What does influence the way we see art?

Art lovers viewing a painting they believe is fake have a wholly different response to it from those who (are made to) believe it’s genuine, researchers have found.

The neuroscience and aesthetics based experiment compared how the human brains would react to works people thought were genuine with their responses to works they were informed were fakes. The researchers scanned the brains of viewers as they saw Rembrandt portraits - some imitations and fakes and a few others which were authentic.

A series of brain scans revealed the enjoyment of art was largely based on the background given. The measurements were done with a ‘functional magnetic resonance imaging’ (FMRI) system, which mapped the parts of the brain used in a specific mental process.

It was concluded that the pleasure recorded in brain activity of the viewer depended on their thinking that a painting was authentic. The study established the strength of suggestibility in our artistic responses.

The pretension-puncturing, novel experiment suggests that art appreciation is linked strongly to the accompanying information – and not an objective judgment. The pleasure derived from a masterpiece is essentially shaped by someone being told that it’s an authentic work. A sense of aesthetic pleasure was not there when the viewers watched a ‘fake’ work. The brain indulged in strategy and planning, s trying to find out why this painting was not an authentic one.

Prof. Martin Kemp of Oxford University concludes it goes to show ‘the way we view is not rational’. He added: “Even when we can’t distinguish between two artworks, just the knowledge that one of them was done by a renowned artist makes us respond differently”

Once told a painting was fake or authentic, the responses were shaped on basis of this assumption, irrespective of the actual authenticity of the image shown. The brain activity mirrored their suspicions rather than reflecting their pleasure, even if the viewer was made to watch an authentic masterpiece.