Surveys have been conducted to find out what it is that people (regular people, not people who go to gallery openings) want in their art.
Komar and Melamid carried out an interesting series of surveys in the 1990s to find out what it was that people really wanted. They published their results in an amusing art book “Painting by Numbers: The Search for a People's Art." This book and their website depicts the most popular (and least popular) art in different countries around the world. The picture above if enlarged to dishwasher size would be the USA’s Most Wanted.
What struck me was how similar their results are to what scientific studies have shown for healthcare. Ulrich & Gilpin summarize some key ideas on what art is best for HealthCare at the end of their Chapter “Healing Arts” in the book “Putting Patients First”
Here are some of their top suggestions:
•Representational landscapes
•Calm water
•Calm weather
•Visual Depth with openness in the immediate foreground
•Landscapes depicted during the warmer seasons
•Landscapes with low hills and distant mountains
Their description of what is ideal for HealthCare settings is virtually identical to the survey results of Komar and Melamid. What is ironic here is that Komar and Melamid are Russian-born American Conceptual Artists. How odd that they would come up with the painting that is the exact representation of what research says is needed for HealthCare. aqui
