Psychology and art history. How to recognize an artist by style?
It would seem that there is little in common between art criticism, psychology and the examination of painting as branches of scientific knowledge. But how does the analytical process of recognizing the familiar “hand” of an artist take place in the mind of an art critic or art connoisseur?
Already seen works of art are stored in a person’s memory, and when a new one appears, consciousness compares it with an already existing “database,” like a computer. This is why it is so useful to read about art, listen to lectures, go to museums, or study art with a professional art historian. The fact of instant recognition of the “hand” of a familiar painter substantiates the comments of 19th century art historians about the role of intuition in the research and study of painting. How to teach to identify an art school and the author of a work of art?
Soviet psychologist O. Nikiforova (“The miracle is being solved. Notes of a psychologist”) deciphered this process: “It has been established that intuition can appear only when a person has accumulated enough impressions of homogeneous objects and phenomena of reality related to the solution of a given problem. We perceive homogeneous objects and phenomena not in isolation from each other, but in relation to previously perceived ones, highlighting what is similar and different in them. Therefore, in the cerebral cortex, traces from the perception of homogeneous objects and phenomena form a system in which a common core is distinguished (“the average result, according to Sechenov)” and zones of the typical, less typical and atypical for these objects. Such systems of traces from homogeneous impressions and their action are the psycho-physiological mechanism of intuition.” Therefore, being already familiar with the work of, for example, Rembrandt, when we see his painting, we instantly recognize the hand of the master, and when we approach the plaque in the museum, we are immediately convinced that we are right.
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