Is your art stressing people out?

 Stress is related to the environment you live in. As an artist, the ideal is 

to live in calm, peaceful and intriguing surroundings where earth meets atmosphere.

Lida Van Bers

 Dreamer Dream No More

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/dreamer-dream-no-more-lianne-schneider.html

I know my title today seems like an absurd question, particularly if you pursue some aspect of the creative arts specifically as a mechanism to be an outlet for yourself, to be cathartic or therapeutic for you or in some way to relax after a stressful day or week. But it's possible that what works in a positive way for you is actually inducing stress in your viewers!! Oh no!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How could that be and what does that mean in terms of marketing?

Well first - let's look at color -

 

A new study published in Science magazine revealed that while the color red can help you be more accurate in your work, the color blue spurs creativity. For most people, red signals caution, danger or mistakes while blue suggests relaxation, peace and freedom. Blue is more conducive to imaginative problem solving while red stimulates attention to detail, recall and being "right." Sounds as if red is more stress inducing than blue - at least initially. 

"People are not aware of this effect at all," says researcher Juliet Zhu of the University of British Columbia, who studies how environmental cues affect behavior. It's entirely a subconscious response. The subconscious effect of color is a hot area of psychology research, in part because marketers try to use color to hook people onto whatever they are trying to sell.

What about straight lines versus curves? Our brains are actually hardwired to prefer curves - even in architecture! Time and again, when asked, people prefer rooms and buildings and objects that are curved rather than linear - watches with round faces over square ones, for example. We like rooms to have more curves than stark lines, even if we have to accomplish that by floor design, furniture style. etc. There's a fabulous article on architectural design and emotion here.

So what does all this have to do with whether the art we're creating is causing negative emotions or stress in our viewers and whether it's more or less marketable because of the choices we make? Even putting your images on a blue background can make a difference apparently according to researchers studying the effects of color on advertising. But, there's one more factor to consider...countless studies show that images of nature or that give the impression of nature in terms of color, curve and subject matter actually reduce stress and leave people feeling more positive. Here's a little test to see how your brain responds to certain images. Consider that your own response is likely to be the same as the majority of people who view your art...we may make fun of "pretty pictures" but apparently they sell for a very good reason - people feel good looking at them! Abstracts too that people can associate with natural curves and favorite colors are usually more popular than stark geometrics in colors associated with danger or darkness. At least, that's what the research suggests...I understand about the curves and nature but I'm not certain I agree about color. I think a good deal depends on hue and brightness and where on the spectrum your color palette fits best. I'm going to keep a close eye on what is selling over the next few days and see if they're right.

Heroic virtue #2 - Empathy and Art

Empathy is "seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, 

 and feeling with the heart of another." 

 Alfred Adler

Pieta 2

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/pieta-2-lianne-schneider.html

 Yesterday I spoke of philosopher Sam Keen’s book, Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man, and mentioned that in it, the author lists 10 heroic virtues one must possess in order to complete the sacred quest to ignite the flame in one’s heart. And although Keen was writing to men about how to do that in today’s society, he was actually outlining for all of us the qualities we need most desperately to live “heroically” through difficult times. The first virtue he named was wonder – that opening to mystery that I spoke of in yesterday’s post. I hope that I left you curious about the rest of those virtues and how each might apply to art/artists.  

The second heroic virtue mentioned by Sam Keen is empathy – defined at Dictionary.com first as…the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.  Psychologists Arthur Ciaramicoli and Katherine Ketcham explain, “When we move out of ourselves and into the other person’s experience, seeing the world with that person, as if we were that person, we are practicing empathy.”

But it’s the second definition of empathy that applies particularly to art…“the imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself:  By means of empathy, a great painting becomes a mirror of the self.” In fact, the first use of the word empathy in 1904 was used in discussing a concept of art appreciation.  

Even before the actual use of the word, in 1897, Leo Tolstoy described the quality as “infectiousness” or “contagiousness” in his book “What is Art? "Art," he said, "is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them…” Furthermore, Tolstoy claimed that no matter how interesting a supposed artwork might be, it isn’t a work of art unless it creates a sense of union and shared emotion and the work itself arises from the artist’s own inner need to express his feeling.

In other words, the primary purpose of art is to evoke not just feeling but empathy, the heroic quality that Sam Keen equates with being “spiritually available” and open to others. Empathy makes it possible for one to give oneself to others and to live vibrantly without concern for possessions or self-image. One does not have empathy – rather, one IS empathetic and good art evokes that response by encouraging the viewer to feel the feelings the artist experienced in creating the work. Art is not art unless it is a two way street that engages the emotions of both the artist and the viewers/readers/listeners. That emotion can be awe, sadness, grief, joy, wonder, tenderness, a sense of poignant remembrance…any reaction by which the viewer “catches” the feeling the artist had when creating the piece. Some artists evoke a unique combination of emotions that draws the viewer into the image immediately – like this image (and many others in her portfolio) by Trudi Simmonds.

She tells a story with each piece she does and her reverence for and appreciation of horses in particular not only engages me but evokes such poignant memories or dreamlike worlds that I honestly can’t explain it…I can only step into the world she created and feel it. She accomplishes what Tolstoy required of art – an empathetic response – because her own emotional involvement is evident in each work. 

Clearly, empathy is essential to a true work of art…are you an empathetic artist? Are you evoking an empathetic response to your work? If you aren’t creating because you simply HAVE to and because you have something you feel compelled to share, then probably not. But if you are creating from your own empathetic virtues, then chances are your viewers can feel that too.