Psyched!

The sad part is that I liked the one done by the kid better, but I wouldn't pay for either. Because the one on the right was done by an adult I think it's fair to say that it's pretty awful...

I remember once many years ago seeing an exhibit similar to what you describe in the article. It was an exihibit by or about Desmond Morris and in it I saw a work that looked like the most primative piece of the show. Upon closer examination, I saw it was done by a chimp. I forgot about the exhibit until recently when I read G. Miller's, "Mating Mind". He gave a very enlightening account of how and why most people perceive art.

As an insight into people's ability to judge author intention even in highly similar works, this is a really interesting study.

As the comment on the value of contemporary art some want it to be, no dice. The researchers clearly had to work hard to find professional pieces that could be mistaken for the work of children or animals. A google image search for 'abstract expressionism' will show the overwhelming majority never could be.

haha I liked the 4 year olds painting better lol.

3/4ths of the values in the table include 0.5 in one standard deviation, and all of them would include 0.5 in a 95% confidence interval.

Which means that according to that table, we can't assume these results are significantly different than pure chance.

who thinks that the one on the right is obviously better composed and thought out? The colors on the left are hideous and you can clearly tell that the shapes were made by a cup or something. Maybe it's just me, but I could tell right away which one was the professional.

Of no mention is whether or not the "paintings" shown to the participants in this study were the actual paintings or, more likely, digital reproductions. A painting is much more than what it looks like as a JPEG: especially with AbEx paintings, scale is a major factor and one that I suspect is obfuscated in this study. As such these results are meaningless, even though I'm sure the conclusions—that art by "real" artists is generally "better" than that of savants—are correct.

Oh wow! I got it wrong too. And, I always thought that I was fairly liberal and cultured about the world of modern art.

I don't like the painting on the right at all - I find it boring and cold.

I preferred the kid's picture initially, too, but I could tell that the one on the right was probably the professional. The washed out picture of it on a laptop screen probably had something to do with that, by making the brighter colors of the kid's picture stand out. But that aside, let's not forget what the art world is, these days. We have this misconception that "real" art will have its own broad, intrinsic appeal and that it should be accessible to the masses, and therefore that it should be easy to pick out from the crap just by using our gut reaction to it. In reality, it's just as stupid to ask people if they like "The DaVinci Code" or "Ulysses" more. Guess what most people will pick? Great literature appeals to professors and writers and the generally well-educated, and isn't necessarily meant to appeal to everyone. So does most art, yet we insist on judging it by how nice it looks.

The problem for art is that while you can tell the difference between literature and garbage by reading it, art is a visual medium and it can be mimicked. That's why you can fool people, even artists and professors and critics. But that's not the point. The point is the statement the artist is trying to make, and if it turns out that there was no actual "artist" behind a particular work, then, sure, the joke's on us for thinking there was, but what's the point of fooling people, beyond making yourself feeling superior? You've only proved that the meaning of a work is in the context (of art history, of the gallery, of the political/social climate, etc.), not necessarily in the work itself -- but most educated folks already knew that.

An interesting if somewhat flawed experiment.
Firstly, art refers to the human activity ( viz. artisan, artificial) which of esthetic quality and in that sense differs from craft. So it is not clear to me that 'paintings' produced by other animals should have been included . However, the more important control of 'paintings' by adults who were not artists is missing and, for better statistics, the number of students should be much larger. Nevertheless the indications are that some abstract art is no better than what a child can produce confirms my opinion. My GP has in his consulting room a painting signed by his daughter (6 years old?) - I suggested a change of the signature to Jackson Pollack so he could retire.

This test should have included the same intensity of color. One picture was muted (Hans Hoffmann). the other had an intense red. As a colorist who paints in red most of the time it wasn't a true test. People are drawn to red especially that intensity. Obviously, the structure was there in the Hoffmann but still people were drawn to the red. Some people are drawn to muted colors. It was like comparing apples to oranges. In my book not a true test.

30-40 % failure rate, when a 50% rate is simply chance?

Art Students CAN NOT reliably distinguish painting made by children and animals from an "artist".

There is an earlier study

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0703091

The only point this article confirmed for me is that "modern visual art" is as fraudulent a product/process as anything else controlled by a restricted-access in-group.

It's been "intellectualized", "monetized", "pasteurized" and commercialized to death just like every other art form in our western world. Visual Artists gifted with an original and creative talent are neither acknowledged nor promoted if their talents interfere with wealth creation for the select few or with social destruction for the rest of us.

In other words what we're supposed to think of as high art is MOSTLY BS manufactured by talentless technicians either graced with a gift for self promotion and an eye for the dollar, or more usually, by someone financially controlled/managed by a member of the in-group who control the promotion of art.

And its obvious to me that in this comparison test the kid's painting is obviously better than the "professional" painter's work. Leave the "philosophy of art" (barf) out of the equation and just look at what has been done with paint.

I picked the one on the left....I'm a fan of excellence and I love art...but abstract and outsider art like this is absolute garbage

I liked the one by the kid more and I could tell that the one on the right was done by a professional. Art is all about taste. Not everyone is the same I think the study is flawed. They should have picked a wider audience.