Art and Life: Pareidolia

We’ve all done it. Perceived a meaningful image in something. A tree bark that looks like a face, a rock that looks like a mouse.

Why do we do that? The name for it is “pareidolia.” The definition: The tendency to read into patterns and interpret visual stimuli, even when there is no intentional meaning present.

How does that apply to art? Let us look at modern art. Most people deride it and say, “Anyone can do that,” or, “I just don’t understand it.” It is like making a quick judgment of a person.

How often do we see things that are not really there, or misinterpret an action? If 10 people witness an event, there will be 10 slightly different interpretations. We are all influenced by our backgrounds and life experiences. So, too, when we view art. Each sees something different or feels something different.

Take a look at Mark Rothko’s painting “White and Greens in Blue.” Some who view it up close — and you really need to do that! — have a melancholic sensation and a suppression of hope. Others might feel the opposite of a lifting of depression and the light of hope.

What of Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream,” which we have all seen in one form or another? It has been used in numerous ways, from cartoons to coffee mugs. When I see it, I think, “Oh, no! I am lost.” This is due to the fact I have a terrible sense of direction.

Then there are Kandinsky and Miro, whose playful and childlike paintings could be fun to just look at and discover “things revealed” in their paint marks.

And now, we have New Millennium Art. I still work at understanding it, probably because I struggle to understand our world today, and art is a reflection of our current environments. It shows art without any unified style, as each artist strives to be unique, expressing things I do not often understand or identify with. Art is a universal language, so I try to appreciate their efforts using my knowledge of the design principles and elements. Principles provide the planned organization and orderly arrangement of the elements: line, shape, form, texture and color. Using balance, proportion, rhythm, emphasis and variety, an artist can create in any medium. Sometimes, this approach helps, but sometimes, I have to just respond with my own emotions. I love the quote from painter Paul Klee: “One eye sees. The other feels.” I can look and appreciate, or feel and maybe understand.

One of my favorite artists, Robert Genn, who passed away this year, said: “Art is a course in personal development that has no reliable diploma and no known end. The pursuit of art instructs in beauty as well as ugliness, fantasy as well as common sense. Art levels souls and baffles brains. Art softens pain because it is pain. Art gives joy because it is joy.” Perhaps in viewing modern art, we should just see it and feel it, or accept what we do and don’t connect with based on our individualized life experiences. Let us not be so quick to judge.

Brenda S. Seyer has found tranquility in creating art from a young age. An art teacher and member of the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, she enjoys working in charcoal figures, plein air oils, realistic watercolors and experimental batiks.