But Is It Art?

Some years ago Spy magazine punctured the pretensions of the art world with a simple prank. It took a bunch of paintings by preschoolers and hung them in a Soho gallery, then recorded the remarks of art aficionados who showed up and said the gassy sort of things people generally say about modern art. The episode offered some vindication for anyone who ever looked at a modern painting or sculpture and scoffed, "My kid could do that."

But last week the art world enjoyed a few minutes of vindication itself, thanks to a study by two psychologists at Boston College. Angelina Hawley-Dolan and Ellen Winner paired genuine works of art by famous abstract impressionists with drawings made by children, chimpanzees, and elephants. Sometimes they labeled the paintings correctly and sometimes they switched the labels around or omitted labels altogether. Then they asked study participants which works they preferred and why.

Regardless of how the paintings were labeled, the study participants preferred the works by the famous artists 60 percent to 70 percent of the time. What's more, the subjects explained their preferences by indicating that the works from the pros seemed to have more intention and craft than the works from the children and the animals. As one news account put it, "this suggests a blue squiggle created by an artist as a means of expression is fundamentally different than a blue squiggle created randomly by a monkey holding a paint brush."

Take that, you philistines!

The study's results are interesting. Still: In defense of the philistines of America, one might point out a couple of things.

First, the experiment put the works of individuals who are supposed to be some of the greatest artists of the past century—such as Mark Rothko, whose works have sold for as much as $72.8 million—up against scribbles by children, chimps, and elephants ... and the great artists barely managed to squeak to victory. When the paintings carried no labels at all, even art students preferred the famous artists' paintings only 62 percent of the time, and judged them to be better works of art only 67 percent of the time. "The chimpanzee's stuff is good, I like how he plays with metaphors about depth of field, but I think I like this guy Rothko a little bit better." Not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it?

Second, nobody ever had to do an experiment to find out whether people can tell the difference between a painting by a monkey and a painting by Monet. Nobody ever looked at a Rembrandt and wondered if, just perhaps, some merry prankster had given a pack of paints to a pachyderm and told it to go to town.

[article continues below video]