DOCUMENT RESUME ED 388 602 SO 025 569 AUTHOR Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly; Robinson, Rick E. TITLE The Art of Seeing: An Interpretation of the Aesthetic Encounter. INSTITUTION Getty Center for Education in the Atts, Los Angeles, CA.; J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, CA. REPORT NO ISBN-0-89236-156-5 PUB DATE 90 NOTE 224p. AVAILABLE FROMGetty Center for Education in the Arts, 401 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 950, Santa Monica, CA 90401. PUB TYPE Books (010) Reports Research/Technical (143) Tests/Evaluation Instruments (160) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC09 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Aesthetic Education; *Aesthetic Values; Art; *Art Appreciation; Art Criticism; Audience Response; *Critical Viewing; Higher Education; Museums; Perception; Professional Education; Sensory Experience; Skill Analysis; Visual Arts; *Visual Literacy; Visual Stimuli ABSTRACT This study attempts to gain information concerning the receptive, as opposed to the creative, aesthetic experience by talking to museum professionals who spend their working lives identifying, appraising, and explicating works of art. The study is based on an underlying assumption that rules and practices for looking at art exist and must be mastered if success is to ensue. The anthropological research approach uses semi-structured interviews and subjects the responses to systematic analysis. Major conclusions emphasize the unity and diversity of the aesthetic experience. The structure of the aesthetic experience is found to be an intense involvement of attention in response to a visual stimulus, for no other reason than to sustain the interaction. The experiential consequences of such a deep and autotelic :lvolvement are an intense enjoy,lent characterized by feelings of personal wholeness, a sense of discovery, and a sense of human connectedness. The aesthetic content requires two sets of preconditions that make the experience possible: the challenges contained in the object and the skills of the viewer. While the structure of the aesthetic experience is rated similar in terms by all the respondents, the challenges, or content stimuli that triggers the experience vary considerably. These challenges of art are the formal structure of the work, its emotionalimpact, the intellectual references it carries, and the opportunities it creates for a dialogue among the artist, his time, and the viewer. Without this content challenge there would be nothing to arrest the viewer, and consequently no experience. Level of skill is critical. Challenges and skill must be nearly in balance for the attention to become focused. A complex work of art will engage only a person who has developed complex visual skills. The book is divided into six chapters and concludes with appendices. "Interview Questions for Museum Professionals" and "Aesthetic Experience Questionnaire Form." Contains approximately 100 references. (MM) PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS S DEPARTMENT Or EWCATION fl.p. Ot.. Res h and MATERIAL HAS EEN GRANTED BY hhent .1( opr, iNrra-0,1Arir)E4 E .11LRIC V IT 0,na Ihas Deer, fefsfOsioC 00 as feCe.ve0 IfOns the betsOn 0,0anIZehon THE L ,T01. qphaf ng r kl,noi changes na.e been rnioe to .hDrOne ,ewocluchon loatIr rsofnIS of oo,hoha sidled h thS JaCy TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES ment 00 "0, h*CasSa, .y ,eaent ulnegi INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) SEEING ,)E R pon.t.o, ul pone, An Interpretation of the Aesthetic Encounter 4 ot, MIHALY CSIKSZENTMWAIll BEST COPY AVAILABLE IMMUNE,. H E ARTOF SEEING .4% \iiile Millt mem S(MIC %%Mk ,01 (Oath .1 phl Olkif ('If If cinionallt beautiful. The halt I.IRJ 4:i her. nnf /lin tut lett a. cv. ( neck and commut . to plot I .111?ClintIC Aid 1)).11bit.. appeal on et eft let el 4nnt, . then) , 111.1. one return. In } ;" I' ff. (.' and lett aidint.; Inn:Ea( Innis at nt:It \ hise11111 [WM111(.11(.11 ..(,,Ithlen. 1.111111 .hiiIhiliiiiu 1.1111)11. Intel ,ind nnt el. \ -(, ililflCn I W. to other eta,and 11111IS 11115 \ [intim it al illieleti. Sin IIhhltkS hat e1 t anti anumni iii Pent:011.11k. inn,- 11)110.1te iibOthl Clilint11,11.1hit and pet leIR I inling liltdeepett kind ol aettliet le t: \ BEST COPY AVAQABLE The Art of Seeing .-In Inteipirtation qf the Aesthetic Encounter \ Ill I.\IN (:SIKSZENT \III 1.\1.1.1 RICK F. ROBINSON joint publication of the J. Paul Gett NItn,euni and the Gett Center for Education in the Arts \I , (.\I.II ()R\I\ ton° The.l. Paid Gem l'rust ( )lice of l'uhlications 7983 l'acifie:,,ast I \ 9).2(6 SeCond l'IllIting The Gen s ( :enter for Education in therts kVilshire Ris cl. Suite 9.r,o Santa \ Iowa. Cahlorma ,)040: I.ibrar of (:ongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Csiks/entmihali, 'I'he art of seeing : an interpretation of the aesthetic encounterMihab. Csiksientnnhal i and Rick E. Robinson p. en.. Includes bibliographical references. ISR o-892 p- I.E \penence.2. \esthtics.I. Robnison. Rick Ernets. 19i8 II. Title. RI I. 19,p, dc2., 1It \ 0-1 0- /\ I IC ( )tIo Stcinett wisI trh .Vittelv h.-il.VIIIIplure,, C111.1 19S4. (;elatin sib er 22. , 8. Malibu. J. Paul Getts \luseism 6 Contents FOREWORD PREFACE CHAPTER 1 ,A Conceptual Model of the Aesthetic Experience "l'he Major Dimensions of the Aesthetic E \perience A Quantitative Analvis of the .Aesthetic Experience 'rhe Form and Qualit of the \esthetic Experience I Facilitating the Aesthetic Experience 39 CHAPTER 6 Conclusions I APPENDIX A Intervie\ Questions figluseum Professionals I 89 APPENDIX B Aesthetic Experience Questionnaire Form 93 REFERENCES 199 111 lOixed me like a statue a quaner ol an hour. or half an hour, I do not know which, for I lost till ideas of time, ezTll the 11Imy existent-I% rriumAsji-J-14.R,-,(rvs account of his response to Drouais's large can- vasMarius Imprisoned at ilinturnae,which he saw in Paris in 1-8-, is a classic description of what is generally understood bv the term "aes- thetic experience.- Compare Jetl'erson's account with the following excerpt from an interview with askilled rock climber discussing a 'good climb-: One tends to get immersed inhat's going on around him, in the rock, in the moses that are ins olsed . , . search fiff handholdN . proper position of the bodyso ins °lye(' that he might lose consciousness of his own identit\ and melt into the rock. Obviously rock climbing and looking at pictures arc very ditYerent pursuits Yet, at least in the two cases just cited, the mental states in- duced by these disparate activities have a good deal in common.Jef- ferson relates that he lost "even the eonsciotisness oil his I ownexis- tence-; the climber felt that "he might lose consciousnessof his identity and melt into the rock.- Both describe a state of mindthat others have characterized as "loss of ego,- "self-forgetfulness,-"loss of self-consciousness,- and even "transcendence of individuality-and "fusion with the world.- The heightened state ofconsciousness of hich this egoless condition is a central featurc has long been ;Isub- ject of interest to \ lihaly Csikszenrmihalvi,InBeyond I?om/om and The F\penente of Play in florA and Game.% (1.)-i).(:sik,icot- %HI Oki- 11 ORD mihalyi reported on an inquiry into the nature of autotelic (self- rew arding) activities. The goal was to focus on people who were having peakex- periences, who were intrinsically motivated, and 'a ho were involved in play as s% ell as real life activities, in order to tind out whether I could detect similarities in their experi- ences, their motivation, and the situz zions that produce enjoyment. (xiin Looking at art was not one of the autotelic activities examined in this pioneering study, but Csikszentmihalyi and his associatesat the University of Chicago did investigate a broad range of skill-basedac- tivities including (in addition to rock climbing) chess playing, musical composition, dancing, and playing amateur basketball. The\ discov- ered that despite the vast differences among the outward forms ot' these activities, at the experiential core of each (insofaras that can be glimpsed through accounts by participants) there is a cluster of related sensati6ns that is essentially the same for all. 'Phis cluster constitutes a heightened state.of consciousness Csikszentmihalyi calls "the How experience- or, simpl, "How," "a term used frequently by the intim-- mants themselves to describe the experience.- The evident similarities between "How- and aesthetic experience as traditionally conceived were what first (1rew our attention to Pro- fessor Csikszentmihalyi's work. Both the .1. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Center for Education in the Arts are concerned with finding ways of helping non-specialists understand and enjoy art. Insight into the nature of' aesthetic experience is central to those etiOrts. Anec- dotal accounts. like Jefferson's, of powerful aestheticresponses are not difficult to find in the literature of' art, but they tend to be tantalizing fragments that do not lend themselves to systematic analysis. We felt that it' the apparent parallels between aesthetic experience and How could be shown to be more than mere analogies. Csikszentmihaly i's research might shed new light on an issue of great importance toart museums and art education. For if aesthetic experience is taken to be 1 o I OM %1 ORD \ something real and valuable, it follows that one of the primary func- tions of an art museum is to serve as a place where such experience is fostered. But before it can be fostered it must be understood. What is its nature? Of what value is it? What enables one to have it? Is recep- tivity to aesthetic experience inborn or learned, and if learned, can it be taught? If it can be taught, who should do the teaching and where is it best done? I. what conditions is aesthetic experience likely to occur? We hoped that Professor Csikszentmihalyi's researchmight suggest answers to some of these questions.