DOES KNOWING EQUAL TO EXPERIENCING? THE IMPACT OF ART INTEREST AND KNOWLEDGE ON INSPIRATION FREQUENCY

Abstract

Inspirations refers to an evoked state of creativity, which implies motivation, evocation, and transcendence. Traditionally in the literature inspiration is divided to two states such as being inspired by or inspired to. Inspiration is influenced by information and knowledge, nevertheless several studies indicate a positive association between academic major and inspiration occurrence frequency. Previous study results indicate that domain specific knowledge such as visual art has a major impact on visual stimuli processing, reasoning, and evaluation. Although inspiration is claimed to be a fundamental phenomenon on the artistic creativity, its psychological importance has been often neglected. In the current study we investigated the influence of visual art expertise on inspiration frequency, using the Vienna Art Interest and Art Knowledge Questionnaire (VAIAK) and Inspiration Scale (IS). We specified art expertise on the dimensions of art interest and art knowledge. Participants with different art experiences have been gathered (N = 77) and were distributed into three separate groups by their visual art experience acquisition (art experience in higher education, art experience in high school, and self-taught artists). Our main results indicate a significant effect of art knowledge on inspiration frequency, indicating that participants with higher art knowledge scores experience inspiration frequently compared to participants with scores under average. Neither art experience acquisition nor art interest have been found to have a significant effect on inspiration frequency. Our result show evidence for a significant interaction effect between art interest and art knowledge on inspiration frequency. Our results are in line with results from previous studies regarding art knowledge and inspiration state experience frequencies. Although inspiration frequency might be determined by art knowledge, we can conclude that art experience acquisition does not influence inspiration frequency.