On universality of perception of movement and time in the artworks

Abstract

The article examines the issue of perception of movement and time in works of fine art. The perception of works of art is not only related to perceptual processes and the cognitive sphere of a person, but is a personal and worldview issue, as it is related to the system of personality stereotypes - cognitive phenotypes formed in the process of life and professional experience. The conventional view on the perception of movement and its intensity in visual arts, which was considered as universal for a long time, was that the perception of movement from left to right is more natural and fast, and movement from right to left, respectively, is complicated, slow and less intense. These provisions became the basis for an experimental study of the perception of movement and time in works of art, in which two groups of respondents participated. The experimental group (N=38) consisted of people who are not closely familiar with the art and rules of composition arrangement. The control group (N=30) consisted of students professionally studying art history and visual arts. Both groups only included people whose first language had left to right writing. As experimental material, the subjects were offered to answer how they see the intensity of movement in paintings by famous artists. Each picture was presented in an original and a flipped image, where the movement was reflected in the opposite direction. The results of the study analyzes using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov λ statistical test, which demonstrates the presence or absence of regularities in the subjects' choice of picture numbers that correspond to forward or reverse movement in the picture. With the help of this test, a gender comparison of the features of perception of movement and time in works of art was also carried out. The results of the experimental study question the universality of the perception of movement and time in fine art and require verification in further research.