Different artists create different art, a new study has confirmed. Adults and children were asked to recreate a famous Jackson Pollock painting, and researchers analyzed the characteristics. They found artists of different ages created paintings with distinct characteristics, and that children’s paintings shared more similarities with artworks by some of the most famous expressionists of the last century than adults’. They also found that characteristics typical of children’s and expressionists’ paintings may make art more pleasant to look at, which could be due to humans’ million-year-long exposure to similar shapes and patterns in nature.

What makes art art? Is it the method or the creator? Does it need a color palette and oil paints, or a canvas laid flat on the floor and paint splattered across it? Does it require a critically acclaimed painter, or a toddler with crayons? And when it comes to the artist, can we even reliably tell if an artwork has been created by children or adults? In a new Frontiers in Physics study, researchers in the US put it to the test.

“Our study shows that the artistic patterns generated by children are distinguishable from those created by adults when using the pouring technique made famous by Jackson Pollock,” said senior author Prof Richard Taylor, a professor of physics, psychology, and art at the University of Oregon. “Remarkably, our findings suggest that children’s paintings bear a closer resemblance to Pollock paintings than those created by adults.”

An act of balance

Fractals are all around us, they are patterns that repeat at different scale sizes. We find them in trees, clouds, and mountains, but also in many artworks from various cultures. Fractal dimensions describe the complexity of fractals. Here, the researchers used fractal analysis and lacunarity analysis to describe the paintings characteristics. Fractal analysis measures the scaling behavior of paint distributed in space. Lacunarity focuses on variations in the gaps between paint clusters.

18 children (aged four to six) and 34 adults (aged 18 to 25) were recruited to recreate paintings like Jackson Pollock’s by splattering diluted paint onto sheets of paper placed on the floor. The age groups were chosen because adults and children are at different stages of their biomechanical balance development, which may influence pouring technique.

The study started in 2002, was picked up in 2018, and now, the team has reunited to finalize it. “We are very happy that after all this time we are finally publishing the results. Luckily, they are even more relevant today than 20 years ago,” said Taylor. “The Covid-19 pandemic saw an increase in stress levels across society and fractals have been shown to be an effective way of reducing stress through their aesthetic impact.”

Analyses showed that adults’ paintings had higher paint densities and wider paint trajectories, which can be understood as a painting’s ‘bones’. Kids’ paintings, on the other hand, were characterized by smaller fine scale patterns and there were more gaps between paint clusters. They showed simpler, one-dimensional trajectories that changed direction less often compared to the richer, more varied trajectories of adults. These differences may originate from the artists’ biomechanical balance. While the current study did not measure balance directly, including motion sensors while artists paint in future studies could confirm this, the authors said. In future studies, the team also plans to apply lacunarity analysis to a broad range of artists.

Nice to look at

Some of the paintings created by adults were analyzed for perceived complexity, visual interest, and pleasantness. The results showed that those paintings with more space between and less complex fractal patterns were perceived as more pleasant. Children’s paintings, although not analyzed for pleasantness here, also have those characteristics.

Pleasantness may have to do with familiarity, the researchers said. So far, studies have focused on a fractal dimension on which the most prevalent fractals in natural scenery can be found. “Our previous research indicates that our visual systems have become ‘fluent’ in the visual languages of fractals through millions of years of exposure to them in natural scenery,” Taylor explained. “This ability to process their visual information triggers an aesthetic response. Intriguingly, this means that the children’s poured paintings are more attractive than the adult ones.”

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Expressionist or kid?

The team also analyzed two expressionist works for comparison: Jackson Pollock’s ‘Number 14,’ and Max Ernst’s ‘Young Man Intrigued by the Flight of a Non-Euclidean Fly.’

They found that Ernst’s fractal dimension values lay within the children’s distribution, which might be because the pendulum he used to paint may have partially suppressed natural body motions. The values of fractal dimensions found in Pollock’s painting lay within the adult distribution – but just so. The values came close to the children’s range, which is consistent with Pollock’s limited biomechanical balance, the team said.

“Along with Claude Monet’s cataracts, Vincent van Gogh’s psychological challenges, and Willem de Kooning’s Alzheimer’s condition, art historical discussions of Pollock’s limited biomechanical balance serve as a reminder that conditions that present challenges in aspects of our daily lives can lead to magnificent achievements in art,” concluded Taylor.

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