Empirical research complements the philosophical framework above by helping us understand the mechanisms that underwrite the particular socio-epistemic skills of other-understanding and self-understanding 5 . We choose to highlight self-understanding and other-understanding because they align well with what many think of art appreciation as doing: helping them see others and the world from a different point of view, altering their perspectives, and helping them to understand more about themselves (e.g., what moves them, or what makes them uncomfortable). At the same time, we do not mean to commit to any specific or direct causal pathways between cognitive processes, art appreciation, and other- or self-understanding. Rather, we mean to identify this as an open area of much needed investigation.

Before turning directly to this discussion, we also note that embracing this theoretical shift toward understanding the arts as social practices would allow us to explain how art appreciation is partially constitutive of living a flourishing human life. A longstanding empirical program has been to connect the arts (both appreciation and creation) to happiness, well-being, or flourishing. For instance, Cuypers et al. ( 2012 ) demonstrate through a large-scale population study that both art appreciation and art creation are associated with increased well-being (as measured by perceived health, life satisfaction, and anxiety and depression scores). Philosophical conceptions of eudaimonia contend that a flourishing human life centrally involves, at least, the use of skills or excellences of character the development of which are intrinsically rewarding, and the exercise of which are, thereby, pleasurable. Thus the shift we are recommending does not discount previous research, but rather, locates and explains the liking, preference, and pleasure responses to art-objects as well as the experience of being moved, as important aspects of the skill-based conception of art appreciation. This also allows us to strengthen arguments for the value of the arts that does not embrace crass instrumentalism, but rather, is capable of explaining the central role of the arts in human life (Kieran, 2012 ). Moreover, regardless of whether one is committed to the broader eudaimonistic theory of well-being, or the claim that the development of human excellences and skills is central to that flourishing, those who hold that art appreciation is capable of developing the capacities and related skills of other-understanding and self-understanding are making empirical claims that empirical aesthetics can evaluate. To that end, a complete model of aesthetic appreciation will also need to contend with these claims and find a place for these socio-epistemic “outputs” in their models.

In the sections that follow, we use philosophical discussions to frame and suggest two lines of empirical inquiry within this theoretical orientation of the arts as social practices. The first, self-understanding, discussion of which is nascent in both the psychological and philosophical literatures, asks whether and how art appreciation as a practice can lead to a richer understanding and appreciation of one's own moral values, commitments, and conception of who and what one is. The second, other-understanding, more fully developed in both literatures, asks whether and how art appreciation as a practice can lead to a better understanding of the emotional and cognitive states of others, and the potential moral and social value of such an understanding. We conclude with a discussion of how such a research program may be envisioned and developed moving forward.

Art engagement as a path to self-understanding

As discussed above, in this section we attempt to lay a foundation for a line of inquiry into how self-understanding may be enhanced by engaging in practices of art appreciation, as part of our suggestion that conceptualizing the arts as social practices would be an appropriate and fruitful framework for psychologists and neuroscientists to embrace.

Philosophical conceptions of the relationship between art appreciation and self-understanding

In philosophy, the term “self-knowledge” often refers to knowledge of one's own mental states—that is, knowledge of our own beliefs, thoughts, or sensations. In contrast, “knowledge of the self” can refer to knowledge or understanding of one's “self” and its nature. Following Gertler ( 2015 ), we may include under this heading four different debates about our understanding of ourselves, as selves: the nature of self-identification (i.e., one's ability to distinguish one's self from others); whether self-awareness is a mechanism for grasping the nature of the self; whether self-awareness is a means to grasping one's personal identity over time; and, whether and what sort of self-understanding is necessary for rational or moral agency.

Insofar as engagement with the arts is able to enhance some notion of self-understanding, it fits most comfortably within this final debate: the sort of self-understanding necessary for rational or moral agency. Martin ( 1985 ), providing one way of enriching this “necessary for agency” conception, claims that self-understanding is an achievement . He explains that developing a “justifiable and meaningful perspective on our lives” often calls for “appropriate adjustments in attitude, emotion and conduct,” and realizing these things is something that we work for, or that we strive to accomplish. (p. 2) Relevant to this kind of self-understanding is what we may refer to as “self-identity”—“individuals' subjective senses of who they are—their own self-images” (Martin, 1985 , p. 5). Further, we may consider the heart of self-identity as a set of commitments or values—be they intellectual, artistic, moral, or religious—that organize individuals' behavior, attitudes, and beliefs. Someone who has proper self-understanding not only recognizes and affirms her central commitments and values, but also acts and feels according to these commitments and values. In this way self-understanding is a socio-epistemic skill because one's ability to recognize and act on her central values (e.g., feel and act compassionately) concerns a social ability. The content of the values or commitments substantially refer to other people, institutions, histories, and communities, and the attitudes and behaviors indicated are learned and exhibited within communities and relationships.

Philosophers who defend the view that art appreciation is a form of moral understanding can inform our conception of how art appreciation may enhance self-identity and self-understanding. A particularly influential view is Noël Carroll's clarificationism (Carroll, 1988 ). Unlike the sciences, which allow individuals to acquire new propositional knowledge, Carroll argues art appreciation is capable of deepening our existing knowledge, something he refers to as “understanding.” Carroll suggests that the narrative arts, in particular, encourage us to apply our moral knowledge and emotions to a specific case, which aids in the development of our capacity to manipulate, refine, or clarify what we know, and to then intelligibly apply that knowledge. Carroll uses the example of Crime and Punishment to explain this point. It would be absurd to claim that the reader learns the truth of the proposition “murder is wrong” from her reading of the novel. In fact, it may be that a reader would already need to have this bit of propositional knowledge in order to make sense of the novel in the first place. Yet, engagement with the novel can be a source of moral understanding and self-development. Engagement may help give shape to, clarify, or deepen one's understanding of the horror of killing, and of the nature or importance of guilt, redemption, and moral character. Moreover, insofar as these moral beliefs and values are part of the central commitments and values that constitute your self-identity, engagement with the novel can help you know yourself better.

That art is a context for deepening understanding rather than gaining propositional knowledge is also taken up by Lopes ( 2005 ). There he argues that the kind of seeing (“seeing-in”) cultivated by practiced visual art engagement enriches moral sensibility by enriching the suite of intellectual resources that make the viewer reliable at discriminating morally relevant features of situations. (p. 180) Part of the moral sensibility Lopes describes includes what he refers to as a repertoire of moral concepts (e.g., solidarity, grief, violation). Some visual art, though not all according to Lopes, can be used to deepen and understand those concepts. In this way, some visual art can communicate moral ideas in new or challenging or poignant ways that cause one to revise an important or closely held moral value, and thus, can be important to developing one's self-understanding.

Although the philosophical discussion of self-understanding or transformation through engagement with the arts primarily concerns moral or social knowledge, we see no reason to believe it must be limited to these contexts. The focus on moral knowledge in the philosophical literature may be occasioned by the felt need to distinguish the arts from the sciences as a means of knowing, as the latter tend not to have this moral or social focus 6 . However, we may think of the arts as a path to non-moral self-understanding as well, or, as above, as about non-moral yet central commitments and understandings important to our self-identity. For example, the works displayed during the 2013–2014 Los Angeles County Museum of Art retrospective of the work of Light and Space artist James Turrell, were described by many (critics and lay people alike) as transformative . The immersive light environments cause one's own perception to become the object of reflection, and led many to a deeper understanding of themselves and their relationship to the external world, deepening their conception of themselves as embodied beings whose access to the world is mediated by a visual perceptual faculty with particular features, limitations, and abilities, and of light, itself, as a physical substance. This fact (that perception is mediated by light) is not one that people learn from this exhibit; people learn that in middle school science classes. But being confronted with artistic works that exploit and make manifest this fact nevertheless affords viewers an understanding of the significance of this fact.

Enhanced self-understanding through art appreciation: empirical evidence

As in the philosophical literature, there also seems to be limited work in the psychological literature focused on the importance of art engagement in cultivating self-understanding, although research on self-reflection may speak to the psychological mechanisms that make possible the socially-relevant conception of self-identity as described above. Following Koopman and Hakemulder ( 2015 ), self-reflection refers to “thoughts and insights on oneself, often in relation to others and/or to society” (p. 82). This type of introspection often relates to one's emotions (e.g., monitoring current states and/or comparing those states to prior states), memories, values, and beliefs, and is associated with positive consequences (e.g., better mental health, well-being, increased capacity for self-regulation).

The literary arts are a domain in which self-reflection has received more comprehensive attention. Koopman and Hakemulder review evidence suggesting that self-reflection is elicited when one reads literary texts characterized by unconventional syntax or semantic features. Specifically, they review empirical work showing that self-reflection occurs in scenarios in which “(i) [reader's] previous personal experiences are evoked by descriptions of characters, places and events, (ii) [in which] readers experience emotional responses to the characters, and (iii) [in which] readers perceive the text itself, the artifact, as striking” (p. 95). Self-reflection elicited through reading in these contexts is likely to relate to one's self-understanding and identity both in moral and non-moral contexts. Similarly, some members of the medical community have embraced the idea that the literary and narrative arts facilitate self-reflection. Brady et al. ( 2002 ) posit that practicing self-reflection outside of a clinical context, and particularly through art appreciation, could lead to better doctor-patient relationships and, thereby, better patient outcomes.

With respect to visual art, research in neuroaesthetics has also suggested that when engaging with artworks that are emotionally moving and potentially transformative, individuals may have an inward, self-reflective focus. Here, being moved refers to “intensely felt responses [such as tears or chills] to scenarios that have a particularly strong bearing on attachment-related issues—and hence on prosocial bonding tendencies, norms, and ideals—ranging from the innermost circle of one's personal life … to higher-order entities of social life (one's country, social and religious communities)” (Menninghaus et al., 2015 , p. 8; see also Hanich et al., 2014 ; Wassiliwizky et al., 2015 , 2017a ). Recent work by Wassiliwizky et al. ( 2017b ) suggests, for example, that poetry containing a socio-cognitive component (e.g., prose addressing other people or personifying nature) is particularly moving, leading to chills and a response in brain areas involved in self-reflection (e.g., precuneus). When an artwork moves a beholder, she likely experiences an intense emotional response as well as explicitly reflects on her experience, potentially exercising self-understanding (as well as other-understanding, which we expand on in the next section). In this way, understanding the experience of being moved (rather than just focusing on aesthetic evaluation) indicates a promising avenue of research for neuroaesthetics to develop in line with our recommendation to adopt a social practice model.

Indeed, Vessel et al. ( 2012 , 2013 ) have demonstrated that during intensely moving aesthetic experiences, the default mode network—a network of brain areas including the precuneus, medial frontal cortex, inferior parietal cortex, and medial temporal cortex known to be involved in self contemplation, self reflection, and self-referential thought—is recruited. In Vessel et al.'s ( 2012 , 2013 ) studies, participants were tasked with attending to a set of visual artworks and judging how moving each one was while their brain activity was recorded in a scanner. Their finding that DMN activity was higher for artworks rated as highly moving relative to those rated lower on the scale may be interpreted as an inward, self-reflective focus that co-occurs with or is prompted by being emotionally moved. Additionally, this finding is consistent with research demonstrating that the DMN is recruited during other self-referential types of tasks involving self-identity (namely, making judgments about yourself or close others), moral decision-making, and theory of mind attributions (Northoff and Bermpohl, 2004 ; Northoff et al., 2006 ).

Psychologists have also described models that center the idea that art appreciation recruits metacognitive processes and promotes self-reflection and transformation. For example, Pelowski and Akiba ( 2011 ) (see also Pelowski, 2015 ; Pelowski et al., 2017 ) argue that influential empirical studies of aesthetic experience focusing on understanding the processes which lead to cognitive mastery of an artwork along with perceptual pleasure are “often divorced from a viewer's personal beliefs and identity” and “preclude the possibility for art to [truly] mark and transform lives” (p. 81) namely because they do not directly address discrepant experiences during an art encounter. According to Pelowski and Akiba's account, the self-reflective processing that occurs when a beholder's expectations have been violated (e.g., confusion about meaning) marks the beginning of a meta-cognitive re-assessment of an artwork, eventually leading to self-schema transformation. Similarly, Lasher et al. ( 1983 ) argue that the arts are central for mental and emotional growth because they offer opportunities for representational conflicts that, when resolved (in their case, often unconsciously) provide a way to restructure and unify initial mental representations. The process of defamiliarization, “becoming unsettled,” and self-reflecting, then may be crucial to deepening self-understanding.

In a more recent paper, Pelowski ( 2015 ) offered an empirical approach to studying art experiences as they relate to self-transformation and understanding. Specifically, Pelowski suggests that feeling like (or actually) crying during an art experience is a physical indicator of self-reflection, shifted perspectives, and self/schema changes. As a first foray into testing his model, Pelowski conducted a series of exploratory studies at several museums collecting both physiological data and self-reports from museum-goers. He demonstrated that feeling like crying while viewing art is correlated to increased self-awareness, feelings of epiphany and insight, as well as to mixed emotions corresponding to being moved. Although his empirical findings are specific to the visual arts, his model broadly appeals to all arts, as tears or chills responses are pervasive across all arts domains (Pelowski, 2015 ). Pelowski's approach is particularly instructive as it offers a means to frame socio-epistemic skills such as self-understanding within information-processing accounts, arguing for the importance of empirically investigating how each processing stage corresponds to self-related outcomes.

Importantly, these ideas are markedly different from the more typical information-processing accounts of aesthetic experience (e.g., Leder et al., 2004 or Chatterjee, 2004 ), which focus more on successful assessment of an artwork's formal information (perceptual and cognitive mastery) in the service of emotional appraisals. This traditional approach de-centers the importance of self-reflection or cognitive growth as an outcome or aspect of art appreciation. In contrast, the paradigm we suggest (which parallels Pelowski's) posits that although detached, the contemplative pleasure, which may be an outcome of art appreciation, is not valuable merely for its own sake, but also instrumentally valuable for deepening one's self-understanding.

Although the reviewed studies are not direct evidence that self-understanding is developed by art appreciation, they suggest, at least, that self-reflection, a process relevant to cultivating self-understanding, is prompted by moving art experiences. More research will be needed to understand the extent to which and how neural mechanisms correlated to self-referential processing are recruited during art appreciation. Candidate regions for investigation are those within the cortical midline structures including the orbitomedial prefrontal cortex (OMPFC) implicated in the continuous representation of self-referential stimuli and in processing emotional stimuli independent of sensory modality, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) implicated in evaluation of self-referential stimuli, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) implicated in monitoring of self-referential information, and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and adjacent precuneus thought to be involved in self-reflection and the integration of self-related representations (e.g., Northoff and Bermpohl, 2004 ). The partially overlapping default mode network as described above will also be critical to evaluate in the context of art appreciation.

Art engagement as a path to understanding others

Turning away from self-understanding, in this section we lay a foundation for a line of inquiry into how other-understanding may be enhanced by engaging in practices of art appreciation. Though here we highlight self- and other-understanding as separate socio-epistemic skills, we also point to the importance of investigating these “outcomes” as highly related. As before, the aim of this section is to build our suggestion that conceptualizing the arts as social practices would be an appropriate and fruitful framework for psychologists to embrace.

Philosophical conceptions of the relationship between art appreciation and other-understanding

Philosophers of art commonly contend that art appreciation enables us to understand others better by encouraging us to take on their viewpoints, to metaphorically take a walk in their shoes, to feel their pain. Through art appreciation we can understand ourselves as connected to one another, by recognizing others' emotions, actions, and perceptions as fundamentally similar to our own, or, more dramatically, by feeling others' emotions. For instance, in Cohen's ( 1993 ) discussion of his ambivalence toward ontological questions about the nature of art and the distinction between high and low art, he describes a memorial service in which his friend's favorite musical selections were played. Reflecting on the meaningfulness and appropriateness of this practice of playing music that someone cared for at their funeral, Cohen writes:

My friend has died and is not present. I listen to music I know he cared for. It is a fact about my friend that he cared for this music, perhaps even a constitutive fact about his sensibility: it partially defines who and what he was. It is, thus, an entrance into that sensibility. I sit listening, not merely thinking that this music meant something to my friend, but bending my imagination to the task of reaching and comprehending an aspect of my friend which responded to this music, that is, feeling what it was to be my friend (p. 154).

Here, Cohen understands artistic appreciation not only as (appropriately) playing a central role in an important social ritual of mourning, but also, or perhaps because it is one way of being in community with someone else. In this case, the mind, sensibility, or self of the person who is no longer present is accessible through attending closely to the music he loved. Similarly, Joseph Conrad characterizes the emotional sharing involved in artistic activity as:

the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts; to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspiration, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity—the dead to the living and the living to the unborn (cited in Goldie, 2008 , p. 192).

This notion, that the arts are an arena for interaction and potential emotional sharing between artists, beholders, and other past, present, and future beholders has an important history stretching back to at least Tolstoy ( 1899 ), if not to Aristotle.

The kind of interaction or connection art facilitates has been thought to lead to a fuller and morally important understanding of others and oneself. Kieran ( 1996 ) develops a notion of “imaginative understanding,” a skill promoted by the arts, as striving to “appreciate what the appropriate way of looking at and acting in the world is…typically…the appropriate way to feel for, to regard, and to respond to others” (p. 341). In this way, art appreciation, by promoting imaginative understanding, facilitates good moral judgment by enhancing our moral perception and sensibilities, especially with respect to the lived experiences of other people 7 .

Developing a similar line of thought, some scholars have suggested that reading literary fiction creates aesthetic distance, which “allow[s] [readers] to experiment more freely with taking the position of a character different from themselves, also in moral respects” (Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 , p. 92). That is, the dynamic process occurring during art appreciation is a form of socio-cognitive and emotional training, granting viewers the “time and privacy to learn to deal more strategically with” real life scenarios in a safe, “distant” space (this idea has been discussed by Oatley, 1999 , 2016 ; Robinson, 2005 ; de Botton and Armstrong, 2013 ; Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 ; Menninghaus et al., 2017 ). Despite this “distance” or, perhaps because of it, one can become deeply invested in fictional characters, emotionally engaging with them, and generating cognitive models of character's minds, just as one does in real social scenarios 8 .

That arts appreciation can deepen one's moral landscape by cultivating other-understanding is an empirical claim with potentially far-reaching consequences 9 . This idea has served as a theoretical foundation for arts-based therapies aimed at developing, for example, autistic children's social skills and theories of mind (see: arttherapy.org). Perhaps most robustly, as we briefly mentioned, in recent decades medicine has increasingly turned to the arts to help students and professionals cultivate proper self- and other-regarding dispositions (Shapiro et al., 2009 ). For example, Columbia University's Masters of Science curriculum in Narrative Medicine uses the arts and humanities to “imbue patient care and professional education with the skills and values of narrative understanding” (see: http://ce.columbia.edu/narrative-medicine ). Some have suggested that arts-based interventions help physicians become more empathic and culturally-sensitive, which then leads to better patient health outcomes (e.g., Novack et al., 1997 , pp. 502–509), whereas others have focused on the importance of reflection and imagination for developing insight, emotional understanding of patients, or other valuable “patterns of knowing” (e.g., Berragan, 1998 ; Rodenhauser et al., 2004 ; Averill and Clements, 2007 ).

These theoretical applications demonstrate the importance of reviewing the available empirical evidence that aligns with an argument that art appreciation cultivates other-understanding, the importance of understanding the psychological mechanisms underlying other understanding, as well as the importance of establishing norms for empirically investigating more fully the socio-epistemic outcomes and values of art appreciation.

Enhanced other-understanding through art appreciation: empirical evidence

Psychological research suggests that there are (at least) two related ways we can come to understand other people and their experiences: (i) cognitively, and (ii) emotionally “resonating” with others' experiences. Cognitive empathy, also often called “cognitive perspective-taking,” “theory of mind,” “mentalizing,” or “mindreading,” 10 refers to an individual's capacity to model others' experiences by making inferences about their intentions and predictions about future actions based on that mental representation. Although this cognitive process reflects one's capacity to model other people's minds, it crucially does not require emotional investment (e.g., I may understand that you are anxious but I do not feel that way myself).

Another way, then, to understand other people is to have an “insider” view by actually experiencing what the other person is experiencing. This “catching” of another person's experience is what most scholars refer to as empathy. Although there are many definitions for empathy in the psychological and philosophical literature (see Batson, 2009 ), most scholars broadly agree that there are two key criteria characterizing empathic responses. Firstly, empathy involves an affective capacity to recognize and resonate with others' emotions (also widely called “emotional contagion” or “affect sharing”). The affective response should be isomorphic with another person's affective state (Eisenberg and Fabes, 1990 ; De Vignemont and Singer, 2006 ). That is, one must experience the same emotion as another person, rather than simply respond emotionally to someone else's emotion (e.g., happiness in response to someone else's misfortune would not be isomorphic). This isomorphism is emphasized in the literature as distinct from related phenomena such as sympathy, which may be emotionally powerful but is usually thought of as feeling “for” rather than feeling “with.” Secondly, empathy should involve an awareness of the source of one's affective response; that is, a mechanism to distinguish between self and other. Imitation or emotional contagion alone, seen even in young infants, does not then reflect empathy (e.g., De Vignemont and Singer, 2006 ), as true empathy requires a more developed sense of self, agency, and other. Here, we will refer to this process as affective empathy.

Echoing the philosophical discussion above, a wide empirical research program has suggested the social and moral importance of both affective empathy and cognitive empathy, arguing that they are critical for social development and successful social interaction. Individuals with impaired (or a lack of) affective empathy are often characterized as psychopathic (e.g., Hare, 1991 as cited in Blair, 2005 ), and individuals with impaired theory of mind, a characteristic of autism, exhibit a host of social deficits including difficulties communicating, understanding others' thoughts and desires, recognizing and imitating others' facial expressions, among other issues (e.g., Blair, 2005 ). Moreover, although there might sometimes be negative consequences of increased empathy (e.g., favoring social “in-groups”; in Bloom, 2017 even goes to suggest that empathy has more costs than benefits), cognitive and affective empathic capacities in many ways provide a foundation for moral behaviors (Decety and Cowell, 2015 ). For instance, even short-term manipulations of cognitive perspective-taking can lead to increased feelings of social affiliation, perceived similarity, perceived closeness, intergroup understanding, desire to engage in intergroup contact, and to prosocial behaviors such as increased cooperation, sharing, comforting, and helping even in situations where prosocial attitudes might be more difficult to adopt (e.g., Stephan and Finlay, 1999 ; Bodenhausen et al., 2009 ; Wang et al., 2014 ) 11 .

In addition to its social importance, empathy provides an individual with knowledge about the environment without having to actually experience it oneself; for example, seeing someone get burned when they touch a hot stove or get bruised when they fall on a pavement is informative enough to attach appraisals to those situational contexts without having to experience the pain oneself (De Vignemont and Singer, 2006 ). This characteristic of empathy resonates with the aesthetic distance conception of fiction above, explaining how art appreciation could be a “safe space” for understanding others' difficult or taxing emotional experiences.

If art appreciation indeed enhances other-understanding, it would be reasonable to expect that we would find evidence, at least in some contexts, that engaging with art, be it viewing visual art, reading literature, or listening to music, recruits mechanisms associated with cognitive and affective empathy. For example, there may be evidence demonstrating that the neural mechanisms implicated in affective or cognitive empathy during real social interactions are also engaged when “interacting” with visual art or with fictional characters. Furthermore, art appreciation should mirror findings within the social interaction literature, such that after art-appreciation-based manipulations, we may find increases in self-reported perceived similarity and closeness, and perhaps increased degree of prosocial behavior exhibited toward an individual. Finally, we should expect that repeated “practice” or engagement with arts would develop empathy, perhaps changing aspects of one's disposition, personality, and capacity to empathize in future situations. Below, we review empirical evidence in line with each of these predictions, with the aim of demonstrating the promise and possibilities of the shift to a social practice framework in neuroaesthetics.

Simulation, embodiment and arts-engagement: neural mechanisms

Some researchers within neuroaesthetics have begun to reconsider arts engagement as a fully embodied, enactive experience (e.g., Freedberg and Gallese, 2007 ; Nadal et al., 2012 ), with empirical evidence suggesting the involvement of neural processes related to both perspective-taking and affective empathy during art appreciation. One such model of the role of embodied responses to visual arts is presented by Freedberg and Gallese ( 2007 ). They suggest that embodied responses occurring during art appreciation are forms of cognitive and affective simulations and, as such, play a role in facilitating an understanding of both the representational content of an artwork and of the intentions of the artist. Freedberg and Gallese provide several examples demonstrating that viewers have physical, “felt” responses to visual representations, even if those representations are abstract. For instance, the authors speculate that viewing a painting like Caravaggio's Incredulity of Saint Thomas , in which a man is poking at someone else's wound, or experiencing Michelangelo's Prisoner's , in which the figures appear “trapped” in the material out of which they are sculpted, leads to embodied responses of physical pain in the beholder. Moreover, elements within a visual artwork that simply imply the gestures used by the artist (e.g., canvas cuts as in artist Lucio Fontana's work, or Jackson Pollock's drip paintings) can also strongly activate the motor cortex, and are thus felt by beholders as actions (Battaglia et al., 2011 ; Umilta et al., 2012 ).

More evidence for action simulation during art viewing is provided by Leder et al. ( 2012 ) who demonstrate that we covertly simulate actions produced by a visual artist while we engage with the work. That is, when viewing work by Georges Seurat, for example, we may covertly “stipple” our hands, whereas while viewing art by Vincent Van Gogh, we may covertly create broader strokes with our hands. Interestingly, when the researchers experimentally manipulated participants motions to either be explicitly aligned or misaligned with painting style, preference scores were affected. That is, participants in congruent groups (stippling while viewing works in the Pointillist tradition or stroking while viewing works with strong brushstrokes) reported liking the artworks more than those in incongruent groups suggesting that incongruent motions interfered with motor resonance (Leder et al., 2012 ). Researchers have similarly discussed the role of embodiment with respect to music as well as the literary arts. For instance, research has demonstrated that we develop embodied understanding of characters within a literary text (for comprehensive reviews see Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 ; Oatley, 2016 ). One such example is seen in Hsu et al. ( 2014 ) who demonstrate that immersion or “getting lost in” emotion-laden literary text—in their case, fear-inducing compared to neutral excerpts from the Harry Potter series—leads to increased activation of the medial cingulate cortex, a structure associated with affective empathy.

Together, this research suggests that engagement with visual art may prompt beholders to mentally simulate artists' actions, and to “feel” the actions and emotions depicted in a work. Although we do not mean to suggest that simulation alone implies social understanding, as is evidenced by the fact that even very young infants (or primates) imitate without a developed theory of mind (e.g., Heyes, 2001 for review) it seems to have clear social value . Thus, embodied responses (what some refer to as “feeling into” art) may prompt meaning-making and explicit reflection (e.g., Pelowski, 2015 ). Importantly however, the extent to which mirroring, simulation, and empathy affect art appreciation and even aesthetic evaluation remains understudied.

The neural processes that are implicated in embodied emotion and action simulation, namely a medial frontotemporal network involving recruitment of the bilateral anterior insula, the dorsal and middle anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), as well as a mirror-neuron system (MNS), are implicated in empathy and theory of mind, and are important for representing both our own and others' actions (e.g., Decety and Grèzes, 2006 ). For example, Wicker et al. ( 2003 ) show that overlapping areas of the ACC are activated when one is imagining, observing, and expressing a disgusted facial expression. Similarly, Morrison et al. ( 2004 ) showed overlapping activation in the anterior insula and ACC both when a person was in physical pain and when she was viewing someone else in pain 12 . These responses can be modulated by a variety of factors, including dispositional/trait empathy, relationship between empathizer and target, situational context, and emotional context (e.g., De Vignemont and Singer, 2006 ). For example, in one study, electromyography was used to demonstrate that people with high affective trait empathy were more likely to automatically imitate happy and angry pictures of faces during passive viewing than people with low affective trait empathy (Rymarczyk et al., 2016 ).

With respect to visual art, a recent study similarly showed that trait empathy correlated to both physiological (facial electromyography and skin conductance responses) and behavioral responses to art (valence, preference, interest) (Gernot et al., 2017 ). Specifically, they showed that individuals who are high in emotion contagion are more moved by, interested in, and enjoy visual art. These high emotion contagion individuals also reacted more strongly to emotion congruent aspects of the visual art (e.g., they smiled while engaging with positive valence work and frowned when engaging with negative valence works). Similar findings have been reported within music, in which individual differences in empathetic capacities relate to understanding and interpretation of emotional expressivity and intentionality in music (Wöllner, 2012 ; Baltes and Miu, 2014 ). In this way, the empirical evidence points to a role for empathy in synchronizing emotion-relevant perceptions and actions among individuals, perhaps for understanding others more effectively, a skill art engagement may facilitate.

Another important set of neural structures—specifically within a lateral frontotempoparietal network (relevant regions include: lateral and medial PFC, lateral and medial parietal cortex, and medial temporal lobe, temporoparietal junction, and posterior superior temporal sulcus)—have been shown to correlate with tasks related to cognitive empathy such as action observation, imitation, self-recognition, impersonal moral and social reasoning, reappraisal by focusing on physical events, and categorizing affect in facial expressions (e.g., Lieberman, 2007 ). There is also a connection between this network and the mirror neuron network discovered in primates. In primates, mirror neurons activate both when the primate performs a goal-directed action and when it observes the experimenter performing the same action (Gallese et al., 1996 ). In humans, homologous regions of cortex (premotor cortex, LPFC, LPAC, DMPFC) similarly respond both to action observation and to imitation (e.g., Carr et al., 2003 ). Along with the regions that are implicated in embodied emotion and action simulation described above, these structures may be target regions of interest for neuroaesthetics.

The evidence linking neural processes recruited during other-understanding to art appreciation as reviewed above is promising. Perhaps the mirror neuron system (and other neural processes related to mentalizing as reviewed above) play an important role in enabling an experiential understanding of the content of a visual artwork as well as some of the artist's intentions (Freedberg and Gallese, 2007 ). Though more research is crucial, the findings up to this point suggest that engaging with art involves processes relevant to the attribution of mental states to others (Steinbeis and Koelsch, 2009 ; Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 ), and this suggests that art appreciation is deeply connected to other-understanding.

(Pro)social effects of art appreciation

Based on the presented evidence, if cognitive and affective empathic processes are recruited during art appreciation, just as is observed for empathy manipulations, we should observe increases in measures such as self-reported perceived similarity, closeness, or degree of prosocial behavior exhibited toward an individual after arts-appreciation-based manipulations. Again, the literary arts are an example domain where research has been particularly comprehensive. The effect of reading literature, and more specifically, narrative fiction on empathy and other-understanding has recently received widespread attention (see Koopman and Hakemulder, 2015 ; Oatley, 2016 for comprehensive reviews). For example, Kotovych et al. ( 2011 ), find that the “challengingness” of the text, operationalized as the complexity of characters and number of ambiguities in a text, helps readers better identify with, feel more connected to, and understand a character more deeply. One explanation for such an effect is that when a literary text leaves more information about the narrator's mental life implicit and ambiguous, readers may be more likely to draw from their own experiences, resulting in a seemingly stronger connection with and understanding for an individual.

Further, psychologists have demonstrated both correlational and causal effects of reading narrative on various measures of empathy. Measures of empathy in these cases include the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test,” which probes one's ability to discern another individual's thoughts from their eyes alone (RMET; Baron-Cohen et al., 2001 ), or the Yoni test, which asks participants to identify others' affective and cognitive states from facial expressions (Shamay-Tsoory and Aharon-Peretz, 2007 ). Researchers have demonstrated that individuals who spend more time reading literary or narrative fiction compared to non-fiction tend to score higher on such tests suggesting that extended “practice” reading narrative fiction may cultivate one's capacity for understanding others (e.g., Mar et al., 2006 ; Panero et al., 2016 ). And, a recent series of experiments by Kidd and Castano ( 2013 ) demonstrated that individuals who were tasked with reading a “literary” short story that is characterized by unconventional syntax, ambiguity, and semantic features scored higher on the RMET and Yoni tasks after the reading exercise compared to those who read a popular fiction or nonfiction short story. This finding demonstrates that even brief exposure to the arts might promote other-understanding.

Importantly, empathy-related processing during arts appreciation across domains (e.g., beyond just the literary arts) also seems to lead to increased prosocial behavior. For example, Sze et al. ( 2012 ) demonstrated that after watching film clips that induced empathetic concern, individuals tended to be more charitable. Interestingly, these prosocial effects were partially mediated by age such that older participants were more charitable than their younger counterparts. Although not directly related to film appreciation per se (as film in this case was merely a stimulus meant to elicit empathetic concern), it is suggestive both of the power of film and the cultivation of prosocial tendencies with art experience. Film's power to move the viewer in this way has also been associated with increased feelings of intergroup connectedness and understanding (Oliver et al., 2015 ). Likewise, some research suggests that chills induced by music lead to more altruistic behavior, though more research is needed to tease apart the influence of factors like mood (Fukui and Toyoshima, 2014 ). Taken together, these findings suggest the importance of a continuing research program on the (pro)social implications of arts engagement.

Although these effects seem promising, many of the claims about empathy cultivated through art appreciation are contested. For instance, some researchers have been unable to replicate the causal effects (most recently, Panero et al., 2016 ), noting, like Bullot and Reber ( 2013 ), that a brief encounter is typically “shallow” and is unlikely to have significant impacts on cognitive or affective empathy. This is not altogether surprising as measures like the RMET are likely relatively stable across time. And, even if it appears that art engagement increases state empathy—that is, empathic responses during the interaction—the single engagement may not cultivate empathy in the long term in real-life scenarios the way that researchers hope. It is not inconceivable that an individual connects to fictional characters described as in a particular situation, but would not connect to real people in that same situation 13 . Furthermore, it is theoretically unclear why individuals who read a story just once, or even those who are well-read, should be better attuned to discriminating facial expressivity per se . Rather, it might be that narrative fiction develops imaginative capacity. In fact, research by Johnson ( 2012 ) finds that reading fiction can actually lead to decreased perceptual accuracy in discriminating fearful emotions. Johnson speculates that such reduced discriminability is likely due to a bias in attributing emotions, particularly ones congruent with a prosocial behavior, to ambiguous expressions. Similarly, research attempting to quantify the effects of both brief and longer-term art encounters on empathy and patient outcomes for medical professionals is contested and still underdeveloped (e.g., Perry et al., 2011 ; Yang and Yang, 2013 ; Kelm et al., 2014 ). Finally, there is conflicting evidence on the extent to which thrills-like responses affect schemas and behavior. For instance, the physical chills response that some individuals report in response to music as well as to visual art and literature does not always seem to differentially affect prosocial behaviors or self concept, relative to artworks that do not elicit chills (Konecni et al., 2007 ). Thus, more empirical studies are needed to systematically address how art appreciation actually affects other-understanding.

We began this section by reviewing philosophical views that hold or imply that art appreciation is socio-epistemically valuable insofar as it cultivates other-understanding through processes like emotional sharing or imaginative understanding. Following these ideas, psychologists and neuroscientists have begun to empirically assess whether and how art appreciation deepens other-understanding. Empirical research has up to this point demonstrated that art appreciation engages similar psychological processes that are involved in social interaction, such as emotional resonance, mental state attribution, and cognitive perspective taking. Furthermore, we reviewed evidence that showed that increased “practice” appreciating the arts, arts-appreciation “interventions” (as in medical school curricula), and even “basic exposure” to the arts (as in Kidd and Castano, 2013 ) increased individual's capacities for other-understanding. Although it is promising, the empirical and philosophical research centered on the relationship between art appreciation and other-understanding is still limited in its scope, quantity, and specificity. Particularly important will be to develop robust (perhaps more longitudinal) methodologies that demonstrate the processes by which arts appreciation cultivates other-understanding as well as its relationship to self-understanding, leading a flourishing life, and other socio-epistemic skills.

Looking ahead

In this paper, we aimed to highlight how understanding the power of the arts in our lives requires going beyond the current aesthetics-focused conception of the outcomes of art appreciation. Rather than neuroaesthetics models which focus nearly exclusively on judgments of beauty, preference, or liking as the primary outcomes of art appreciation, we should set ourselves to better understanding the range of socio-epistemic outcomes of such engagement. Here, we have focused on self-understanding and other-understanding as such outcomes, but do not intend to limit the potential of this framework shift to just these outcomes. Rather, we aimed to provide evidence for the fruitfulness of neuroaesthetics adopting a more comprehensive approach to the outcomes of art appreciation that mirror the richer conceptions of art engagement found in philosophy, art history, and art criticism, which understand art as an embodied, enactive, social practice.

Importantly, such an approach does not discount prior empirical research, but refocuses its aim around socio-epistemic skills developed within arts practices. In thinking of the arts as social practices that people engage in, we can come to better understand how they serve a variety of social and cultural values. We hope this approach inspires empirical research to more fully investigate the specific ways in which the processes underlying art engagement cultivate socio-epistemically valuable skills. That is, how do specific emotional experiences lead to self-understanding? To other-understanding? And to other socio-epistemic values? How does engagement with different art forms relate to distinct socio-epistemic values? Does engagement with literary art, for example, more promote a particular set of values, compared to practiced engagement with the visual arts or music?

To answer these questions, researchers will need to go beyond the typical unitary measures of preference after a single exposure, and instead employ more longitudinal designs incorporating both state and trait based measures. Take for example a researcher interested in whether and how engaging with particular form of visual art (e.g., art depicting minority groups such as American Indians) may deepen ones cultural understanding and appreciation. To go beyond standard designs, one might consider (a) encouraging viewers to engage with each artwork for longer periods of time (e.g., at least 1 minute), (b) comparing lab findings to naturalistic settings (e.g., conducting experiments in both settings to determine generalizability of lab results) and (c) combining methodologies (e.g., eye tracking, physiology, EEG, subjective self-reports such as being moved, interest, emotional state, and written reflections). Possible individual difference measures that researchers may employ include tests that measure capacity for cognitive and affective empathy [e.g., the Empathy Quotient (EQ; Lawrence et al., 2004 ), the Interpersonal Reactivity index (IRI; Davis, 1980 ), or the questionnaire of affective and cognitive empathy (QCAE, Reniers et al., 2011 )], tests that measure state and dispositional aspects of self-awareness [e.g., the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS; Brown and Ryan, 2003 ), self concept clarity questionnaires, tolerance for uncertainty, Webster and Kruglanski, 1994 ], tests that measure emotion perception and regulation (e.g., the scale of subjective emotion experience (See; as in Pelowski et al., 2017 ), and subjective self reports relevant to one's art experience including art expertise, interest, reflections and insights. Furthermore, researchers may adopt experimental techniques from the mindfulness and meditation literature, which similarly aims to demonstrate the perceptual, cognitive, and emotional effects of mindfulness practices as compared simply to mindful states. Thus, we see our reframing as an exciting opportunity for researchers to be creative in designs (see Table ​ Table2 2 for examples of open questions).

Open questions.

Outstanding questions for investigating the psychological and neurobiological relationships between self-understanding, other-understanding, and art appreciation .

Further, this kind of “art as social practice” approach encourages scientists to view art engagement, generally, be it appreciating or creating, as a form of knowledge acquisition and production. Although we focused here on art appreciation, we believe our approach generalizes to art creation. Like art appreciation, art making involves practices which integrate embodied and “mental” activities so as to render the two inseparable. In fact, the philosophical and psychological research on creation and creativity recognizes and investigates such processes of creative practice associated with individual development more so than does the research on art appreciation.

Finally, we believe that focusing on the socio-epistemic skills cultivated through art engagement highlights the important role art plays in our lives, and the need to advocate for arts education programs. Through this kind of research program, we should come to better understand the arts as socially valuable. We suggest that empirical research can be used to show that engagement with art has social and personal value, rather than monetary or economic value, the cultivation of which is important to us as individuals, and as communities.

Author contributions

All authors listed have made substantial, direct, intellectual contributions to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Anjan Chatterjee, Simon Penny, Dylan Sabo, Sarah Ostendorf, Ainsley LeSure, Santiago Mejia, and the two reviewers for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this argument.

1 Recent arguments by influential researchers such as Pearce et al. ( 2016 ) suggest that neuroaesthetics is often concerned not with explaining art appreciation, but rather with understanding the aesthetic qualities of objects that include the arts. However, findings within the aesthetic sciences are often used to explain art appreciation, specifically (e.g., Pelowski et al., 2016 published a review article titled “Visualizing the Impact of Art: An Update and Comparison of Current Psychological Models of Art Experience” in which they do just that).

2 While it may be that the kinds of social practices we are talking about relate to “artworld” institutions, practices are logically independent of and prior to institutions (see MacIntyre, 1999 for the relationship between practices and institutions).

3 The kind of theoretical shift we recommend—toward understanding the arts as practices—is also related to Noë's ( 2015 ). There, he develops an account of the arts as organized activities , insofar as they are: (1) natural or primitive, (2) “arenas for the exercise of attention, looking, listening, doing, undergoing” (p. 6), (3) structured and organized in time, (4) emergent, and which (5) have a function and (6) are a source of pleasure for those who engage in them (pp. 4–5). This approach is similar to the social practice account in that it is interested in the role of the arts in structuring a well-functioning or flourishing human life. It differs on the strength of the emphasis placed on the embodied nature of the arts, and in the expressed biological and “natural” interpretation it gives to these practices through the notion of “organizing” that it employs.

4 See Stolnitz ( 1992 ) for discussion of the philosophical debate about aesthetic cognitivism, which is concerned with whether we can learn from or know through art appreciation.

5 In doing so we do not claim that these are the only valuable socio-epistemic skills developed by the social practices of the arts or arts appreciation. For example, the “Seven C's” identified by Koelsch ( 2014 ) (social contact, social cognition, co-pathy, communication, coordination of actions, cooperation, social cohesion) is a taxonomy of what the author refers to as social functions of music. Similarly, other researchers including Panksepp ( 2009 ) highlight the social importance of music evolutionarily, particularly in its capacity to evoke social emotions.

6 Another hypothesis about this focus on moral knowledge may come from the overlap in moral and hedonic processing, evidence for which may be found in Tsukiura and Cabeza ( 2010 ).

7 Kieran's argument draws on the rich discussion of moral understanding and art appreciation, especially that of Iris Murdoch and Martha Nussbaum. Iris Murdoch argued that engagement with and creation of art (especially painting and literature) hone moral perception by tuning the perceiver to the salient features of moral reality; the arts make one's moral perception more discriminating and discerning. That is to say, engagement with the arts develops one's ability to see the world as it truly is, making art “the most educational of all human activities.” (1970) In Love's Knowledge Nussbaum contends that moral imagination, necessary to good moral judgment (and seeing the world as it truly is), is similar to artistic imagination (1990). She explicitly links the type of fine-grained attention to detail and ability to “see” the world in morally complex and nuanced ways cultivated by arts appreciation with the development of self and other-understanding.

8 There is some disagreement among philosophers about what cognitive process best characterizes this emotional-engagement, theorists variably refer to identification, empathy, sympathy, and mental simulation (see Giovannelli, 2005 ).

9 Some researchers have gone so far as to speculate on the socio-cultural benefits of arts engagement in relation to other-understanding. In his book, The Better Angels of our Nature , Pinker ( 2012 ) speculates that a decrease in contemporary violence can be partially attributed to increased literary consumption, relying on the notion that perspective-taking is fundamental to reading literature and that it leads to increased empathy and other-understanding.

10 We gloss over here some of the nuances that distinguish each of these terms. For instance, theory of mind is most often discussed in a developmental context, in contrast to cognitive perspective-taking and cognitive empathy. However, for the most part, they refer to the same/a very similar process.

11 Heyes ( 2001 ) provides an analysis of theories and evidence describing the relationship between imitation, theory of mind, and social cognition. Heyes points out “although it is plausible that the experience of imitating and being imitated contributes to the development of theory of mind, there is not currently a well-supported theory specifying the nature of the contribution” (p. 260).

12 Additionally, Singer et al. ( 2006 ) demonstrated that the proposed neural networks subserving empathy indeed represent “true” empathizing with another person, rather than just imagining one's own emotional experience. They first engaged participants in a game in which confederates played either fairly or unfairly. They then showed the same participants videos of their fair and unfair partners experiencing pain, while simultaneously measuring participants neural activity. Interestingly, all participants empathized with fair players, but only female participants empathized with the pain felt by unfair players experienced. In contrast, males seemed to experience more joy (evidenced by activation of reward circuitry), indicating their seeming desire for revenge against unfair players.

13 Philip Sidney wrote a sonnet about just this point in the 1580s: http://www.bartleby.com/358/46.html

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What is the need for a "related work" section in state-of-the-art papers?

The process of paper writing is intended to communicate our proposed model to a peer. The peer is assumed to have solid knowledge of the particular topic.

If one comes up with a state-of-the-art model on some task in a domain, then the contribution is evident to the peer.

Then what is the purpose of writing the "related work" section?

For example, if I come up with an algorithm that can solve the Traveling salesperson problem in less time than all the previous algorithms, then the contribution is evident to any reviewer.

• publications

• 30 in less time than all the previous algorithms --- I would think that a justification for this claim would include a brief survey of the most recently published algorithms, and reference to a survey paper/monograph on the topic for an overview of less recent work, although maybe this would not be given as a specifically titled "related work" section as opposed to what one would ordinarily say (at least in math papers) in the first few introductory paragraphs. –  Dave L Renfro Commented Oct 16, 2021 at 15:03
• 33 Very relevant: xkcd.com/2501 –  Stef Commented Oct 16, 2021 at 19:11
• 3 I think your question is "what is the need for including citations and related work in a paper". This is pretty different from asking "what is the need for a related work section in a paper", so I suggest changing the title to match the question. –  usul Commented Oct 17, 2021 at 2:06
• 1 A scientific paper is not written for the peer review board, and the primary purpose of its content is not to impress the reviewers. Your primary audience is the scientific community (primarily within the same field, but not necessarily), and these people might be interested in looking into referenced and related work for all kinds of reasons. And your secondary audience are the gifted amateurs, and the general public. It's called a publication for a reason. You are publishing an account of your research to the world. –  Filip Milovanović Commented Oct 19, 2021 at 9:14

7 Answers 7

The purpose of the related section is to establish context, within which your work is to exist, and against which it represents an advance.

That context is highly individual-specific, and varies greatly even across researchers working in the same field. It is unlikely that any two researchers will have exactly the same knowledge, context and approach to a topic, because they are likely to have engaged with it differently and had different journeys while exploring it. This could have different perceptions of the same idea. Therefore, the stated assumption - " The peer is assumed to have solid knowledge of the particular topic. " - is not very meaningful, because knowledge does not have neat boundaries.

Further, articles are written for posterity: a reader who uses the work after several years will need to know the context within which the work was carried out. State-of-the-art is constantly changing, and it is necessary to describe it for that very reason.

@Greenstick has correctly pointed out that this part of a paper can also facilitate the writing of literature reviews of different kinds (topical, systematic) subsequent to the publication of this paper. This would be a service to the community, at the very least.

• 3 Another aspect is that by citing similar work in the related section, papers can help facilitate the process of writing a literature review or similar type of article. Further, if you believe that knowledge should be generally accessible to the public (and posterity), providing those references can be very helpful for people new to the field or who have a more casual interest (journalists, hobbyists, amateur researchers, etc.) –  Greenstick Commented Oct 17, 2021 at 16:45
• " experentially "? –  Bergi Commented Oct 17, 2021 at 20:18
• @Greenstick, Bergi- thanks for the helpful additions, incorporated them. –  AppliedAcademic Commented Oct 17, 2021 at 20:53

The process of paper writing is intended to communicate our [results] to a peer.

No, not to a peer. To a wider audience than your peers. Which is why you are expected to provide some context.

Also, a "related work" section helps both your peers and other readers clearly identify the novelty in your results: "Smith & al. formulated a model of phenomenon A, in this paper we present a model of the related phenomenon B"; "Smith & al. formulated a model with accuracy alpha, in this paper we provide a refined model with accuracy alpha/2"; etc.

• I'm not sure if the word peer is the problem. To my ears, my fellow colleagues in my department, say, are my peers, but they do know the same things I know, even the ones in my field. –  Kimball Commented Oct 16, 2021 at 22:57
• 4 This. If you were to communicate a result or proposal to a specific peer whose level knowledge on the topic you know, there's indeed no reason to include a related work section - but then you'd just send a personal message to them. Not publish a paper in a journal. –  Bergi Commented Oct 17, 2021 at 20:23

If you published a paper with an algorithm substantially improving performance on the traveling salesperson problem, I'd be really interested in that paper myself.

I know next to nothing about the state of the field there, though. Related work would be very important for me.

These days there are so many papers published that it's difficult to keep up with all of them. Even in a narrow field, people generally sit on different edges of that field and bring in distinct background knowledge. Solutions to one problem may be motivated by solutions to other problems that are not so intimately related.

In a typical paper I read I doubt I've read more than 10% of the other papers it cites.

From my point of view it has to do with availability. Science is supposed to be a accessible to each and everyone, not only to an elite group that already knows all the background and details of your work.

While the main audience of your paper is people working on the same or related subjects, a more broader audience should principally not be excluded from accessing the contents of your paper. For that purpose, it is typical to provide some basic introduction to the methods you are using and the purpose of your work as well as a thorough review of the previous literature. The goal for this is not to explain things to your peers (that they probably already know) but to provide some degree of self-containedness to your work.

Of course, in practice it takes a lot of work for a potential reader to go through all of the previous literature and understand the relevance of your work. But keep in mind that every paper could be someone's first entry to a new topic and I think it's worthwile to provide them with the necessary ingredients to value your contribution.

• Well, not each and every one, but let's say - a somewhat larger elite group of people... –  einpoklum Commented Oct 16, 2021 at 19:51

While other answers already noted that the related work section is targeted at an audience much broader than peers in your field of study, I also want to note that the related work section could be essential for peers with "average knowledge in your field" as well.

At times, it happens that a specific problem in field A is best solved via techniques from field B. However, when applying techniques from other fields, perhaps with some modification, it can be difficult to determine whether this application is still a novel result. The related work section can provide the context in order to determine this.

Another purpose of the related work section is an indirect argument for the relevance of your results: if you are studying the same problem as all those other published papers, then a priori it seems your paper would also be relevant if it adds something significant that is not already in those papers. (Of course, all of this depends on context. It is possible some other recent result renders the entire field, including your paper, obsolete)

Finally, a thorough discussion of related work can be valuable on its own. It can give an brief overview of a (sub)field, like a mini-survey. Sometimes, there are papers which I primarily read for this discussion, if there are no good survey articles or PhD theses.

One reason not yet mentioned is "crackpot detection". :-) Some areas attract attention from "motivated nonexperts". One item in the "crackpot detection checklist" is "does the paper cite relevant related work?". If it does not, that may be because the author (tends to be solitary) does not know related work, prior art so to speak. Then, how did they get to their result(s)? It is suspicious.

Also, a well written related work section does not just mention other works, but rather show how they relate and compare, how they are different. Precisely for an expert who knows such other work, this may be the key element in the paper. A "delta" from previous work, if you will.

Thirdly, your paper may be so good that someone else may read it, such as a student working on their thesis, someone working on an application, or some expert in a very different field which at the time was not related but know a connection was found and both fields are now related. And so on.

Let me interpret the question as "why do many papers cite irrelevant or barely relevant works"? The answer is: because citations are the currency of bibliometry-based career systems.

There is no good reason for each paper to do a complete review of the literature in the field, but there are perverse incentives to do so.

• What's in it for the author? Why should they artificially boost someone else's citation count? –  henning no longer feeds AI Commented Oct 17, 2021 at 18:20
• They might attract the attention of the authors they cite. They might get cited in return out of courtesy, even when no 'citation cartel' is in place. –  Sylvain Ribault Commented Oct 17, 2021 at 18:29
• 2 @henning: From what I've learned in Academia SE the past few years, reciprocity agreements (both explicit and implicit) are fairly common in some fields and/or places. It also might be due to increased suggestions from reviewers, seeking (possibly not even consciously) to increase the citation count of themselves and/or those they work with, over 2+ decades ago when citation counts were not used much (because the data was nearly impossible to come by). –  Dave L Renfro Commented Oct 17, 2021 at 18:32
• "What's in it for the author"? The reviewer won't let them publish unless they pay their dues to those that came before. –  Ian Sudbery Commented Oct 19, 2021 at 17:19

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Art Research Paper

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The Sociology of Art

The arts and sociology, as Pierre Bourdieu (1980:207) observed, make uneasy bedfellows. It is an unease that pervades American sociology even more than he imagined. We should bear in mind that barely two decades have elapsed since a handful of American Sociological Association members succeeded in convincing a necessary quorum of colleagues to sign the petition required to set up a new Section. The Culture Section’s growth since then must have come as a surprise even to some of those early supporters.

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Culture and the arts have become increasingly visible in sociological publications (Peterson 1976; Becker 1982; Crane 1987; Balfe 1993), disciplinary recognition (Griswold 2000), and professional organizations, both in the United States and elsewhere (Zolberg 1990). But despite the richly textured potential that the arts afford for social science disciplines, it appears that American sociologists continue to devote relatively little attention to them. The success of culture’s reentry as a domain of considerable significance in American sociological investigation provides an opportune moment to reexamine the standing of the arts in what should be the most hospitable field of the discipline. This research paper provides an account of the persistent hesitancy to recognize the arts as central rather than peripheral in the social scientific field even in the face of the extraordinary promise that artistic transformations in the past century would seem to offer. The theme is that despite the increasing prominence of culture in the profession, the standing of the arts in American sociology appears to have changed less than might have been expected. 232

Staging the Sociology of the Arts in America

Less than a half century ago, a survey of the sociology of art would have begun and ended with contentiously worded assertions concerning the relationships of the arts and society. Certainly, many scholars affirmed that in some ways art mirrors society, but at that point consensus would end. Some insisted that art reflects societal production relationships, serving largely as an ideological tool to maintain dominant groups in favorable situations. Deriving from the materialist orientation of Karl Marx, who actually wrote little about the arts, that perspective provides the foundation of Arnold Hauser’s (1951) massive analysis of artistic creativity through the ages, The Social History of Art. Other scholars, with equal certainty, maintained that great art should be treated as part of an autonomous sphere, surmounting material constraints, but in some way reflecting the spirit of its age. Certain versions of reflection analysis see art reaching for higher values, foretelling cultural and societal tendencies. Of the many anti-Marxist variants on this idea, the one elaborated by Pitirim Sorokin (1937), a work that preceded Hauser’s by more than a decade, was nearly as massive.

As divergent as they are in their foundations, these interpretations of the relations of the arts and society aim to unearth hidden postulates of art in relation to broad social structural processes. Whether from the standpoint of Marxist analysis or anti-Marxist idealism, these are universalizing conceptions of art, representing a Western European, hierarchical scheme of cultural classification (Bourdieu 2000:73, 105). Sorokin embraced 2,500 years of civilization; Hauser starts from the even earlier point— prehistoric cave painting—and both ended their analyses with their own artistic contemporaries. Neither passes muster in the face of modern anthropological perspectives, which see art as part of a cultural system, embedded in its cultural context (Geertz 1973). Regardless of the political or intellectual stance of individual scholars today, their ambitions are far more modest. They rarely undertake to encompass such magisterial breadth entailing so speculative an outlook. This does not necessarily result in a narrowing of vision, however, since the types of art that contemporary researchers consider worthy of analysis are far more varied than what their predecessors documented. Neither Hauser nor Sorokin paid much attention to nonWestern civilizations, barely any at all to primitive and folk forms, and, except disparagingly, to commercial art and entertainment (Hauser 1982). Neither considered the absence of women artists a question worthy of scrutiny. Even within the domain of fine art, both shared a largely unexamined but generally unfavorable opinion of avantgarde art. Finally, like most of their more aesthetically oriented peers, although they dealt with changing genres and stylistic modes, they accepted extant categories of art as unproblematic givens, without considering that other creative forms might be valid for inclusion in the aesthetic field (Zolberg 1997). Yet beyond their ambitious reach, what is remarkable about the Hauser and Sorokin studies is that they were truly exceptional, since on the whole social scientists gave short shrift to the subject of art.

On the Sociological Periphery

Early work in sociology of art.

Even though American sociology had its origins in, and continued to look toward European theoretical formulations, aside from literary and aesthetic scholars who sometimes touched ever so lightly on the social contexts or cultural history surrounding the arts, in the first half of the twentieth century, the sociology of art was largely the concern of a few European scholars. A single major work by Max Weber (1958) dealt directly with a specific art form— music—as a case of his theory of cultural rationalization in the West. When Émile Durkheim founded his important publication, Annales, he situated what he termed “aesthetic sociology” within the sociology that he was trying to establish but only under the residual rubric “ divers ” and beyond considering it as part of the “elementary forms of the religious life” of aboriginal society, he himself did no study of it (Zolberg 1990:38). Only Georg Simmel (1968) wrote frequently about the arts, although less as a social scientist than as a literary and art critic, philosopher, or fashionable essayist (Coser 1965).

By the end of World War II, American sociology, along with American science more generally, became the most dynamic and expansive in the world. This growth was a counterpart to the prominence of the United States on the international scene as the champion of Western humanist values during the war, and defender of freedom during the cold war (Guilbaut 1983; Saunders 1999).

American social scientific scholarship, however, hardly acknowledged the arts as a legitimate object of study. This stance had its nearly symmetrical correlative in the opposing and equally intransigent stance on the part of humanistic scholarship, including literature, aesthetics, art theory, musicology, and history of culture, toward what seemed the threat of the social sciences. The increasing preeminence of the exact sciences during and after the war had drawn many social scientists to adopt the presuppositions, techniques, and methodologies of these disciplines, an orientation that cast a shadow over humanistic subjects such as the arts, and qualitative interpretive methods that art calls for. Still, as higher education was expanded, despite official emphasis on the exact sciences, all university studies were made to grow, including the social sciences and the humanities.

A New Moment in Late-20th Century Sociology

Until the post–World War II period, in the United States, the few scholars who did social studies of the arts were emigré scholars, especially members of the Frankfurt School, such as Theodor Adorno ([1962] 1976), who were escaping persecution by totalitarian states. Straddling the intersection of the humanities and social sciences, these exiles often remained marginal to mainstream intellectual life, were treated as outsiders, and saw themselves in that light (Wilson 1964:v). Their marginality was enhanced by the Marxist orientation to which some adhered, combined more generally with their critical views on American sociology’s “scientistic empiricism,” and, in many cases, contempt for what they took to be its intellectual shallowness (Zolberg 1990:72). Most of them deplored the development of “mass society” and its impact on individual autonomy. Their insistence on taking an evaluative position in their social analysis, rejecting what they regarded as a fictive scientific objectivity, reinforced the exclusion they suffered from the academic mainstream of American sociology. Nevertheless, some of them attracted a following of American scholars, intrigued by and sympathetic to their inquiry in the spheres both of high culture and their critique of culture industries. Although the legacy of earlier misgiving persists, in recent times, it has become considerably muted because of changes in both sets of disciplines that have produced convergences in their orientations (Zolberg 1990).

Foundations for a New Social Study of the Arts

Although in many European countries a considerable body of scholarship was devoted to aesthetics, it was only in the post–World War II period that an autonomous field of sociology of art, distinct from philosophy, history, or criticism materialized. This was the case in France, as the sociologists Pierre Bourdieu ([1979] 1984) and Raymonde Moulin ([1967] 1987, 1992) provided important intellectual leadership and the French state gave institutional support. German philosophical, musicological, and art historical scholarship continued to straddle the social domain as successors to the Frankfurt School tradition for whom the arts, both fine and commercial, were foci of critical study. English literary and historical scholarship infused Raymond Williams’s social analysis of what he saw as the hegemonic role of the arts and served to underpin the development of British culture studies. Williams led the way to open up the social study of the arts by introducing popular forms, such as the movies, radio, jazz, and more popular forms. In the United States, students and faculty who considered the university an agent of government policy, especially through its involvement in the Vietnam War, challenged what they suspected were biases of the social sciences.

Simultaneously, in relation to some of the same developments, the art world itself was undergoing transformation. The trend that had begun much earlier, for the center of the international art market to shift from Paris to New York became a reality in the immediate post–World War II period. As happened during World War I, when the arts were challenged by Marcel Duchamp’s gathering of “found objects”—bathroom plumbing, snow shovels, bicycle wheels—and “assisting” them to the status of art by supplying them with titles and signatures by purported artists, in the 1950s the arts “exploded.” Artists introduced new media, broke the barriers separating genres, and challenged conventional hierarchies, routinely wreaking havoc with artistic traditions, including even the historical avant-garde.

The material conditions that encouraged the entry of large numbers of aspiring artists into the avant-garde art world included growing foundation, corporate, and government support for the arts (Crane 1987). Political ideology played an important role in the form of cold war strategy by American advocates of government support for the arts, who successfully argued for creating a hospitable environment for artistic originality to serve as evidence of the creative freedom that was anathema under authoritarian regimes (Guilbaut 1983; Saunders 1999). Besides providing an opportunity structure for artists, indirectly, it opened the path for social scientists interested in culture, whose forays into studies of the arts gained some legitimacy.

On the basis of what had become “normal sociology” of the 1950s and 1960s, it would have been difficult to predict the efflorescence in the sociology of art that was in the offing. Prior to that time, aside from a few articles, no major sociological works had increased the small, pre-1950s bookshelf. An indication of the new trend appeared in the exploratory work, The Arts in Society a reader edited by Robert Wilson (1964), who wrote a number of its essays and solicited additional ones. Justifying his choices by taking as his point of departure the fairly orthodox idea that artists could “often see what is going on in the society or the psyche a good bit earlier than other men do” (p. vi), he was unabashedly “concerned with the products and producers of high culture.” Only a few years later, another collection of essays heralded an “institutional” approach that examines the functions of the arts in meeting human needs and maintaining social stability (Albrecht, Barnett, and Griff 1970). The editors included studies of the relationship of forms and styles to various social institutions; artists’ careers and their interactions in a variety of artistic milieus; distribution and reward systems; the roles of critics, dealers, and the public in recognizing artists and works.

They were generously open to divergent views that encompassed even Marxian analysts. At the same time, however, these essays demonstrated the infancy of the field of sociology of art: of the authors represented, only onefourth were actually sociologists, while the rest were in anthropology, comparative literature, history, art history, or were practicing artists, painters, dancers, writers. The happy result of this omnium gatherum was that Albrecht and his coauthors contributed to the creation of an American field that integrated European approaches and was strongly cross-disciplinary, ranging over the fine arts, classical and contemporary, as well as folk art, music, dance, and literature, and their corresponding institutional grounding.

A Sociological Space for Art: Current Trends

In light of changes within sociology itself, as well as developments exogenous to the discipline, the sociology of art in the third millennium may be characterized by four trends. First, continuing from already tested frameworks, sociologists examine the roles of the institutions and processes that give rise to or constrain the emergence of artworks. Second, they analyze the artistic practice of creators and patterns of appreciation and acquisition of patrons and collectors. Third, they investigate degrees of access for diverse publics to the arts and the role of the arts in status reproduction. Fourth, in a radical shift, some scholars call into question the very nature of the category “Art,” arguing that “art” needs to be understood not as selfevident but as a social construction. The rapid succession of art styles that has characterized nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe and the United States is taken by some to be emblematic of the innovativeness of modernity but by others as an indication of over-ripeness, cultural decadence, and anomie. For some observers, the entry of commercial art forms into galleries and museums (Cherbo 1997), the newly found respectability of previously denigrated musical forms such as jazz (Adorno 1976), the growing presence of non-Western music, simultaneously in commercial and serious musical domains, are a sign of the West’s decline. Many question whether these genres— new entrants to “Art”—deserve to be so designated (Zolberg 1990).

For sociologists of culture, generally more dispassionate than cultural critics, developments of this kind provide opportunities for research and theorizing that many analysts hope will help to understand the nature of societal transformations more generally. The use and misuse of aesthetic creation in the interest of particular groups or political ends is one of their recurring concerns (Gans 1974, 1999; Goldfarb 1982; Halle 1993). At the same time, the idea of a domain of art free from material purposes outside of itself remains a seemingly unrealizable ideal, both for artists and for publics more generally.

Methodological approaches range from an empiricism that relies on quantitative tools to analyze masses of available data, such as the degree of access to cultural resources (Blau 1988), survey data of art world practices, and audience studies (Gans 1974). Equally empirical, but based on microscopic observation and qualitative analysis of cultural practices, is the ethnography of Howard S. Becker’s (1982) Artworlds. Historical and semiotic perspectives have been imported from literary analysis into the social studies. Even more striking is that the range of works and art forms investigated has burgeoned and includes the commercial domain—culture industry—as well as the more traditional fine arts (Peterson 1997). Increasingly, sociologists, following Gans (1974), recognize that the arts may exclude as well as include. The absence of certain classes of aspiring artists such as women and racial minorities from what were defined as the most distinguishing and distinguished art forms is no longer taken for granted (Bourdieu [1979] 1984).

In its most distinctive manifestation, American sociology of culture has synthesized approaches to the social study of science, religion, and work, under the rubric of the “production of culture” (Peterson 1976). Defining culture in a broadly pragmatic sense that allies it to anthropology, it comprises art, popular culture, science, religion, symbols or, more generally, meanings, Richard Peterson and his associates urged that the questions broached by scholars themselves determine the use of synchronic or diachronic modes according to their appropriateness. Proponents of the production of culture approach consider how cultural products were constituted, accentuating the effects of institutional and structural arrangements, both as facilitators of or impediments to creation. Characteristically, they prefer doing middle-range and microscopic analysis that, they believe, more effectively reveals the impact of laws, culture industry practices, and gatekeepers of the form and content of artworks.

Institutions and Processes

Critics and artists have decried, virtually since their establishment, the role of certain institutions, such as official academies and government agencies or ministries that are supposed to provide support for artistic creation. Following the pioneering sociological study by Harrison White and Cynthia White (1965), among the first to analyze systematically the changing structure of opportunity that the French Academy provided for artists of the French painting world in the nineteenth century, more recently, a study of how academies selected for exclusion was carried out by Gladys Engel Lang and Kurt Lang (1990). Focusing on the revival of etching as an art form in the nineteenth century, they show how keeping out or severely limiting women as students and members by most European academies impeded their entry into the highly regarded world of oil painting. Diverted to other, lesser media, such as etching and watercolor, whose professional organizations were newer and less restrictive, aspiring women artists were able to launch careers and gain a measure of status and recognition.

Research on French art institutions has continued to thrive with the work of Raymonde Moulin on the interplay among art museums, the art market, and government policy in providing official recognition for innovative art (1992). In the United States, a system in which the national government’s support for the arts is far more limited, and even declining, the study of how institutions affect the arts has advanced under the leadership of Paul DiMaggio (1986a, 1986b) and Judith Balfe (1993).

Artistic Practices and Worlds of Art

The most significant contribution to understanding how the arts are constituted was Howard S. Becker’s (1982) Artworlds. By adapting a “sociology of work” approach to study what is customarily viewed as unique creations of individual geniuses, Becker’s premise is that making art is not qualitatively different from engagement in other social activities. Becker argues that far from being an individual act, the making of art needs to be understood as a collective process, in which interactions among participants, of whom the named artist is only one, result in the production of “artworks.” The other participants—support personnel— may range from assistants to servants, to managers or agents, critics, buyers, and organizations. Taking into account the size and complexity of modern societies, Becker does not reduce the arts to a single art world. Instead, he argues that art making is constituted in four principal art worlds, each characterized by a particular style of working, based on its own conventions. Thus, the integrated professional artist is trained according to the conventions of an art form such as music, painting, and dance, within the domain either of high culture or commercial. The Maverick is also trained according to those conventions but refuses to abide by them, preferring to risk isolation and failure to innovate on his own terms. The folk artist works within conventions traditional in his community’s lore. Finally, outside of actual constituted art worlds, the least integrated is the naive artist, untrained in art who follows an internal urging to create works that represent idiosyncratic experiences or ideas about religion, representations of personal remembrances, or even aberrations and madness. Whereas the other art worlds have ties to regular art world institutions or practitioners or make it their business to develop ties to them, naive artists must be “discovered” by others or else remain unknown (Becker 1982).

Art and Its Publics: Status Reproduction and Taste

One of the most misleading adages of all time must be there’s no arguing about taste. In reality, taste is always being argued about. Thorstein Veblen (1934) had been one of the first social scientists to interpret the symbolic meanings of taste in his analysis of leisure class behavior during the Gilded Age. Approximately a half century later, Russell Lynes ([1949] 1980) published his classification of high-, middle-, and low-brow taste preferences, in which artworks and fashion are taken as status markers. On the basis of writings by these and other astute analysts, a number of sociologists have noted that taste, in art, design, and fashion may be a person’s social standing. Far from viewing taste as trivial, purely personal, and difficult to fathom because it is nonrational, sociologists such as Bourdieu contend that taste is social in its formation, symbolic in its expression, and has real social consequences for individuals and social institutions. In his more complex level of analysis, Bourdieu goes beyond the idea of taste as a “right” of consumerism. Instead, his observations of social differences in artistic taste enable him to show linkages among taste, symbolic status, and the mechanisms by which they tend to reproduce existing status hierarchies in society at large from generation to generation. Treating taste as an aspect of the individual’s cultural baggage, a durably structured behavioral orientation whose origin stems from early childhood experience in the family, and schooling, Bourdieu employs a variety of methods, quantitative and ethnographic, to show how taste functions as a form of capital to crystallize inequalities based on economic and social advantages or disadvantages. In this way, taste becomes a badge of social honor or, conversely, of scorn, signaling to influential groups that some are more acceptable than others (Bourdieu [1979] 1984, [1992] 1995).

English sociologists of culture have been pursuing cultural reproduction from a parallel perspective. Although they do not, as a rule, use large surveys of taste, many have analyzed the content and uses of aesthetic culture, both high and popular. Raymond Williams (1981), beginning from a Marxian perspective, and moving between literary or film criticism and academic life, was a major influence on what became the field of Culture Studies. Beyond the simple base-superstructure correspondence of Marxism, in which culture is conceived as merely epiphenomenal to existing production relationships, Williams, Stuart Hall (1980), and Janet Wolff (1984), among many others, conceived of culture as a constitutive practice in the construction of social meanings. They have tried to overcome the prevailing, decontextualized, literary-critical mode of analysis by elucidating the relations between, on the one hand, cultural images, objects, and practices, and on the other, social institutions and processes. Scholars associated with the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies analyzed many aspects of British youth subcultures, and their relationship to new artistic styles.

It would be disingenuous to suggest that there is complete agreement among sociologists about how taste and status are related, and with what consequences. Whereas Bourdieu attributes expertise in manipulating symbolic capital through complex codes available in the lore of dominant class fractions, many others prefer to emphasize observable changes in social stratification patterns, and the conditions of their expression. One of those who question Bourdieu’s analysis is David Halle (1993), who has studied the collection and display of art inside of people’s homes. His interviews with elite collectors of abstract art reveal that, contrary to Bourdieu’s assumption, collectors have little facility or understanding of the works they own. Indeed, such art is nearly as esoteric for them as for nonelites. Halle finds widespread sharing of taste across status lines, especially noting a nearly universal and, it appears, similar mode of appreciation of the landscape genre. Moreover, although educational level is an important enabler of high culture taste, ethnicity and race play important roles in how people select works for the home, in contrast to their responses to questionnaires administered in public spaces (Halle 1993).

Equally unexpected, in their studies of how musical tastes are related to occupational status, Peterson and Simkus suggest that although classical music continues to be a marker for high status occupational groups, more striking is the great breadth of their preference for a variety of music. Thus, whereas less than a third of respondents occupying prestigious occupations say they like classical music best, a somewhat larger proportion say they prefer country and Western music to grand opera. More “distinguishing” is that high-status individuals participate in more cultural activities and enjoy a wider range of music than do those of lesser status. As Peterson and Simkus put it, they are “omnivores” as opposed to less elite groups, whose range of taste in music is much more limited, and whom they characterize as “univores” (Peterson and Simkus 1993:152–86).

For scholars of Renaissance behavior, the omnivore is strongly reminiscent of the character type emergent with the “civilizing process” to which Norbert Elias (1978) devoted his early figurational analysis. In that period of expanded possibilities for travel in Europe as feudalism declined centralized states and monarchical structures began to form, promising young men (and rare women) from more or less isolated localities were being drawn to centers offering new opportunities. They had to learn to behave differently before a new audience and circles of courtly societies than they had in the familiar traditional worlds they inhabited, where their status (for better or for worse), was secure. Cosmopolitanism and the idea of the Renaissance Man came to mark the ideal of behavior, giving rise to a virtual industry of etiquette books, epic poetry, and other literature by authorities such as Erasmus, Castiglione, Chaucer, Shakespeare (Elias 1978). To be considered a country bumpkin was disastrous for seekers after the Renaissance notion of fame. As Bourdieu points out, these qualities became institutionalized in the development of secondary and higher education from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries, and remnants of this cultural structure persist despite, as Bourdieu noted, the twentieth century’s valorization of science and technology (Bourdieu [1979] 1984).

But What Is Art?

Finally, whereas in the past scholars investigating the place of the arts in society have taken for granted the categories of art conventionally agreed to by art world participants, in recent times certain sociologists have turned their attention to tracing how art classifications are constructed. Like the sociologist of science, Bruno Latour (1987), who questions the processes by which certain frameworks of analysis, categories, and findings come to be incorporated into the scientific canon, some see even more plausible reasons for interrogating how artistic canons are established. Art is a stake in the arena of competition that pervades much of social life, as Bourdieu contends, not only for artists themselves, but for their supporters, patrons, collectors, dealers, and for the writers and scholars who constitute the art worlds in which they exist. In recent times, under pressure from potential publics, market forces, including collectors, and political action, and in light of the openness of the fine arts to new media, existing cultural institutions, such as art museums, are exhibiting works previously excluded from consideration as Art. Previously, for example, African carvings were largely consigned to ethnological collections; now, their entry into art museums has taken the form of an upward spiral in prestige; art of the “insane” has attained high market value (Anne E. Bowler as cited in Zolberg and Cherbo 1997:11–36); and women artists are gaining a level of recognition that had routinely been denied them (Zolberg and Cherbo 1997:1–8). In the worlds of culture industry as well, new musical forms such as “Rock-n-roll” and Rap have emerged from the interplay of business developments, technological innovations, and enacted statutes in such fields as copyright law, which set the parameters for works to come to public attention (Ennis 1992:5–7).

The seemingly impermeable barrier between high art and popular art that took over a century to construct (Levine 1988) has since been breached countless times, not only in America but in Europe as well (Circle 1993:12). In the past three decades, even the massive wall between commercial art forms and the “disinterested” arts has endured a jolting to the point of crumbling. The entry of Latin American, Asian, and African visual and musical forms and motifs into the Western dominated canon has gained increasing legitimacy and audiences (Zolberg 1997:53–72). Moreover, since any kind of art—fine, popular, commercial—may be disseminated through commercial channels of distribution, adding the interplay of official policy with market forces helps to thicken one’s understanding of processes of democratization.

21st Century Prospects for the Arts in American Sociology

By the beginning of the third millennium, the sociological study of culture and the arts is no longer a stepchild of the serious business of sociologists. If not central, then the arts are at least legitimately scholarly, as opposed to a frivolous subject. This flowering came about despite the traditional anti-aesthetic orientation in American social science and the more general unease between social science and the arts. Still, the position of the arts in the social science disciplines continues to remain tenuous and requires repeatedly renewed justification as an intellectual enterprise. In part, this is due to the fact that the crux of the arts since the Renaissance has been the artist as an individual, a tradition of several centuries that emphasizes the uniqueness of the actor and the work he (rarely, she) created. While the notion of such individual agency is relatively compatible with the discipline of psychology, it is less easily reconciled with the collectivist understanding of behavior by sociology. As noted above, this perception underlies the view of art as a collective process (Becker 1982) and sociologists’ emphasis on the production rather than creation of culture. Retaining or reinserting the individual artist as a creative agent has both ethical importance, since it implies respect for the autonomy of the individual, and intellectual validity in a discipline that could easily reduce art to no more than an outcome of general structures and processes. Thus, whereas culture has become a deeply embedded component of sociology dealing with science, theory, macrohistorical questions, education, religion, ethnicity, to name a few, the place of the traditional fine arts has not grown proportionately.

Two edited books published under the aegis of the ASA Culture Section seem to confirm this observation. Whereas the first, Diana Crane’s (1994) edited collection includes an essay on the arts, the second volume, edited by Elizabeth Long, includes not even one chapter on the fine arts and only one that even approaches this domain (Long 1997). On the other hand, the third and most recent collection of Culture Section sponsored essays suggests that the arts have conquered a new place in the sociological sun (Mark D. Jacobs and Nancy Weiss Hanrahan 2005). The coeditors rehearse the several decades in American social science characterized by “the cultural turn,” the reconceptualization of culture away from the functionalist emphasis on the need for culture to bring about a homogeneous consensus in society. Instead, proponents of the cultural turn sought variations and heterogeneity in the arrival on the public scene of pluralism and tolerance of difference. Rather than require uniformity, the goal is for a more “organic” (as in Durkheim’s formulation) conception to be the basis of social solidarity, not to promote conformity but individual human agency.

The cultural turn had challenged the elite standing of high culture by recognizing the existence of talent and striving among all social groups and the democratization embedded in Pragmatism. For all the attractiveness of openness to different forms, culture was frequently reduced to unending debate on ideology, functionalism, and essentialism versus constructivism. In a break from the past, Jacobs and Hanrahan (2005) put forth a new idea in the field of cultural sociology. They refer to “this newly emerging conception of culture as . . . an aesthetic one, which offers possibilities for intensifying and re-imagining the experience of civic life” (p. 12). From a static or, at the most, slowly changing notion of societal existence, their new approaches emphasize the dynamism of process and human intervention and their impact on existing traditional structures. Beyond these important changes, the new aesthetic conception helps, instead, in the more than two dozen essays by American, Canadian, European, and Asian sociologists, to turn toward normative commitments for the revival of civic discourse in relation to legality and social justice, the politics of recognition, and “the potentialities of ordinary experience” Jacobs and Hanrahan (2005).

Democratization in Diversity

In the context of American idea systems, Peterson’s innovations and the efforts of others associated with the production of culture school are likely to continue to drive research. This approach prepares the way for scholars to enlarge their repertoire of questions and take into account the impact on creation and reception of the arts in light of the enormous changes in the ethnic make up of the American population since the end of World War II. Sources of immigration have been changed decisively by new laws and population movements: Hispanic, Chinese, Indian/Pakistani, Middle Eastern, Russian, peoples of a broad range of educational levels and aspirations. They provide an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the interactions with the varied Anglo-centric cultural choices that have until now been the focus of most studies. Demands for access to elite culture now include not merely “visitors” from modest economic backgrounds, whose entry is far from being attained either in North America or in Europe (Circle 1993:96, 103, 129), but crosscutting socioeconomic distinctions, differences of gender, ethnicity, and race or religion. Each of these may have aesthetic implications that the conflict, as usually expressed— quantity versus quality—does not encompass.

The extraordinary transformation of the international arena in recent years requires that scholarship move more explicitly outside of the American scholarly world and into the wider international realm. This is essential in a world that brings together what had been largely national concerns. As is true of other intellectual fields, the arts are no longer understandable in terms of one society alone since few societies are either homogeneous or sealed off from other geographic, national, or societal units. Thus, whereas it may still be possible to study such issues as arts censorship in the context of a single society, it is more likely that political transformations open the door to new conflicts as global phenomena.

Related to globalization, technological innovations in cyberspace and computer technology militate even more poignantly against retaining the single society as the primary unit of analyses. They not only permit new forms of artistic expression but also enhance attempts to evade control over art content. Providing new avenues for artistic dissemination, they also substitute for direct contact with the storehouses of art, the museum. This suggests that this contextual metamorphosis will set the parameters of the next phase of studies in the sociology of the arts. Cultural sociologists have through theory, example, and practice contributed to the vital and potentially dangerous debates that pervade questions of “identity,” including ethnicity, gender, race, or religion, with strongly political loadings. Pursuing questions of meaning, identity, and value in terms of American society alone is clearly insufficient to understanding social processes and emergent structures. As American sociologists burst the bonds of narrow parochialism and enter the adventurous terrain of global processes, they foster a cosmopolitanism that challenges existing approaches and conceptualizations of the social sciences.

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• Balfe, Judith H., ed. 1993. Paying the Piper: Causes and Consequences of Art Patronage. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
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Abstract: Large language models with vision capabilities (VLMs), e.g., GPT-4o and Gemini 1.5 Pro are powering countless image-text applications and scoring high on many vision-understanding benchmarks. We propose BlindTest, a suite of 7 visual tasks absurdly easy to humans such as identifying (a) whether two circles overlap; (b) whether two lines intersect; (c) which letter is being circled in a word; and (d) counting the number of circles in a Olympic-like logo. Surprisingly, four state-of-the-art VLMs are, on average, only 56.20% accurate on our benchmark, with \newsonnet being the best (73.77% accuracy). On BlindTest, VLMs struggle with tasks that requires precise spatial information and counting (from 0 to 10), sometimes providing an impression of a person with myopia seeing fine details as blurry and making educated guesses. Code is available at: this https URL

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The ‘Risky Research Review Act’ would do more harm than good

By David Gillum , Rebecca Moritz , and Gregory D. Koblentz July 19, 2024

I n an era of rapid scientific and technological advances when politicians and scientists are struggling to find the right balance between innovation and safety, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has introduced the Risky Research Review Act (S. 4667) in an effort to navigate this treacherous terrain. But instead of providing clarity and security, this legislation threatens to cast a shadow over the future of life sciences research and slow it down.

The act proposes creating a Life Sciences Research Security Board to review federally funded life sciences research involving “high-risk” experiments and to decide if such research should be funded. But the bill’s definition of high-risk life sciences research is overly broad and ambiguous, and duplicative of existing regulations covering agents of bioterrorism concern and dual-use research . It goes beyond a list of potential pandemic pathogens and experiments to enhance pathogenic characteristics (so-called gain-of-function research ), and includes pathogen collection and surveillance. The act would also cover — and it’s hard to get any broader than this — research that “could pose a threat to public health, safety, or national security.”

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Research considered “high risk” under this bill includes experiments that have significant benefits, such as developing new vaccines and medical treatments, understanding how pathogens behave, and improving strategies to handle future pandemics. These advancements can save lives and lead to better responses to global infectious disease outbreaks. To be sure, all research has risk and the potential to cause harm without appropriate mitigation strategies, so some oversight is certainly warranted, especially for work with pathogens that have the potential to cause pandemics.

But this bill’s expansive scope could easily cause many research projects to be labeled high risk that aren’t, resulting in unnecessary regulatory burdens and stifling innovation in low-risk fields. To compound the problem, the bill’s definitions of key terms like “dual-use research” and “potential pandemic pathogen” are inconsistent with current and new federal policies , which could cause confusion and hinder valuable scientific research.

Related: How ARPA-H can master the subtle art of risk-taking

The proposed Life Sciences Research Security Board would have the unprecedented authority to veto funding for life sciences research, regardless of whether it is deemed high risk. This authority would effectively place the entire federally funded life sciences research enterprise under the board’s jurisdiction. This provision is particularly worrisome because it would allow the board to overrule agency decisions on a wide range of life sciences research, potentially including projects with minimal, or even no significant risk. Such extensive veto power could disrupt the research funding process, causing extensive delays that hamper scientific progress​​. This broad oversight could lead to a significant increase in the volume of research proposals subject to review by the board, further slowing down the funding process and creating bottlenecks that impede timely scientific advancements​​.

The composition of the proposed board also raises serious concerns about its ability to effectively oversee high-risk research. The board would consist of political appointees, including life scientists and national security experts, but lacks a requirement for members to have expertise in biosafety and biosecurity. This omission is critical, as effective oversight of high-risk research requires nuanced understanding and practical, hands-on experience in these areas​.

The bill’s provisions regarding conflicts of interest defined too broadly could also disqualify many well-qualified individuals from serving on the board. It would exclude scientists with experience conducting high-risk research, which could result in a board lacking the necessary knowledge, expertise, and skills to make informed decisions about the risks and benefits of life sciences research, thereby undermining its effectiveness and credibility.

Related: EcoHealth Alliance: Covid’s anti-science mob extracting its pound of flesh

Given the significant issues with the Risky Research Review Act, a more effective solution would be the establishment of an independent federal agency or unit dedicated to all aspects of biosafety and biosecurity, including oversight of research with potential pandemic pathogens. Such an institution would have the authority to oversee both publicly and privately funded research, conduct and sponsor applied research on biosafety and biosecurity, and support workforce development in these critical areas.

This independent entity would ensure consistent and expert oversight of high-risk biological research, free from the political influences that could compromise the proposed board. It would also be better positioned to conduct education and training and foster a culture of safety and security within the life sciences research community. By supporting workforce development, the agency would help build a robust pipeline of biosafety and biosecurity professionals and informed scientists to ensure long-term sustainability and effectiveness in managing these risks.

While the Risky Research Review Act aims to address legitimate concerns about the potential hazards associated with life sciences research, its current form is deeply flawed, posing significant threats to scientific progress and public safety. The broad and ambiguous definition of high-risk research, the overreach in funding decisions, and the inadequacies in the board’s composition all point to a need for a more thoughtful and effective approach. Establishing an independent federal entity dedicated to biosafety and biosecurity would provide the expert oversight necessary to protect public safety without stifling scientific innovation.

Only through such a balanced approach can we ensure that life sciences research continues to advance, bringing vital benefits to society while managing the risks responsibly.

David Gillum is associate vice president of compliance and research administration at the University of Nevada, Reno, an associate editor of Applied Biosafety, and past president of the American Biological Safety Association (ABSA) International. Rebecca Moritz is co-founder of Tutela Strategies and is the immediate past president of ABSA International. Gregory D. Koblentz is director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government and co-director of the Global BioLabs Initiative.

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Nursing aide turned sniper: Thomas Crooks' mysterious plot to kill Trump

BUTLER, Pa. – Donald Trump and would-be assassin Thomas Crooks started on their violent collision course long before the former president's political rally ended in gunshots and death.

Crooks, 20, was a one-time registered Republican, a nursing home worker with no criminal record, shy in school, and living in a decent middle-class neighborhood in suburban Pennsylvania with his parents. Trump, 78, was eyeing Crooks' state as a key battleground – but not in the way that anyone envisioned on Saturday.

Riding high on polls showing that he's got a strong chance of toppling President Joe Biden, the former president had been campaigning for reelection in swing states, and Pennsylvania is a key prize. Trump won the state in 2016 but lost it four years later.

And on July 3, Trump's campaign announced he would hold a rally at the Butler Farm Show grounds, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh.

"Pennsylvania has been ravaged by monumental surges in violent crime as a direct result of Biden’s and Democrats’ pro-criminal policies," Trump's campaign said in announcing the event, noting that when he's elected, he'll "re-establish law and order in Pennsylvania!"

The Saturday attack on Trump turned the heated rhetoric of the 2024 presidential campaign freshly violent. Authorities said bullets fired from Crooks' AR-15 style rifle about 150 yards away grazed Trump's ear, killed a rally attendee as he dove to protect his family, and critically wounded two others. Secret Service agents killed Crooks moments later.

Attack planned well in advance

Investigators are still seeking Crooks' motive – despite his Republican leanings, he had donated recently to a progressive voter-turnout campaign in 2021 – but indicated he'd planned the attack well in advance.

The shooting marks the first assassination attempt against a former or current U.S. president since President Ronald Reagan was injured in a March 1981 shooting at a Washington, D.C., hotel. 

There are many questions about why Crooks turned into a would-be presidential assassin, firing indiscriminately into hordes of political supporters.

FBI special agent Kevin Rojek said on a call with media that law enforcement located "a suspicious device" when they searched Crooks' vehicle and that it's being analyzed at the FBI crime lab.

"As far as the actions of the shooter immediately prior to the event and any interaction that he may have had with law enforcement, we're still trying to flesh out those details now," Rojek said.

None of Crooks' shocked neighbors or high school classmates described him as violent or that he in any way signaled he was intent on harming Trump. Sunday morning, reporters and curious locals swarmed the leafy streets of the home where Crooks lived with his parents in Bethel Park, about 50 miles from the shooting scene.

Those who knew him described a quiet young man who often walked to work at a nearby nursing home. One classmate said he was bullied and often ate alone in high school.

Sunday morning, neighbor Cathy Caplan, 45, extended her morning walk about a quarter mile to glimpse what was happening outside Crooks’ home.“It came on the morning news and I was like ‘I know that street,’” said Caplan, who works for the local school district. "It feels like something out of a movie.”

Dietary aide turned deadly killer

Authorities say they are examining Crooks' phone, social media and online activity for motivation. They said he carried no identification and his body had to be identified via DNA and biometric confirmation.

Although no possible motive has yet been released, Crooks nevertheless embodies the achingly familiar profile of an American mass shooter: a young white man, isolated from peers and armed with a high-powered rifle. His attack was one of at least 59 shootings in the United States on Saturday, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

According to records and online posts of the ceremony, Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School, about 42 miles from Butler County, on June 3, 2022. That same day, Trump met briefly with investigators at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida as they examined whether he improperly took classified documents with him when he left the White House.

A classmate remembered Crooks as a frequent target of bullies. Kids picked on him for wearing camouflage to class and his quiet demeanor, Jason Kohler, 21, said. Crooks usually ate lunch alone, Kohler said.

Crooks worked as a dietary aide at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation, less than a mile from his home. In a statement provided to USA TODAY on Sunday, Marcie Grimm, the facility's administrator, said she was "shocked and saddened to learn of his involvement."

Neighbor Dean Sierka, 52, has known Crooks and his parents for years. The families live a few doors apart on a winding suburban street, and Sierka’s daughter, who attended elementary, middle and high school with Crooks, remembers him as quiet and shy. Sierka said they saw Crooks at least once a week, often when he was walking to the nursing home from his parents' three-bedroom brick house.

"You wouldn’t have expected this," Sierka said. "The parents and the family are all really nice people."

"It's crazy," he added.

Secret Service role: Did they do enough?

Founded in 1865, the Secret Service is supposed to stop this kind of attack, and dozens of agents were present Saturday. As the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump's public appearances are managed by the Secret Service, which works with local law enforcement to develop security plans and crowd-management protocols.

In the days before the event, the agency's experts would have scouted the location, identified security vulnerabilities, and designed a perimeter to keep Trump and rally attendees safe. Congress and the Secret Service are now investigating how Crooks was able to get so close to the former president, and several witnesses reported seeing him in the area with the gun before Trump took the stage.

As the event doors opened at 1 p.m., the temperature was already pushing close to 90, and ticketed attendees oozed through metal detectors run by members of the Secret Service's uniformed division. Similar to airport security screenings, rallygoers emptied their pockets to prove they weren't carrying guns or other weapons.

Media reports indicate the Secret Service had in place, as usual, a counter-sniper team scanning the surrounding area for threats.

In an exclusive interview, former Secret Service Director Julia Pierson told USA TODAY that maintaining such a sniper security perimeter is part of the agency's responsibility for safeguarding protectees like Trump from harm. She said agents typically consider 1,000 yards to be the minimum safe distance for sniper attacks.

The Secret Service has confirmed that it is investigating how Crooks got so close to Trump, who took the stage shortly after 6 p.m. Officials say Crooks' rifle was legally obtained but have not yet released specifics.

Outside the venue at that time, Greg Smith says he tried desperately to get the attention of police. He told the BBC that he and his friends saw a man crawling along a roof overlooking the rally. Other witnesses said they also saw a man atop the American Glass Research building outside the official event security perimeter, well within the range of a 5.56 rifle bullet.

"We noticed the guy bear-crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50 feet away from us," Smith told the BBC. "He had a rifle, we could clearly see him with a rifle."

Smith told the BBC that the Secret Service eventually saw him and his friends pointing at the man on the roof.

"I'm thinking to myself, why is Trump still speaking, why have they not pulled him off the stage?" Smith said. "Next thing you know, five shots rang out."

From his nearby deck, Trump supporter Pat English watched as the former president took the stage to Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A.," and attendees raised their cell phones to record.

English had taken his grandson to see the rally earlier but left when it got too hot. From his deck, they listened as Trump began speaking at 6:05 p.m., backed by a crown of red-hatted MAGA supporters waving "fire Joe Biden" signs.

And then gunfire began.

Boom, boom, boom

"I heard a 'boom, boom, boom' and then screams,” English said Sunday. "I could see people running and the police run in."

Trump was saying the word "happened" as the first pop rang out. He reached up to grab his ear as two more shots echoed, and the crowd behind him – and Trump himself – ducked. Plainclothes Secret Service agents piled atop the president as a fusillade of shots rang out, apparently the Secret Service killing Crooks.

The crowd screamed, and the venue's sound system picked up the agents atop Trump planning to move the former president to safety. One yelled, "shooter's down. Let's move, let's move."

The agents then helped Trump back to his feet as they shielded him on all sides.

The sound system then picked up Trump's voice: "Wait, wait," he said, before turning to the audience and triumphantly raising his fist to yell "fight, fight" as the crowd cheered, blood streaming down his face.

By 6:14 p.m. Trump's motorcade was racing from the scene, and in a later statement, Trump's campaign said he was checked out at a local medical facility.

"I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear," Trump said in a statement. "I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening."

Firefighter 'hero' gunned down

Outside of the Butler Township Administration Office Sunday afternoon, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro identified the rally attendee killed by Crooks as Corey Comperatore, a firefighter, father of two and longtime Trump supporter.

“Corey died a hero,” Shapiro said. “Corey dove on his family to protect them last night at this rally. Corey was the very best of us. May his memory be a blessing.”

Two other Pennsylvanians are still undergoing treatment for their injuries, Shapiro said.

Pennsylvania State Police identified two wounded attendees David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township. Both are hospitalized and listed in stable condition. Shapiro said he spoke with the family of one victim and received a message from the other.

Biden spoke briefly with Trump on Saturday night, and the president condemned the assassination attempt as “sick.” He said there’s no place for political violence in the U.S. and called on Americans to unite together to condemn it.

But earlier in the week, Biden told campaign donors in a private phone call it was time to stop talking about his own disastrous presidential debate performance and start targeting Trump instead.

"I have one job and that's to beat Donald Trump," Biden said. "We're done talking about the (June 27) debate. It's time to put Trump in the bullseye."

Republicans across the country have used similar language to attack their opponents over the years, and political scientists say violent rhetoric used worldwide almost invariably leads to physical violence.

On Sunday, someone parked a truck-mounted electronic billboard at the gates to the Butler Farm Show grounds reading "Democrats attempted assassination," along with a picture of Trump clutching an American flag, his face overlaid with a bullseye crosshairs.

Authorities say they have not yet determined a motive for Crooks' attack. But in a statement, Trump declared the shooting an act of evil and thanked God for preventing the unthinkable.

"We will fear not, but instead remain resilient in our faith and defiant in the face of wickedness," Trump said.

And he said he'd be back on the campaign trail for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which starts Monday.

"Based on yesterday’s terrible events, I was going to delay my trip to Wisconsin, and the Republican National Convention, by two days," Trump said on his Truth Social account Sunday, "but have just decided that I cannot allow a 'shooter,' or potential assassin, to force change to scheduling, or anything else."

Contributing: David Jackson, Aysha Bagchi, Christopher Cann, Bryce Buyakie, Emily Le Coz, Josh Meyer, USA TODAY Network

How the assassination attempt unfolded : Graphics, maps, audio analysis show what happened

zim & zou's flying horse paper installation adorns Hermès tokyo window display

Flying faubourg installation by zim & zou.

Known for their intricate paper installations, French artist duo Zim & Zou unveil a new vibrant piece to adorn the Hermès window in Tokyo’s Ginza Mitsukoshi. Titled Flying Faubourg, the installation pays homage to the brand’s equestrian spirit by featuring a floating hybrid of a horse and a machine, adorned in warm sunset hues. This imaginative creation merges the typical Haussmannian architecture of Hermès’ iconic storefront at 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré with fantastical elements, presenting a vision of the structure floating over the city of Tokyo.

an intricate paper sculpture for hermès ginza mitsukoshi

Zim & Zou, the self-proclaimed paper pirates, created this installation for the opening of the Hermès Ginza Mitsukoshi store. The centerpiece is their most intricate sculpture to date, assembled in their studio in France before being shipped to Japan for final setup. The sculpture, held together by magnets, features smaller vessels suspended above and buildings below.

The French artist duo describes the piece as a symbol of freedom of thought and expression. With its mane flowing in the wind, the horse gazes forward, reflecting the luxury brand’s origins. It invites viewers to explore Tokyo’s iconic landmarks like the Tokyo Skytree, Rainbow Bridge, and Tokyo Tower, which are depicted below. ‘Frozen for the time of a window display, the flying Faubourg continues to boldly explore the wonders that the world and imagination have to offer,’ the artists share. 

the horse gazes forward, reflecting Hermès’ origins

Zim & Zou describes the piece as a symbol of freedom of thought and expression

project info: 

name: Flying Faubourg artist: Zim & Zou | @zimandzou location: Hermès Ginza Mitsukoshi, Tokyo, Japan

happening now! sky-frame’s ‘my point of view’ film presents david montalba’s surf-inspired architecture in malibu, using their expansive glass doors for uninterrupted ocean views – see the whole video on designboom! 

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• Viral pathogenesis
• Viral transmission

Highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza (HPAI H5N1) viruses occasionally infect, but typically do not transmit, in mammals. In the Spring of 2024, an unprecedented outbreak of HPAI H5N1 in bovine herds occurred in the US, with virus spread within and between herds, infections in poultry and cats, and spillover into humans, collectively indicating an increased public health risk 1-4 . Here, we characterized an HPAI H5N1 virus isolated from infected cow milk in mice and ferrets. Like other HPAI H5N1 viruses, the bovine H5N1 virus spread systemically, including to the mammary glands of both species; however, this tropism was also observed for an older HPAI H5N1 virus isolate. Importantly, bovine HPAI H5N1 virus bound to sialic acids expressed in human upper airways and inefficiently transmitted to exposed ferrets (one of four exposed ferrets seroconverted without virus detection). Bovine HPAI H5N1 virus thus possesses features that may facilitate infection and transmission in mammals.

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These authors contributed equally: Amie J. Eisfeld, Asim Biswas, Lizheng Guan, Chunyang Gu, Tadashi Maemura

Authors and Affiliations

Influenza Research Institute, Dept. of Pathobiological Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

Amie J. Eisfeld, Asim Biswas, Lizheng Guan, Chunyang Gu, Tadashi Maemura, Sanja Trifkovic, Tong Wang, Lavanya Babujee, Randall Dahn, Peter J. Halfmann, Gabriele Neumann & Yoshihiro Kawaoka

Heritage Vet Partners, Johnson, KS, USA

Tera Barnhardt

Department of Biochemistry, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Shizuoka, Shizuoka, Japan

Yasuo Suzuki

Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, Canyon, TX, USA

Alexis Thompson

Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, College Station, TX, USA

Amy K. Swinford & Kiril M. Dimitrov

Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

Keith Poulsen

Department of Virology, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Yoshihiro Kawaoka

The University of Tokyo Pandemic Preparedness, Infection and Advanced research center (UTOPIA), University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

The Research Center for Global Viral Diseases, National Center for Global Health and Medicine Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan

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Correspondence to Yoshihiro Kawaoka .

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Eisfeld, A.J., Biswas, A., Guan, L. et al. Pathogenicity and transmissibility of bovine H5N1 influenza virus. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07766-6

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Received : 01 June 2024

Accepted : 28 June 2024

Published : 08 July 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07766-6

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