How Long Does it Take To Look at a Painting?

[raydm6]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-long-does-it-take-to-_b_779946

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-long-people-spend-art-museums

I was wondering this myself as I apply this to looking at photographs.

We spend a lot of time and effort making, processing, and posting our photographs online. I admit, especially on forums and websites, for me, it is only measured in seconds. Hit after hit, image after image, I flip through images rather quickly. I seem to slow down more with virtual or physical books; perhaps because they are bounded physically and perhaps defined contextually and thematically. I don't know. I think I look longer at photos of vintage gear photo gear!

Anyway, I know we all put a lot of effort sharing our photographs online and maybe I should be looking at others' work a bit more deeper and longer...? I know a lot of you put a lot of effort into your work and sharing it here and I feel it deserves more of my time & attention.

I am curious what your take/approach is to viewing others' works.

 

[Canyongazer]

A picture you can look at for two minutes? Not many, not many.
HCB

 

[raydm6]

Interesting quote!

 

[Vince Lupo]

There’s a whole area of study on how long we take to look at a piece of art, the saccadic eye movements when looking at a piece of art, whether having been trained in art / art appreciation vs none at all affects how long we look at a piece of art. Really interesting stuff.

In undergrad at Ryerson I took a ‘Psychology of Art’ course, and one of the things we discussed was saccadic eye movements and how researchers measured them in controlled studies. It’s amazing when you look at the ‘route’ the eyes take when looking at a painting like Rembrandt’s The Night Watch or a painting by Caravaggio - our eyes are all over the place. One thing I did learn is that generally speaking, our eyes first go to the area of an image that has the most contrast (not necessarily the brightest area of an image), so something bright next to something dark. Something to keep in mind when composing an image!

 

[kehng]

They are not the same thing.

A painting (no matter how realistically painted) is but an impression that may relate to reality. A good painting leaves much space for the imagination to work and form its own view of the image.

A photograph is a representation of a real scene. We can use light, shadow, colour, exposure etc to add/take away from an image to force the viewer to imagine but it is never the same.

 

[Archlich]

When still in art school I used to spend afternoons at the nearby associated gallery, to which students had free admission. I came to know the majority of their regular displays by heart, and would go there specifically for one or two paintings at a time.

There's a lot of things you can do while looking at a painting. Studying its surface texture to appreciate the impasto work. No painting had been absolutely flat. Go back and force to grasp the execution of details in relative to the whole picture. How would Rembrandt paint the vessels on the back of the hand? Why did he include or exclude them under different circumstances? Copying helps greatly in seeing - shape, proportion, weight, color, light, shadow, exaggeration, abstraction. Look for the eye level, and where all the perspective lines lead to. By tracing the contours of figures and planes you begin to see how the artist made compositional decisions to lead your eyes around. Interference with culture, historical and thematic contexts adds many, many dimensions.

With a sufficiently sophisticated painting, you can spend an indefinite amount of time at it. Many works in major museums are well beyond that mark. An art historian specialized in materials can even analyze the placement of strokes with certain colors because the pigment loaded can physically affect the malleability of the paint (i.e. the Lapis Lazuli favored by Vermeer is notoriously hard to manipulate). Just too many to look for out there.

 

[xayraa33]

It depends on the painting.

I can spend 45 minutes examining a Hieronymus Bosch painting or 20 minutes examining a Manet painting and one minute examining a Jackson Pollock painting.

As for photographs, I remember spending 15 minutes scrutinizing an Alexander Gardner photo set of the hanging of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, and spent about 7 minutes looking at Felice Beato's famous courtyard of the Sikander Bagh photo.

So it depends if the painting or photo interests me at that moment in time.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Lincoln_conspirators_execution2.jpg

https://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/felice-beato-courtyard-of-the-sikandarbagh-web.jpg

 

[leicapixie]

I am one that really looks for sometimes long periods of time!
Way more than 2 minutes Henri !
My experiences with this "looking" causes security guards to accumulate near me..
I find it offensive how esp. photographers rush thru a gallery..
I'm sure may works in say photography, took longer to expose than seeing 45~60 images.

 

[Vince Lupo]

I am one that really looks for sometimes long periods of time!
Way more than 2 minutes Henri !
My experiences with this "looking" causes security guards to accumulate near me..
I find it offensive how esp. photographers rush thru a gallery..
I'm sure may works in say photography, took longer to expose than seeing 45~60 images.

A propos of nothing, I recall a teacher of mine in undergrad saying that if HCB had say, 60 great photos, and they were all shot at 1/60th of a second, he’d have 1 second of great photography 🙂

 

[Erik van Straten]

Photography and painting have not much in common. In general, I can look at a painting for much longer than at a photo.


Erik.

 

[Dralowid]

To decipher the allegory in an 'old master' can take years.

 

[Vince Lupo]

Another random thought 🙂 ....

If you have never seen it, I'd highly recommend the 1972 series "Ways of Seeing" with John Berger, which originally aired on BBC back then. Definitely makes you reconsider the manner in which (and perhaps the amount of time!) you look at art, despite its now being almost 50 years-old.

 

[JeffS7444]

In a typical museum or gallery setting, I figure even 30 seconds per is a lot. Because often, there's much to see, and a limited amount of time. But even if time weren't a constraint, I think sometimes it takes a number of encounters to make sense of things.

 

[Bill Clark]

If the person looking at the photograph/painting has an emotional attachment to it then the look usually takes more time than if not. I found there is a routine to go through that produces more sales. It’s a production and was an important part of my business plan. Same applies to paintings and photographs. Even a photograph that has parts that are painted.

 

[Erik van Straten]

Another random thought 🙂 ....

If you have never seen it, I'd highly recommend the 1972 series "Ways of Seeing" with John Berger, which originally aired on BBC back then. Definitely makes you reconsider the manner in which (and perhaps the amount of time!) you look at art, despite its now being almost 50 years-old.

John Berger was later exposed as a Marxist. After that, nobody took him seriously anymore.

When I heard or read him, I thought: people who believe this, you can make believe anything.

Erik.

 

[aizan]

The average “dwell time” at a museum is usually cited as three seconds.

How long do you have to look at an image for it to have a lasting effect on your life?

 

[aizan]

Also, fake news alert.

John Berger was an outspoken Marxist his whole career, and his reputation has only grown since his death.

 

[Vince Lupo]

John Berger was later exposed as a Marxist. After that, no one took him seriously anymore.

When I heard or read him, I thought: people who believe this, you can make believe anything.

Erik.

Oh Erik - talk like that is gonna bum-out a lot of former art students 😛

Well, what can I say -- I enjoyed that series and got a lot out of it when it was shown in my second year Communications class in 1990, and it was a staple of a lot of art colleges for many many years. I can't believe that we're ready to chuck that whole series and the book in the bin.

Sorry for the slightly off-topic detour.

 

[Kai-san]

I'm reading all the books by John Berger that I can lay my hands on. He wrote several books on photography and they are some of the best in this genre. I find it strange that we in the west who are so proud of our freedom of speech should try to silence people who have an opinion that differs from the majority.

 

[Erik van Straten]

The average “dwell time” at a museum is usually cited as three seconds.

How long do you have to look at an image for it to have a lasting effect on your life?

That depends on how long your life lasts. There are works of art you will not get bored with in a lifetime. That doesn't include the nagging of people like John Berger, as far as I'm concerned. Listen to Mozart's piano concertos, they never get boring.

Erik.