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Arts-based research.

Janinka Greenwood Janinka Greenwood University of Canterbury
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.29
Published online: 25 February 2019

Arts-based research encompasses a range of research approaches and strategies that utilize one or more of the arts in investigation. Such approaches have evolved from understandings that life and experiences of the world are multifaceted, and that art offers ways of knowing the world that involve sensory perceptions and emotion as well as intellectual responses. Researchers have used arts for various stages of research. It may be to collect or create data, to interpret or analyze it, to present their findings, or some combination of these. Sometimes arts-based research is used to investigate art making or teaching in or through the arts. Sometimes it is used to explore issues in the wider social sciences. The field is a constantly evolving one, and researchers have evolved diverse ways of using the communicative and interpretative tools that processes with the arts allow. These include ways to initially bypass the need for verbal expression, to explore problems in physically embodied as well as discursive ways, to capture and express ambiguities, liminalities, and complexities, to collaborate in the refining of ideas, to transform audience perceptions, and to create surprise and engage audiences emotionally as well as critically. A common feature within the wide range of approaches is that they involve aesthetic responses.

The richness of the opportunities created by the use of arts in conducting and/or reporting research brings accompanying challenges. Among these are the political as well as the epistemological expectations placed on research, the need for audiences of research, and perhaps participants in research, to evolve ways of critically assessing the affect of as well as the information in presentations, the need to develop relevant and useful strategies for peer review of the research as well as the art, and the need to evolve ethical awareness that is consistent with the intentions and power of the arts.

multisensory
performance

Introduction

The term arts-based research is an umbrella term that covers an eclectic array of methodological and epistemological approaches. The key elements that unify this diverse body of work are: it is research; and one or more art forms or processes are involved in the doing of the research. How art is involved varies enormously. It has been used as one of several tools to elicit information (Cremin, Mason, & Busher, 2011 ; Gauntlett, 2007 ; Wang & Burns, 1997 ) and for the analysis of data (Boal, 1979 ; Gallagher, 2014 ; Neilson, 2008 ), and so it serves as an enrichment to the palette of tools used in qualitative research. It has been used in the presentation of findings (Bagley & Cancienne, 2002 ; Conrad, 2012 ; Gray & Sinding, 2002 ) and so occupies a space that could be responded to and evaluated as both art and research. It has been used to investigate art and the process of art-making. The emergence of the concept and practice of a/r/tography (Belliveau, 2015 ; Irwin, 2013 ; Springgay, Irwin, & Kind, 2005 ), for example, places art-making and its textual interpretation in a dynamic relationship of inquiry into the purpose, process, and meaning of the making of an artwork.

The field is multifaceted and elusive of definition and encompassing explanation. This article does not attempt such definitions. But it does risk describing some well-trodden pathways through the field and posing some questions. Illustrative examples are offered from the author’s work, as well as citing of works by other researchers who use arts-based approaches.

My own explorations of arts-based research began many years ago, before the term came into usage. I was commissioned to develop a touring play for a New Zealand youth theater, and I chose to write a docudrama, Broadwood: Na wai te reo? (Greenwood, 1995 ). The play reported the case of a remote, rural, and predominantly Maori school that made Maori language a compulsory subject in its curriculum. The parents of one boy argued against the decision, claiming the language held no use for their son. The dispute was aired on national television and was debated in parliament. The minister agreed that the local school board had the right to make the decision after consultation with parents and community. The dispute ended with the boy being given permission to do extra math assignments in the library during Maori language classes. To develop the script, I interviewed all the local participants in the case and sincerely sought to capture the integrity of their views in my dialogue. I accessed the minister of education’s comments through public documents and media and reserved the right to occasionally satirize them. Just a week or two before final production, the family’s lawyer officially asked for a copy of the script. To my relief, it was returned with the comment that the family felt I had captured their views quite accurately. The youth theater was invited to hold its final rehearsal on the local marae (a traditional tribal Maori ground that holds a meeting house and hosts significant community occasions), and a local elder offered the use of an ancestral whalebone weapon in the opening performance, instead of the wooden one made for the production. The opening performance took place in the school itself, and the boy, together with his parents and family friends, sat in the audience together with hundreds of community people. The play had an interactive section where the audience was asked to vote in response to a survey the school had originally sent out to its community. The majority of the audience voted for Maori language to be part of the mandatory curriculum. The boy and his family voted equally emphatically for it not to be. The play then toured in New Zealand and was taken to a festival in Australia.

At the time I saw the work purely in terms of theater—albeit with a strongly critical social function. Looking back, I now see it was a performative case study. I had carefully researched the context and respectfully interviewed participants after gaining their informed consent. The participants had all endorsed my reporting of the data. The findings were disseminated and subject to popular as well as peer review. The performances added an extra dimension to the research: they actively invited audience consideration and debate.

This article discusses the epistemology that underlies arts-based approaches to research, reviews the purposes and value of research that involves the arts, identifies different stages and ways that art may be utilized, and addresses questions that are debated in the field. It does not seek to disentangle all the threads within this approach to research or to review all key theorizations and possibilities in the field. The arena of arts-based research is a diverse and rapidly expanding one, and it is only possible within this discussion to identify some of the common underlying characteristics and potentialities and to offer selected examples. Because this discussion is shaped within an essay format, rather than through a visual or performative collage, there is the risk of marking a limited number of pathways and of making assertions. At the same time, I acknowledge that the discussion might have alternatively been conducted through arts-based media, which might better reflect some of the liminalities and interweaving layers of art-based processes (see further, Greenwood, 2016 ).

The term art itself compasses a wide and diverse spectrum of products and process. This article focuses particularly on dramatic and visual art, while acknowledging that the use of other art forms, such as poetry, fiction, dance, film, and fabric work, have been variously used in processes of investigation. The word art is used to indicate the wider spectrum of art activities and to refer to more specific forms and processes by their disciplines and conventions.

Why Use Art?

One of the main reasons for the growth of arts-based approaches to research is recognition that life experiences are multi-sensory, multifaceted, and related in complex ways to time, space, ideologies, and relationships with others. Traditional approaches to research have been seen by increasing numbers of researchers as predominantly privileging cerebral, verbal, and linearly temporal approaches to knowledge and experience. The use of art in research is one of many shifts in the search for truthful means of investigation and representation. These include, among others, movements toward various forms of narratives (Riessman, 2008 ), recognition of indigenous knowledges, and indigenous ways of sharing and using knowledge (Bharucha, 1993 ; Smith, 2014 ), auto-ethnographies (Ellis, 2004 ), conceptualizations of wicked questions (Rittel & Webber, 1973 ), processes of troubling (Gardiner, 2015 ), and queering (Halperin, 2003 ). Preissle ( 2011 ) writes about the “qualitative tapestry” (p. 689) and identifies historic and contemporary threads of epistemological challenges, methods, and purposes, pointing out the ever-increasing diversity in the field. Denzin and Lincoln ( 2011 ) describe qualitative research as a site of multiple interpretative practices and, citing St. Pierre’s ( 2004 ) argument that we are in a post “post” period, assert that “we are in a new age where messy, uncertain multi-voiced texts, cultural criticism, and new experimental works will become more common, as will more reflexive forms of fieldwork, analysis and intertextual representation” (p. 15). Springgay, Irwin, and Kind ( 2005 ) assert that a/r/tography is not a new branch of qualitative research but a methodology in its own right, and that it conceptualizes inquiry as an embodied encounter through visual and textual experiences. The use of art in research is a succession of approaches to develop methodology that is meaningful and useful.

Art, product, and process allow and even invite art-makers to explore and play with knowing and meaning in ways that are more visceral and interactive than the intellectual and verbal ways that have tended to predominate in Western discourses of knowledge. It invites art viewers to interact with representations in ways that involve their senses, emotions, and ideas. Eisner ( 1998 , 2002 ) makes a number of significant assertions about the relationship between form and knowledge that emphasize the importance of art processes in offering expanded understandings of “what it means to know” (Eisner, 1998 , p. 1). He states: “There are multiple ways in which the world can be known: Artists, writers, and dancers, as well as scientists, have important thongs to tell about the world” (p. 7). Like other constructivists (Bruner, 1990 ; Guba, 1996 ), he further argues that because human knowledge is a constructed form of experience, it is a reflection of mind as well as nature, that knowledge is made, not simply discovered. He then reasons that “the forms through which humans represent their conception of the world have a major influence on what they are able to say about it” (p. 6), and, making particular reference to education, he states that whichever particular forms of representation become acceptable “is as much a political matter as an epistemological one” (p. 7). Eisner’s arguments to extend conceptualizations of knowledge within the field of education have been echoed in the practices of art-based researchers.

Artists themselves understand through their practice that art is way of coming to know the world and of presenting that knowing, emergent and shifting though it may be, to others. Sometimes the process of coming to know takes the form of social analysis. In Guernica , as a well-known example, Picasso scrutinizes and crystallizes the brutal betrayals and waste of war. In Caucasian Chalk Circle , Brecht fractures and strips bare ideas of justice, loyalty, and ownership. Their respective visual and dramatic montages speak in ways that are different from and arguably more potent than discursive descriptions.

In many indigenous cultures, art forms are primary ways of processing and recording communally significant information and signifying relationships. For New Zealand Māori, the meeting house, with its visual images, poetry, song, oratory, and rituals, is the repository library of mythic and genealogical history and of the accumulated legacies of meetings, contested positions, and nuanced consensual decisions. Art within Māori and other indigenous culture is not an illustrative addition to knowledge systems, it is an integral means of meaning making and recording.

One of the characteristics of arts and arts-based research projects is that they engage with aesthetic understandings as well as with discursive explanations. The aesthetic is a contested term (Greenwood, 2011 ; Hamera, 2011 ). However, it is used here to describe the engagement of senses and emotion as well as intellectual processes, and the consequent collation of semiotics and significances that are embedded in cultural awareness and are variously used by art makers and art viewers to respond to works of art. An aesthetic response thus is a visceral as well as rational one. It may be comfortable with ambiguities, and it may elude verbalization.

The processes of art-making demand a commitment to a continuous refinement of skills and awareness. Art-viewers arguably also gain more from an artwork as they acquire the skills and literacies involved with that particular art form and as they gain confidence to engage with the aesthetic. However, viewers may apprehend meaning without mastery of all the relevant literacies. I recall an experience of watching flamenco in El Puerto de Santa Maria, a township outside Cadiz. My senses drank in the white stone of former monastery walls and the darkening sky over an open inner courtyard. My muscles and emotions responded spontaneously to the urgency of the guitar and the beaten rhythms on a packing case drum. My nerves tensed as the singer’s voice cut through the air. The two dancers, both older and dressed in seemingly causal fawn and grey, riveted my attention. I was a stranger to the art form, and I did not know the language of the dance and could not recognize its phases or its allusions. I did feel the visceral tug of emotion across space. My heart and soul responded to something urgent, strangely oppressive, but indefinable that might have an apprehension of what those who understand flamenco call duende . If I was more literate in the art form, I would no doubt have understood a lot more, but the art, performed by those who did know and had mastered its intricacies, communicated an experience of their world to me despite my lack of training. In that evening, I learned more about the experience of life in southern Spain than I had in my earlier pursuit of library books and websites.

Art, thus, is positioned as a powerful tool that calls for ever-refining expertise in its making, but that can communicate, at differing levels, even with those who do not have that expertise. Researchers who use art draw on its rich, and sometimes complex and elusive, epistemological bases to explore and represent aspects of the world. The researchers may themselves be artists; at the least, they need to know enough of an art form to be aware of its potential and how to manipulate it. In some cases intended participants and audiences may also be artists, but often they are not. It is the researcher who creates a framework in which participants join in the art or in which audiences receive it.

Art, Research Purpose, and Research Validity

So far, the argument for the value of art as a way of knowing is multifarious, embodied, and tolerant of ambivalences and ambiguities. Where then are the rigors that are widely held as essential for research? It can be argued that arts-based research, to be considered as research, needs to have explicit research purpose and needs to subject itself to peer critique.

As has been widely noted (Eisner, 1998 ; Leavy, 2017 ; Sullivan, 2010 ), the making of art involves some investigation, both into the process of making and into some aspect of the experiential world. In research, that purpose needs to be overt and explicit. When the purpose is identified, then the choice of methods can be open to critical scrutiny and evaluation. The design of an arts-based research project is shaped, at its core, by similar considerations as other research.

Arts-based research needs to be explicit about what is being investigated. If the objective is not clear, then the result may still be art, but it is hard to call it research. Purpose determines which of the vast array of art strategies and processes will be selected as the research methods. The trustworthiness of any research depends on a number of factors: at the design stage, it depends on a clear alignment between the purpose of the research and the methods selected to carry out the investigation. In arts-based research, as in other research, it is vital that the researcher identifies the relationship between purpose and selected art tools, and offers recipients of the research clear means to evaluate and critique the reliability and usefulness of the answers that come from the research. This is where choices about strategies need to be clearly identified and explained, and both the aims and boundaries of the investigation need to be identified.

This does not imply need for a rigid and static design. Art is an evolving process, and the research design can well be an evolving one, as is the case with participatory action research (Bryndon-Miller, Karl, Maguire, Noffke, & Sabhlok, 2011 ), bricolage (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011 ), and a number of other research approaches. However, the strategic stages and choices of the emergent design donot need to be identified and explained. Nor does it imply that all data or findings need to be fully explicable verbally. One of the reasons for choosing arts-based methods, although not the only one, is to allow the operation of aesthetic and subconscious understandings as well as conscious and verbalized ones. That is part of the epistemological justification for choosing an arts-based approach. The ambivalences and pregnant possibilities that result may be considered valued gains from the choice of research tools, and their presence simply needs to be identified, together with explication of the boundaries of how such ambivalence and possibilities relate to the research question.

Different Kinds of Purpose

The sections of this article examine common and different areas of purpose for which arts-based research is frequently used, arranging them into three clusters and discussing some of the possibilities within each one.

The first, and perhaps largest, cluster of purposes for using arts-based research is to investigate some social (in the broadest sense of the word) issue. Such issues might, for example, include woman’s rights, school absenteeism, gang membership, cross-cultural encounters, classroom relationships, experiences of particular programs, problems in language acquisition. The methodological choices involved in this group of purposes have been repeatedly addressed (e.g., Boal, 1979 ; O’Brien & Donelan, 2008 ; Finley, 2005 ; Leavy, 2017 ; Prosser, 2011 ; Wang & Burns, 1997 ) in discussions of the use of arts-based approaches to the social sciences. The intention for using arts-based tools is to open up different, and hopefully more empowering, options for exploring the specific problem or issue, and for expressing participants’ perspectives in ways that can bypass participants’ discomfort with words or unconscious compliance with dominant discourses, or perhaps to present findings in ways that better reveal their dynamics and complexity than written reports.

Another smaller, but important, cluster of purposes is to research art-making processes or completed art works. For example, a theater director (Smithner, 2010 ) investigates the critical decisions she made in selecting and weaving together separate performance works into a theatrical collage. Or, a researcher (O’Donoghue, 2011 ) investigates how a conceptual artist working with film and video enquires into social, political, and cultural issues and how he shapes his work to provoke viewers to develop specific understandings. These kinds of studies explore the how and why of art-making, focusing on the makers’ intentions, their manipulation of the elements and affordances of their specific art field, and often engage with aesthetic as well as sociocultural dimensions of analysis. Often such studies are presented as narratives or analytic essays, and it is the subject matter of the research that constitutes the arts basis. Sometimes, such studies find expression in new artworks, as is the case in Merita Mita’s film made about the work of painter Ralph Hotere (Mita, 2001 ), which interlays critical analyses, documentation of process, interviews, and pulsating images of the artworks.

The third cluster involves research about teaching, therapy, or community development through one or more of the arts. Here arts are primarily the media of teaching and learning. For example, when drama is the teaching medium, the teacher may facilitate the class by taking a fictional role within the narrative that provokes students to plan, argue, or take action. Students may be prompted to use roles, create improvisations, explore body representations of ideas or conflicts, and explore contentious problems in safely fictitious contexts. Because it examines both work within an art form and changes in learners’ or community members’ understandings of other issues, this cluster overlaps somewhat with the two previous clusters. However, it is also building a body of its own traditions.

One strong tradition is the documentation of process. For example, Burton, Lepp, Morrison, and O’Toole ( 2015 ) report two decades of projects, including Dracon and Cooling Conflict , which have used drama strategies as well as formal theoretical teaching to address conflict and bullying. They have documented the specific strategies used, discussed their theoretical bases, and acknowledged the evidence on which they base their claims about effectiveness of the strategies in building understanding about and reducing bullying. The strategies used involved use of role and improvisation and what the authors call an enhanced form of Boal’s Forum Theatre. Other examples include the Risky Business Project (O’Brien & Donelan, 2008 ), a series of programs involving marginalized youth in dance, drama, music, theater performance, stand-up comedy, circus, puppetry, photography, visual arts, and creative writing; explorations of cross-cultural understandings through drama processes (Greenwood, 2005 ); the teaching of English as a second language in Malaysia through teacher-in-role and other drama processes (Mohd Nawi, 2014 ); working with traditional arts to break down culturally bound ways of seeing the world (Stanley, 2014 ); and the training of a theater-for-development team to use improvisational strategies to address community problems (Okagbue, 2002 ). While the strategies are arts processes and the analysis of their effect addresses aesthetic dimensions of arts as well as cognitive and behavioral ones, the reporting of these projects is primarily within the more traditional verbal and discursive forms of qualitative research.

Sometimes the reporting takes a more dramatic turn. Mullens and Wills ( 2016 ) report and critically analyze Re-storying Disability Through the Arts , an event that sought to create space for dialogue between students, researchers, artists, educators, and practitioners with different involvements or interests in disability arts. They begin their report by re-creating a scene within the workshop that captures some of the tensions evoked, and follow this with a critical commentary on three community-based art practices that engage in a strategy of re-storying disability. They present arts as means to “counter powerful cultural narratives that regulate the lives and bodies of disabled people” (Mullens & Wills, 2016 , p. 5). Barrett ( 2014 ) reports a project, informed by an a/r/tography methodology, which utilized the classroom teaching of the prescribed arts curriculum to allow students to explore evolving understandings of identity and community. Montages of photographs are a central component in the report, as is a series of images that illustrate Barrett’s reflections on her own role within the investigation.

Using Art to Research Social Issues: Collecting Data

Within a social science research project, art processes might be used to collect data, to carry out analysis and interpretation, or to present findings. Perhaps the most common use is to collect data. The process of photovoice (Wang & Burns, 1997 ), for example, gives participants cameras and asks them to capture images that they consider as significant elements of the topic being investigated. Graffiti might be used to prompt absentee students to discuss their perceptions of schooling. Body sculptures, freeze frames, and hot seating are examples of drama strategies that could be used to facilitate reflection and debate about cross-cultural encounters, feelings about hospitalization, experiences of domestic violence, or an array of other topics.

In each case the art produced becomes the basis for further discussion. This process is quite different from historical concepts of art therapy, where the therapist would give expert insight into what a patient’s artwork means; here it is the participants who give the explanation, perhaps independently or perhaps through dialogue with other participants and the researcher. The embodied experience of construction provides a platform and a challenge to talking in ways that are more thoughtful and more honest than through a conventionally structured verbal interview. The talk after making is important, but the art products are not merely precursors to verbal data, they are concrete points of references to which both participants and researchers can refer and can use to prompt further introspection or deconstruction. The process of making, moreover, is one that allows time for reflection and self-editing along the way and so may yield more truthful and complex answers than those that might be given instantly in an interview. Participants who are second language speakers or who lack the vocabulary or theoretical constructs to express complex feelings, reactions, or beliefs can be enabled to use physicalization to create a bridge between what they know or feel wordlessly inside them and an external expression that can be read by others.

The art tools available for such data gathering are as varied as the tools used by artists for making art. They might include drawing, collage, painting, sculpting materials or bodies, singing, orchestration, Lego construction, movement improvisation, creation of texts, photography, graffiti, role creation, and/or spatial positioning.

Art Processes as Tools for Analysis

Art processes can also be used to analyze and interpret data. Within qualitative paradigms, the processes of collecting and interpretation of data often overlap. This is also true of arts-based research. For instance, Greenwood ( 2012 ) reported on a group of experienced Bangladeshi educators who came to New Zealand to complete their Masters. While they were proficient in English, they found colloquial language challenging, struggling often to find words with the right social or emotional connotations at the speed of conversation. In previous discussions, they often looked to each other for translation. A teaching workshop, held as an illustration of arts-based research, addressed the research question: what have been your experiences as international students? A small repertoire of drama strategies, particularly freeze frames with techniques for deconstructing and refining initial offers, short animations, and narrative sequencing were used. These prompted participants to recall and show personal experiences, to critically view and interpret one another’s representations, and to further refine their images to clarify their intended meaning. The participants flung themselves into the challenge with alacrity and flamboyance and created images of eagerness, hope, new relationships, frustration, failed communication, anger, dejection, unexpected learning, and achievement. They also actively articulated ideas as we deconstructed the images and, through debate, co-constructed interpretations of what was being shown in the work and what it meant in terms of their experience, individual and shared, of overseas study. The interweaving of making, reflection, discussion, and further refinement is intrinsic to process drama; as a research method, it affords a means of interweaving data collection and collaborative analysis. In this case the participants also debated aspects of the validity of the process as research, raising questions about subjectivity in interpretation, about the nature of crystallization (Richardson, 1994 ), about informed consent, and about co-construction of narratives. Analysis shifted from being the task of an outsider researcher to one carried out, incrementally and experimentally, by insider participants. While the researcher held the initial power to focus the work, participants’ physical entry into the work, and their interrogation of the images that were created constituted a choice of how much they would share and contribute, and so they became active and sometimes playful partners in the research. This approach to analysis shares many features with participatory action research (Brydon-Miller et al., 2011 ), both in eliciting the agency of participants and in evolving a process of analysis that is interwoven with the gathering of data from preceding action and with the planning of further investigative cycles of action.

The work of Boal is perhaps one of the best known examples of the use of an art process, in this case theater, as a means of analysis of data. Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed ( 1979 ) details a series of strategies for deconstruction and collaborative analysis. For example, in the process he calls image theatre , participants select a local oppressive problem that they seek to resolve. They create and discuss images that exemplify experience of the problem and their idealized solutions (the data); they then analyze their images to find where power resides and how it is supported. Boal’s theater process calls for experimentation with further images that explore scenarios where power could become shared to some extent and could allow further action by those who experience the oppression. The process finishes with consequential explorations of the first step to be taken by participants as a means to work toward an equilibrium of power. Boal, as the title of his book, Theatre of the Oppressed , acknowledges, draws on the work of his Braziailan compatriot, Freire, and particularly on his concept of conscientization (Freire, 1970 , 1972 ). Boal’s process for analyzing experiences of oppression is not so much a direct action plan as a means of analyzing the mechanisms of specific conditions of oppression and the potential, however limited, for agency to resolve the oppression. The sequenced strategies of creating and discussing alternative images of oppression, power relationships, and action enable participants to deconstruct the socio-cultural reality that shapes their lives and to gain awareness of their capacity to transform it.

Art as a Means to Present Findings

There is a large and growing body of research that presents findings in arts forms. A few examples are briefly discussed.

After collecting data, through interviews and official communications from participants in a case where a district school was being threatened with closure, Owen ( 2009 ) commissioned a composer to write a score for sections of his transcripts and create a community opera. He expressed the hope that this would “transform their tiny stories into noisy histories” (p. 3). Part of the data was sung at a conference I attended. I was struck by the shift in power. What I might have regarded as dull data in a PowerPoint presentation now became a compelling articulation of experiences and aspirations and a dynamic debate between personal lives and authoritarian policy.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt project (Morris, 2011 ; Yardlie & Langley, 1995 ) is frequently described as the world’s greatest piece of community folk art. A claim can be made that, while each panel in the quilt is a product of folk art, the collation of the quilt in its enormity is a work of conceptual art that juxtaposes the fragility and isolation of individual loss with the overwhelming global impact of the AIDS epidemic. The quilt can also be seen as research that visually quantifies the death toll through AIDS in Western world communities and that qualitatively investigates the life stories and values of those who died through the perceptions of those who loved them.

A number of museums throughout the world present visual and kinaesthetic accounts of social and historical research. Well-known examples are the Migration Museum in Melbourne, the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, and the Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism in Munich. A less securely established exhibition is that of images of the Australian Aboriginal Stolen Generation that was collected by the Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation to educate community and schoolchildren, “but only had the funding to showcase the exhibit for one night” (Diss, 2017 ). These and many other exhibitions create visual and experiential environments where the data of history can be not only seen and read but also felt.

In a similar way to how these exhibitions use actual archival photographs, theater may use the exact words of interviews to re-tell real stories. In making Verbatim , Brandt and Harcourt ( 1994 ) collated the words from 30 interviews with convicted murderers, their families, and the families of murder victims. “We went into the prisons to find out what the story was that we were going to tell, and that was the story that emerged from the material we collected,” Harcourt explained (White, 2013 ). “Not only the content, but also the form emerged from that context. We didn’t go in having decided we were going to make a solo show. Form emerged from the experience of the prison system.”

A frequently used form is that of ethnodrama (Mienczakowski, 1995 ; Saldaña, 2008 ). Ethnodrama presents data in a theatrical form: using stage, role, and sometimes lighting and music. Saldaña ( 2008 ) explains that ethnodrama maintains “close allegiance to the lived experiences of real people while presenting their voices through an artistic medium” (p. 3) and argues that the goals are not only aesthetic, they also possess emancipatory potential for motivating social change within participants and audiences.

Sometimes the ethnographic material is further manipulated in the presentation process. Conrad ( 2012 ) describes her research into the Native program at the Alberta youth corrections center in play form as “an ethnographic re-presentation of the research—a creative expression of the research findings” (p. xii). Her play jumps through time, creating fragments of action, and is interspersed by video scenes that provide alternative endings that could result from choices made by the characters. Conrad explains her choice of medium: “Performance has the potential to reach audiences in ways beyond intellectual understanding, through engaging other ways of knowing that are empathetic, emotional, experiential, and embodied, with the potential for radically re-envisioning social relations” (p. xiii).

Belliveau ( 2015 ) created a performative research about his work in teaching Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing in an elementary school. He interwove excerpts of students’ performances from the Shakespearean text with excerpts of their discussions about the issues of power, pride, love, and other themes in a new performance work that illustrated as well as explained primary students’ response to Shakespeare. He later presented a keynote at the IDEA (International Drama in Education Association) conference in Paris where he performed his discussion of this and other work with young students. Similarly, Lutton’s ( 2016 ) doctoral research explored the work and challenges of selected international drama educators using imagination and role play. In her final performance of her research, she took the role of an archivist’s assistant at a fictitious Museum of Educational Drama and Applied Theatre to provide “an opportunity for drama practitioners to use their skills and knowledge of drama pedagogy to tell their own stories” (Lutton, p. 36). She states that her choice of research tool embraces theatricality, enabling the embodiment of participants’ stories, the incorporation of critical reflection and of aesthetic knowledge (p. 36).

The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black Black Oil , developed by John McGrath and the 7:84 Theatre Company, recounts the history of economic exploitation of the Scottish people, from the evictions that followed the clearances for the farming of Cheviot sheep, through the development of Highland stag hunts, to the capitalist domination of resources in the 1970s oil boom. Within a traditional ceilidh form it tells stories, presents arguments, and uses caricature, satire, and parody. The play is the result of research and of critical analysis of movements of power and economic interests. It is also a very effective instrument of political persuasion: McGrath gives the dispossessed crofters a language that tugs at our empathy whereas that of the landlords provokes our antagonism. Is this polemics or simple historic truth? Does the dramatic impact of the play unreasonably capture our intellects? And if the facts that are presented are validated by other accounts of history does it matter if it does? What is, what should be, what can be the relationship between research and the evocation, even manipulation of emotions?

Emotion—and Its Power

In as much as arts offer different ways of knowing the world, their use at various stages of research has the power to influence both what we come to know and how we know it. Art tools, strategically used, allow access to emotions and visceral responses as well as to conscious ideas. That makes them powerful for eliciting information. It also makes them powerful in influencing audiences.

The photos of the brutality of the police and of the steadfastness of the activists in the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg are examples of powerfully influencing as well as informing data. As well as the events that are recorded, the faces and the bodies speak through the photos. Their exhibition in blown-up size at eye level together with film footage and artifacts create a compellingly powerful response in viewers. Like many others, I came out of the museum emotionally drained and confirmed, even strengthened, in my ideological beliefs. The power of the exhibition had first sharpened and then consolidated my understandings. Was this because of the power of the facts presented in the exhibition, or was it because of the power of their presentation ? Or was it both? When the issue presented is one like apartheid, I am not afraid of having my awareness influenced in multiple ways: I believe I already have an evidence-informed position on the subject. I also applaud the power of the exhibition to inform and convince those who might not yet have reached a position. But what if the issue was a different one? Perhaps one which I was more uncertain about? Might it then seem that the emotional power of the exhibition gave undue weight to the evidence?

The issue here is not a simple one. The presentation is not only the reporting of findings: it is also art. The researcher (in the artist) stays true to the data; the artist (in the researcher) arranges data for effect and affect. Conrad explicitly states her hope that her choice of presentation mode will add impact to her research findings: she wants the presentation of her research about youth in detention centers to engender more empathetic understandings of their experiences and lead, in turn, to more constructive attitudes toward their needs. By putting their words to music, Owen wants his audience to listen more attentively to opinions of the stakeholders in the schools threatened with closure. McGrath wants his audience to side with those dispossessed by the combined power of capital and law. The Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation plans to emotionally move as well as to inform its community. In writing Broadwood , I meticulously presented both sides of the dispute, I deliberately placed music and metaphor at the service of Maori language, and I deliberately used the spatial suggestiveness of the stage to evoke possibilities in the ending. The boy is alone in the library while his classmates are on the marae listening to an elder explain the history of their meetinghouse. The elder gives them an ancient whalebone weapon to hold, the students pass it among themselves, then hold it out across space to the boy. The boy stands, takes half a cautious step toward them and then stops; the lights go down. I intended the audience to complete the action in their subconscious.

In each of these cases, the art form of the presentation allows the artist/researcher to manipulate affect as well as critical cognition. To my mind, this is not simply another iteration of the argument between subjectivity and objectivity in research. Many contemporary approaches to research openly recognize that knowledge is mediated by context, experience, and social and historical discourses as well as by individuals’ personal interpretation (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011 ; Ellis, 2004 ). It is shaped by what is left out as well as by what is included. The practice of careful and scrupulous reflexivity is a way of acknowledging and bounding the subjectivity of the researcher (Altheide & Johnson, 2011 ; Ellingson, 2011 ). The researcher-who-is-artist draws on a subconscious as well as a conscious sense of how things fit together, and constructs meaning subconsciously as well as consciously, manipulating affect and effect in the process. Perhaps all researchers do so to some extent. For instance, the deliberately invisible authors of much quantitative research, who allow the passive voice to carry much of the reporting, who triangulate and define limitation, create an effect of fair-minded and dependable authority. The affect is not necessarily misleading, and it is something that readers of research have learned to recognize. However, the researcher-who-is-artist can draw on the rich repertoire of an art field that already operates in the domain of the aesthetic as well as of the critically cognitive, in spaces that are liminal as well those that are defined. It is arguable that readers of research still need to recognize and navigate through those spaces. Arguably, the challenge exists not only in the field of research: it is present in all the media that surrounds our daily lives.

A/r/tography and Examination of Places Between

The challenge of exploring liminal spaces of intention, process, explanation, effect, and affect is seriously taken up by the emergent discipline of a/r/tography . The backslashes in the term speak of fracture; they also denote the combined authorial roles of artist, researcher, and teacher. Springgay, Irwin, and Kind ( 2005 ) explain that a/r/tography is deliberately introspective and does not seek conclusions: rather it plays with connections between art and text and seeks to capture the embodied experience of exploring self and the world. Irwin et al. ( 2006 ) state: “Together, the arts and education complement, resist, and echo one another through rhizomatic relations of living inquiry” (p. 70). A/r/tography is explicitly positioned as a practice-based and living inquiry: it explores but resists attempting to define the spaces between artist, teacher, and researcher, and so implicitly rejects boundaries between these roles. It conceptualizes inquiry as a continuing experiential process of encounter between ideas, art media, context, meaning, and evolving representations. At the same time as it blurs distinctions, it teases out interrelationships: it offers art inquiry as something that is purposeful but unfixed, and art knowing as something that is personally and socially useful, but at best only partially and temporarily describable, never definable. This is one reason why its proponents explain it as a substantively different and new methodology outside the existing frameworks of qualitative research.

A/r/tography emerged out of the field of art education, with the explicit aim to extend the opportunities afforded by education in the arts, and to develop means to record and report the complex facets of learning and teaching in the arts. Consequently its language may be experienced, by readers who are outside the discipline, as highly abstract, deliberately ambiguous, and even esoteric: it seems to speak, as many research disciplines do, primarily to others in its own field. However, its broad principles have been picked up, and perhaps adapted, by practitioners who seek to explore the processes of their students’ learning through the arts and the evolving understandings they develop. For instance, Barrett and Greenwood ( 2013 ) report exploration of the epistemological third space through which place-conscious education and visual arts pedagogy can be interwoven and through which students, many of whom do not aspire to become artists, can use art-making to re-imagine and re-mark their understandings of their physical and social context and of their relationship with community. The value of this kind of research is posed in terms of the insights it affords rather than its capacity for presenting authoritative conclusions.

A Conference Debate, and the Politics of Research

Whether the provision of insights is enough to make art-making into research is a question that is frequently and sometimes fiercely contested. One such debate took place at a European conference I recently attended. It occurred in an arts-based research stream, and it began with the presentation of two films. The films were relatively short, and a discussion followed and became increasingly heated. Personally, I liked the films. The first reported a dance process that became an undergraduate teaching text. The second, in layers of imagery and fragments of dialogue, explored the practice of two artists. However, I was not sure what the added value was in calling either research. I saw art responding to art, and that seemed valuable and interesting enough. Why was the construct of research being privileged? The filmmakers defended the claim to research on the grounds that there was inquiry, on the grounds that art spoke in languages that were best discussed through art, and on the grounds that research was privileged in their institutions. Then a respected professor of fine arts put forward more direct criticism. Research, he argued, needed to make explicit the decisions that were made in identifying and reporting findings so that these would be accessible for peer review. Neither film, he said, did so. Defenses from the audience were heated. Then another senior art educator argued that art itself could not just be self-referential: it had to open a space for others to enter. The debate continued in corridors long after the session ended.

That the criticisms were unrelenting seemed an indication of how much was at stake. The space held by arts-based research within the European academic congregation is still somewhat fragile. The arts-based network was formed because of advocates’ passionate belief in the extended possibilities that arts-based methods offer, and this year again it expressed its eagerness to receive contributions in film and other art media as well as PowerPoint and verbal presentations. However, the network also saw itself as a custodian of rigor.

The participants in the session re-performed an argument that lingers at the edges of arts-based research. At the far ends of the spectrum, art and research are readily recognizable, and when art is borrowed as a tool in research, the epistemological and methodological assumptions are explicable. But the ground is more slippery when art and research intersect more deeply. When is the inquiry embedded within art, and when does it become research? Is it useful to attempt demarcations? What is lost from art or from research if demarcations are not attempted? The questions, as well as possible answers, are, as Eisner suggested, political as well as philosophical and methodological.

The doing of research and its publication have become big academic business. Universities around the world are required to report their academics’ research outputs to gain funding. My university, for example, is subject to a six-yearly round of assessment of research performance, based primarily on published and on funded research outputs. Each academic’s outputs are categorized and ranked, and the university itself is ranked and funded, in comparison with the other universities in the country. There is pressure on each academic to maximize research publications, even at the cost, it often seems, of other important academic activities, such as teaching. The competitive means of ranking also increases contestations about what is real research, serving both as a stimulus for positioning differing forms of inquiry as research and as a guarded gateway that permits some entries and denies others. Politicians and policymakers, in their turn, favor and fund research that can provide them with quotable numbers or clear-cut conclusions. Arts-based research still battles for a place within this politico-academic ground, although there appears to be growing acceptance of the use of art tools as means to elicit data.

Site for Possibilities—and Questions

The politics of research do matter, but for researchers who are committed to doing useful research, there are other factors to consider when choosing research approaches. These include the potentialities of the tools, the matter that is to be investigated, and the skills and practice preferences of the researcher.

The emergence and development of processes of arts-based research are grounded in belief that there are many ways of knowing oneself and the world, and these include emotions and intuitive perceptions as well as intellectual cognition. The epistemology of arts-based research is based on understandings that color, space, sound, movement, facial expression, vocal tone, and metaphor are as important in expressing and understanding knowledge as the lexical meanings of words. It is based on understandings that symbols, signs, and patterns are powerful means of communication, and that they are culturally and contextually shaped and interpreted. Arts-based research processes tolerate, even sometimes celebrate, ambiguity and ambivalence. They may also afford license to manipulate emotions to evoke empathy or direct social action.

The use of arts-based processes for eliciting participants’ responses considerably increases researchers’ repertoire for engaging participants and for providing them with means of expression that allow them to access feelings and perceptions that they might not initially be able to put into words as well as giving them time and strategies for considering their responses. The use of arts-based processes for analysis and representation allow opportunities for multidimensional, sensory, and often communal explorations of the meaning of what has been researched. It also presents new challenges to receivers of research who need to navigate their way not only through the overt ambiguities and subjective expression, but also through the invisible layers of affect that are embedded in art processes.

The challenges signal continuing areas of discussion, and perhaps work, for both arts-based researchers and for the wider research community. Does the use of art in representation of research findings move beyond the scope of critical peer review? Or do we rather need to develop new languages and strategies for such review? Do we need critical and recursive debate about when art becomes research and when it does not? Are the ambiguities and cognitive persuasions that are inherent in arts-based representations simply other, and useful, epistemological stances? Does the concept of research lose its meaning if it is stretched too far? Does art, which already has a useful role in interpreting and even shaping society, need to carve out its position as research? Does the entry of arts-based research into the arena of research call for revisions to the way we consider ethics? How do the procedures of institutional ethics committees need to be adapted to accommodate the engagement of the human body as well as the emergent design and ambiguities of the arts-based research processes? What are the more complex responsibilities of arts-based researchers toward their participants, particularly in terms of cultural protocols, reciprocity of gains, and the manipulation of emotions and cognition through visually or dramatically powerful presentations?

The already existing and expanding contribution of arts-based researchers argues vigorously for the place of arts processes in our congregations of research discussion and production. Quite simply, the arts address aspects of being human that are not sufficiently addressed by other methodologies. They are needed in our repertoire of tools for understanding people and the world. However, like other research approaches, they bring new challenges that need to be recognized and debated.

Artistic Research – Methods, Types and Examples

Table of Contents

Artistic Research

Definition:

Artistic Research is a mode of inquiry that combines artistic practice and research methodologies to generate new insights and knowledge. It involves using artistic practice as a means of investigation and experimentation, while applying rigorous research methods to examine and reflect upon the process and outcomes of the artistic practice.

Types of Artistic Research

Types of Artistic Research are as follows:

Practice-based Research

This type of research involves the creation of new artistic works as part of the research process. The focus is on the exploration of artistic techniques, processes, and materials, and how they contribute to the creation of new knowledge.

Research-led practice

This type of research involves the use of academic research methods to inform and guide the creative process. The aim is to investigate and test new ideas and approaches to artistic practice.

Practice-led Research

This type of research involves using artistic practice as a means of exploring research questions. The aim is to develop new insights and understandings through the creative process.

Transdisciplinary Research

This type of research involves collaboration between artists and researchers from different disciplines. The aim is to combine knowledge and expertise from different fields to create new insights and perspectives.

Research Through Performance

This type of research involves the use of live performance as a means of investigating research questions. The aim is to explore the relationship between the performer and the audience, and how this relationship can be used to create new knowledge.

Participatory Research

This type of research involves collaboration with communities and stakeholders to explore research questions. The aim is to involve participants in the research process and to create new knowledge through shared experiences and perspectives.

Data Collection Methods

Artistic research data collection methods vary depending on the type of research being conducted and the artistic discipline being studied. Here are some common methods of data collection used in artistic research:

Artistic production: One of the most common methods of data collection in artistic research is the creation of new artistic works. This involves using the artistic practice itself as a method of data collection. Artists may create new works of art, performances, or installations to explore research questions and generate data.
Interviews : Artists may conduct interviews with other artists, scholars, or experts in their field to collect data. These interviews may be recorded and transcribed for further analysis.
Surveys and questionnaires : Surveys and questionnaires can be used to collect data from a larger sample of people. These can be used to collect information about audience reactions to artistic works, or to collect demographic information about artists.
Observation: Artists may also use observation as a method of data collection. This can involve observing the audience’s reactions to a performance or installation, or observing the process of artistic creation.
Archival research : Artists may conduct archival research to collect data from historical sources. This can involve studying the work of other artists, analyzing historical documents or artifacts, or studying the history of a particular artistic practice or discipline.
Experimental methods : In some cases, artists may use experimental methods to collect data. This can involve manipulating variables in an artistic work or performance to test hypotheses and generate data.

Data Analysis Methods

some common methods of data analysis used in artistic research:

Interpretative analysis : This involves a close reading and interpretation of the artistic work, performance or installation in order to understand its meanings, themes, and symbolic content. This method of analysis is often used in qualitative research.
Content analysis: This involves a systematic analysis of the content of artistic works or performances, with the aim of identifying patterns, themes, and trends in the data. This method of analysis is often used in quantitative research.
Discourse analysis : This involves an analysis of the language and social contexts in which artistic works are created and received. It is often used to explore the power dynamics, social structures, and cultural norms that shape artistic practice.
Visual analysis: This involves an analysis of the visual elements of artistic works, such as composition, color, and form, in order to understand their meanings and significance.
Statistical analysis: This involves the use of statistical techniques to analyze quantitative data collected through surveys, questionnaires, or experimental methods. This can involve calculating correlations, regression analyses, or other statistical measures to identify patterns in the data.
Comparative analysis: This involves comparing the data collected from different artistic works, performances or installations, or comparing the data collected from artistic research to data collected from other sources.

Artistic Research Methodology

Artistic research methodology refers to the approach or framework used to conduct artistic research. The methodology used in artistic research is often interdisciplinary and may include a combination of methods from the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Here are some common elements of artistic research methodology:

Research question : Artistic research begins with a research question or problem to be explored. This question guides the research process and helps to focus the investigation.
Contextualization: Artistic research often involves an examination of the social, historical, and cultural contexts in which the artistic work is produced and received. This contextualization helps to situate the work within a larger framework and to identify its significance.
Reflexivity: Artistic research often involves a high degree of reflexivity, with the researcher reflecting on their own positionality and the ways in which their own biases and assumptions may impact the research process.
Iterative process : Artistic research is often an iterative process, with the researcher revising and refining their research question and methods as they collect and analyze data.
Creative practice: Artistic research often involves the use of creative practice as a means of generating data and exploring research questions. This can involve the creation of new works of art, performances, or installations.
Collaboration: Artistic research often involves collaboration with other artists, scholars, or experts in the field. This collaboration can help to generate new insights and perspectives, and to bring diverse knowledge and expertise to the research process.

Examples of Artistic Research

There are numerous examples of artistic research across a variety of artistic disciplines. Here are a few examples:

Music : A composer may conduct artistic research by exploring new musical forms and techniques, and testing them through the creation of new works of music. For example, composer Steve Reich conducted artistic research by studying traditional African drumming techniques and incorporating them into his minimalist compositions.
Visual art: An artist may conduct artistic research by exploring the history and techniques of a particular medium, such as painting or sculpture, and using that knowledge to create new works of art. For example, painter Gerhard Richter conducted artistic research by exploring the history of photography and using photographic techniques to create his abstract paintings.
Dance : A choreographer may conduct artistic research by exploring new movement styles and techniques, and testing them through the creation of new dance works. For example, choreographer William Forsythe conducted artistic research by studying the physics of movement and incorporating that knowledge into his choreography.
Theater : A theater artist may conduct artistic research by exploring the history and techniques of a particular theatrical style, such as physical theater or experimental theater, and using that knowledge to create new works of theater. For example, director Anne Bogart conducted artistic research by studying the teachings of the philosopher Jacques Derrida and incorporating those ideas into her approach to theater.
Film : A filmmaker may conduct artistic research by exploring the history and techniques of a particular genre or film style, and using that knowledge to create new works of film. For example, filmmaker Agnès Varda conducted artistic research by exploring the feminist movement and incorporating feminist ideas into her films.

When to use Artistic Research

some situations where artistic research may be useful:

Developing new artistic works: Artistic research can be used to inform and inspire the development of new works of art, music, dance, theater, or film.
Exploring new artistic techniques or approaches : Artistic research can be used to explore new techniques or approaches to artistic practice, and to test and refine these approaches through creative experimentation.
Investigating the historical and cultural contexts of artistic practice: Artistic research can be used to investigate the social, cultural, and historical contexts of artistic practice, and to identify the ways in which these contexts shape and influence artistic works.
Evaluating the impact and significance of artistic works : Artistic research can be used to evaluate the impact and significance of artistic works, and to identify the ways in which they contribute to broader cultural, social, and political issues.
Advancing knowledge and understanding in artistic fields: Artistic research can be used to advance knowledge and understanding in artistic fields, and to generate new insights and perspectives on artistic practice.

Purpose of Artistic Research

The purpose of artistic research is to generate new knowledge and understanding through a rigorous and creative investigation of artistic practice. Artistic research aims to push the boundaries of artistic practice and to create new insights and perspectives on artistic works and processes.

Artistic research serves several purposes, including:

Advancing knowledge and understanding in artistic fields: Artistic research can contribute to the development of new knowledge and understanding in artistic fields, and can help to advance the study of artistic practice.
Creating new artistic works and forms: Artistic research can inspire the creation of new artistic works and forms, and can help artists to develop new techniques and approaches to their practice.
Evaluating the impact and significance of artistic works: Artistic research can help to evaluate the impact and significance of artistic works, and to identify their contributions to broader cultural, social, and political issues.
Enhancing interdisciplinary collaboration: Artistic research often involves interdisciplinary collaboration, and can help to foster new connections and collaborations between artists, scholars, and experts in diverse fields.
Challenging assumptions and pushing boundaries: Artistic research can challenge assumptions and push the boundaries of artistic practice, and can help to create new possibilities for artistic expression and exploration.

Characteristics of Artistic Research

Some key characteristics that can be used to describe artistic research:

Creative and interdisciplinary: Artistic research is creative and interdisciplinary, drawing on a wide range of artistic and scholarly disciplines to explore new ideas and approaches to artistic practice.
Experimental and process-oriented : Artistic research is often experimental and process-oriented, involving creative experimentation and exploration of new techniques, forms, and ideas.
Reflection and critical analysis : Artistic research involves reflection and critical analysis of artistic practice, with a focus on exploring the underlying processes, assumptions, and concepts that shape artistic works.
Emphasis on practice-led inquiry : Artistic research is often practice-led, meaning that it involves a close integration of creative practice and research inquiry.
Collaborative and participatory: Artistic research often involves collaboration and participation, with artists, scholars, and experts from diverse fields working together to explore new ideas and approaches to artistic practice.
Contextual and socially engaged : Artistic research is contextual and socially engaged, exploring the ways in which artistic practice is shaped by broader social, cultural, and historical contexts, and engaging with issues of social and political relevance.

Advantages of Artistic Research

Artistic research offers several advantages, including:

Innovation : Artistic research encourages creative experimentation and exploration of new techniques and approaches to artistic practice, leading to innovative and original works of art.
Interdisciplinary collaboration: Artistic research often involves collaboration between artists, scholars, and experts from diverse fields, fostering interdisciplinary exchange and the development of new perspectives and ideas.
Practice-led inquiry : Artistic research is often practice-led, meaning that it involves a close integration of creative practice and research inquiry, leading to a deeper understanding of the creative process and the ways in which it shapes artistic works.
Critical reflection: Artistic research involves critical reflection on artistic practice, encouraging artists to question assumptions and challenge existing norms, leading to new insights and perspectives on artistic works.
Engagement with broader issues : Artistic research is contextual and socially engaged, exploring the ways in which artistic practice is shaped by broader social, cultural, and historical contexts, and engaging with issues of social and political relevance.
Contribution to knowledge : Artistic research contributes to the development of new knowledge and understanding in artistic fields, and can help to advance the study of artistic practice.

Limitations of Artistic Research

Artistic research also has some limitations, including:

Subjectivity : Artistic research is subjective, meaning that it is based on the individual perspectives, experiences, and creative decisions of the artist, which can limit the generalizability and replicability of the research.
Lack of formal methodology : Artistic research often lacks a formal methodology, making it difficult to compare or evaluate different research projects and limiting the reproducibility of results.
Difficulty in measuring outcomes: Artistic research can be difficult to measure and evaluate, as the outcomes are often qualitative and subjective in nature, making it challenging to assess the impact or significance of the research.
Limited funding: Artistic research may face challenges in securing funding, as it is still a relatively new and emerging field, and may not fit within traditional funding structures.
Ethical considerations: Artistic research may raise ethical considerations related to issues such as representation, consent, and the use of human subjects, particularly when working with sensitive or controversial topics.

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Artistic Research. Theories, Methods, Practices.

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Maximilian Lehner

English version of "Einsicht und Intensivierung - Überlegungen zur künstlerischen Forschung", in Elke Bippus (Hg.): Kunst des Forschens. Praxis eines ästhetischen Denkens. Diaphanes, Zürich/Berlin

What is it that distinguishes artistic research? Can one speak of a tradition of artistic problems? The tendency is to concentrate on trying to define the essential features of artistic research. This involves inquiry into not only how artistic research differs from but also how it resembles or is comparable to scientific research and philosophical work. As far the pragmatics of research are concerned, there is no fundamental difference between the systems of art and scholarship. And in both fields, it is often no easy task to distinguish substance, i.e. what is essential and intrinsic to the conditions and rules of the research process, from accident, i.e. what factors should be assigned to the external operations of research. One might inquire into whether artistic research works with special methods, whether it makes use of a specific set of tools, whether it typically addresses a specific subject of research, and whether it produces knowledge that is characteristic of art.

Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture

Josef Früchtl

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What is artistic research?

Art offers a premise and an aim for research: a motive, a terrain, a context and a whole range of methods.

Published 10.3.2020 | Updated 30.11.2020

Art and research are basic concepts in our culture. They feed on one another and are intertwined in many ways.

Research that defines art as its object in one way or another is generally called art research. Art can, however, also offer a premise and an aim for research: a motive, a terrain, a context and a whole range of methods. This kind of research is often referred to as “artistic research”. It is not a counter concept of “scientific research”, but instead, its primary aim is to describe the framework of research in a way that does not simply reduce art to the subject matter of a study.

Artistic research is typically carried out by experts in various fields of art, i.e. artists – or artist-researchers, to be exact, because not all art is research. Artistic activities can be considered research only when they are done within a critical community.

Similar to a scientific community, an art community defines, shapes and renews the criteria for its own research frameworks and practices in interaction with the surrounding society. In this sense, artistic research is comparable to scientific research and constitutes its own form of research among various other forms.

We have endorsed The Vienna Declaration on Artistic Research .

Our most central networks within artistic research:

European Artistic Research Network EARN
The Society for Artistic Research SAR

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The Ryerson & Burnham Libraries collection contains a wide variety of resources that can be used to locate information on artists and their works. Our open shelf collection in the reading room contains reference sources, such as dictionaries, directories, encyclopedias, and indexes. We have strong collections of artist files, auction catalogs, books, exhibition catalogs, journals, and newspapers in the library collection, and the Ryerson and Burnham Archives collections also contain papers for individual artists and arts organizations, as well as a collection of artists’ oral histories.

This research guide provides recommendations for research sources and strategies to locate information on both prominent and obscure artists and their works. Prior to beginning your research, we recommend that you compile as much information about the artist or artwork of interest to you as possible. Do you know the artist’s name, the artwork’s title, the approximate dates the artist worked or the piece was created, or the geographic area where the artist lived or the object was created? If you are working on an artwork in your collection, have you examined it to see whether it contains any signatures or marks, labels, or annotations (you may wish to remove the frame to fully examine the object)? Recording this information and bringing an outline of keywords or research objectives as well as clear, closeup images of any signatures or markings to the library with you will provide you with a strong starting point for your research.

Getting Started

The Ryerson and Burnham Libraries’ catalog will lead you to articles, artist files, books, and exhibition catalogues for an artist. For best results, use the Library Catalog search scope, and enter the artist’s name, last name, first name (example: Monet, Claude). The following resources will also be helpful in learning more about specific artists and their artworks.

Catalogues Raisonnés

Look for a piece in the most comprehensive catalogue of the artist’s known works. Please note these are not available for all artists. The International Foundation for Art Research maintains a free database of published and forthcoming catalogues raisonnés.

In the library catalog, search the Library Catalog scope for: [Artist’s name; Last Name, First Name] – Catalogues raisonnés (example: Hopper, Edward – Catalogues raisonnés).

Artist Files

The Ryerson & Burnham Libraries have over 35,000 artist files, which contain small exhibition catalogs, checklists, clippings, images, and fliers for artists, galleries, museums, and art schools. These are described in the catalog: the location and material type is Pamphlets. See also the New York Public Library’s artists file on microfiche (call number 1990 3).

Biographical Reference Resources

Who’s Who in American Art This subscription resource is also available digitally in the reading room.
Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975
Dictionary of Artists (Bénézit) This subscription resource is also available digitally in the reading room.
Allgemeines Kunstler-Lexikon This subscription resource is also available digitally in the reading room.
Contemporary Artists

Ryerson Index

Look for articles on an artist, particularly if the artist was in the Chicago area and was active in the early to mid-20th century. This includes references to the Art Institute of Chicago Scrapbooks .

Full Title : I ndex to Art Periodicals (1962)

Signature Directories

If you do not have the name of the work you are researching, but it has a signature, try resources such as these.

American Artists: Signatures & Monograms, 1800-1989
Marks & Monograms: The Decorative Arts, 1880-1960
The Visual Index of Artists’ Signatures & Monograms
Artists’ Monograms & Indiscernible Signatures: An International Directory, 1800-1991

Reproduction Indices

Track down works that reproduce a painting, such as World Painting Index or Art Reproductions .

Art Dictionaries

Art dictionaries are useful for biographies, introductions to periods of art, and the bibliographies that accompany entries; the Grove Dictionary of Art and Oxford Art Online (this subscription resource is available in the reading room) are good examples. Works such as the Dictionary of Art Terms can also be useful for definitions and explanations of terms and periods of art, as well as illustrations and diagrams for entries.

Articles on Art, Artists, and Related Topics

These subscription resources provide citations and some full-text articles on art, artists, and related topics. Unless otherwise noted, they are available onsite at the Art Institute of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago campus. Faculty, students, and staff at the Art Institute of Chicago and School of the Art Institute of Chicago can also access most of these resources from other locations with an ARTIC username and password via the Art, Architecture, and Design Resources Page .

Newspaper Databases

The Libraries subscribe to online regional and national newspaper databases, which can be used to locate biographical or exhibition information.

These resources are accessible in the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries via the Newspapers Resources Page .

Auction Databases

The Libraries subscribe to a number of auction databases, most of which cover auctions from the last 20 years.

These resources are accessible in the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries via the Auction Resources Page.

Researching Artworks in a Museum Collection

Objects currently on display in the Art Institute galleries can usually be found in Collections Online . The record may include an image, information from the wall label, and occasionally an exhibition history and bibliography of titles that mention the artwork. CITI is the museum’s internal collection database, which includes information on all artworks in the Art Institute’s collection. If an item is not on display in the galleries, this may be the best starting point. Please ask at the reference desk for CITI access.

For objects that are on display in other museums and institutions, the subscription ARTstor database, available in the reading room, contains a growing survey of major works of art, as well as specialized image collections.

Search by museum collection, artist, or keyword. ARTstor is available from the Image Databases page .

Catalog of Museum or Department

Consult the catalogs of a museum’s collection or a museum department’s collection. For example: American Arts at the Art Institute of Chicago . You can find these by searching the library catalog for the museum and department name and the term catalogs (for example, Art Institute of Chicago. Department of Textiles — Catalogs).

Beyond the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries

Area Libraries

Check libraries and/or historical societies in the area that the artist was from or was most active for information including newspaper articles and pamphlet files. Try “Find a library near you,” available here: https://www.worldcat.org/libraries .

Chicago Artists’ Archive at Chicago Public Library

This archival collection is available at the Harold Washington Branch of Chicago Public Library (8th floor). Files may contain: resumes, newspaper articles, artists’ books, gallery flyers, videos, press clippings, letters, photographs, some original artwork, and CDs. To find out if a particular artist is included in the collection you can call (312) 747-4300 or consult the list available here: http://www.chipublib.org/fa-chicago-artists-archive/ .

Collections that Have Works by the Artist

Once you discover which museum collections hold pieces by an artist, check with these institutions for information.

Union Catalogs

The Chicago Collections Consortium contains digitized items from the archives and special collections of various Chicago-area institutions, including scrapbooks, photographs, and other printed material for local art-related topics. Access the free online portal here: http://explore.chicagocollections.org .

WorldCat is a catalog of library catalogs worldwide that contains records for libraries’ holdings of books, journals, manuscript collections, newspapers, and digital and audiovisual resources. It is available thorough subscription in the reading room, or in a free version .

Archival Collections

Look for collections of an artist’s papers in library collections around the world search WorldCat or ArchiveGrid .

For American artists, try the Archives of American Art: http://www.aaa.si.edu/ .

Art Information on the Internet

Conduct broad searches for anything on an artist’s name. Using quotation marks around the artist’s name can help limit, as can adding keywords outside the quotation marks.

“Claude Monet”

“Claude Monet” watercolor

“Claude Monet” artist

Searching Google Images, Google Books, and Google Scholar can also be very useful.

The entries in this free online encyclopedia often include bibliographies, references, and links to related entries.

Biographical Information

Consult sites created by museums, libraries, archives, galleries, and others that provide information on artists.

Art in Context

Artcyclopedia

For artists about whom little professional literature is available, try genealogical resources such as census documents, city directories, county histories, and local newspaper collections. Many of these resources are freely accessible online.

ChicagoAncestors

Chronicling America

FamilySearch

Internet Archive

Image Searching

If you have a digital image of the item you are trying to identify, run it through a reverse image search to locate images of similar items on the Internet.

Google Images

Art-Related Services

Appraisal and Conservation

Staff at the Art Institute of Chicago cannot provide authentication or appraisal services, and our conservation staff are not able to accept inquiries on works of art in personal collections. You can locate advice on these topics in our research guide on Appraisal and Conservation Resources for Art .

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Sorry , the question is wrongly put, Good Man (1978). We should ask, when is research artistic? But let us start from the end.

According to the UNESCO definition, research is “any creative systematic activity undertaken in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge about humanity, culture and society, and the use of this knowledge to devise new applications.” ( OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms , 2008).

Research, therefore, means the state of not knowing – or even better, not yet knowing along with a desire for knowledge (Rheinberger 1992, Dombois 2006). Rather than being a unique feature of scientists, research also seems to include many activities, such as those undertaken by artists, for example. The fact that the majority of them have been creative and not a few systematic in their working method is undisputed. The driving motivation of an increase in knowledge, on the other hand, is still granted much less often as self-evident, even as the knowledge they need to perform and reflect their work must have been acquired somehow and correspondingly entails research – research undertaken not just at that specific moment but rather from the very beginning.

For many reasons, as Baecker (2009) succinctly describes, resentments toward junctions of research and art begin primarily with their substantification; the thought that artists are “researching” appears easier to accommodate within a scientistic worldview than that some of the products of their work must logically belong to “research.” Lesage suspects that underlying this are concerns about the restriction of access to resources and thus, in the title of his article, posed the question, “Who’s Afraid of Artistic Research?” (2009)

Before citing McAllister (“I think, artistic research exists,” 2004) as penultimate argument in a potential dispute, a few points can often be saved by offering a categorical distinction such as the tripartite one made by Jones (1980), Frayling (1993) and Borgdorff (2009): the distinction between art based on (other) research, art that uses research (or research methods) and, lastly, art that has research as its products. Dombois (2009) extends this trichotomy via the following chiastic complements: “Research about/for/through Art | Art about/for through Research.”

Even natural scientific research alone is very diverse in its objects, methods and products, as McAllister notes (2004). This applies all the more in view of research in the humanities and social sciences as well as industrial, market and opinion research. Not surprisingly, this is also true for artistic research. Among the authors cited here, there is agreement that this diversity must be preserved against efforts fostering their canonical restriction.

Art without research just as equally dispenses of its essential foundation as does science without research. As cultural developments, both live from the balance between tradition and innovation. Tradition without research would be blind takeover, and innovation without research would be pure intuition. Wherever scientists do not research but instead teach, judge, carry out, advise, treat, apply or talk more or less telegenically (hence “PUSH” – the button), they might still be undertaking science – but were they to undertake all this without research, they would not be quite true to their cause. The same can be said of artists. On the other hand, it becomes clear that – in same measure as is the case for science – by no means does all art count as research.

The most important diagnosis, however, is that the term “research” designates something as little homogenous as “science” or “art”; they are collective pluralities, assembling highly diverging processes that often trespass the categories of boundaries such as disciplines to be more closely related there than with some other members of their own faculty, subsequently grouping together more easily under their common interdisciplinary denominators, such as topics, methods and paradigms. This “urge toward singularization” is probably the strongest root of the “opposition” – as stubborn as it is alleged – between art and science; Baecker (2009) calls this the “organizing principle of the functional difference,” the emergence of which Mersch & Ott (2007) trace back to the 19th century.

Art and science are not separate domains but rather two dimensions in the common cultural space. This means that something can be more or less artistic even as nothing is stated regarding the degree to which it is scientific. This is also true for many other cultural attributes, among them the musical, philosophical, religious and mathematical. Some of them are, however, more dependent on each other than they are isolated. In this respect, Latour’s diagnosis applies here mutatis mutandis: “There are no two departments but only one, their products to be distinguished later and after joint examination” (1991, p. 190). However, at the very least, not everything that is considered to be art must therefore be unscientific, and not everything that is regarded as science must be unartistic. Dombois proposes five criteria for “Science as Art” (2006). A wealth of examples – space constraints here do not allow for their listing – show that the artistic and scientific content of objects, activities and events allow themselves to be mixed, one independent of the other, to varying degrees of intensity. Research is not artistic when or even only when it is carried out by artists (as helpful as their participation may often be) but rather earns the attribute “artistic” – no matter where, when or from whom it was undertaken – on its specific quality: the mode of artistic experience.

Artistic Experience

In the mode of aesthetic sensory experience, perception becomes present to itself, opaque and able to be sensed. Artistic experience can be prescribed similarly, as the perceptory mode of the sensed interference of frames (for details, see Klein 2009). According to this diagnosis, to have an artistic experience means to look at oneself from outside a frame and simultaneously enter into it. Frames, which in this way cross through our perception, are also comparably present and able to be sensed (Fischer-Lichte 2004 calls this a “liminal state”). The artistic experience as well as the aesthetic sensory experience are modes of our perception and as such constantly available, even outside the works and places of art.

Within an “experience,” the subjective perspective is included constitutively, because experience, by its very nature, cannot be delegated, and only secondarily can it be intersubjectively negotiated. This is a major reason for the conception of the singular nature of artistic knowledge (Mersch & Ott, 2007, Nevanlinna 2004, McAllister 2004, Busch 2007, Bippus 2010. Dombois 2006 refers to Barthes’ 1980 proposal of a “mathesis singularis”). Artistic experience is particularly dependent on and inseparable from the underlying goings-on. Artistic experience is an active, constructive and aesthetic process in which mode and substance are inseparably fused. This differentiates artistic experience from other implicit knowledge, which is generally able to be considered and described separately from its acquisition (see Dewey 1934, Polanyi 1966, Piccini and Kershaw 2003).

Artistic Research

If “art” is but a mode of perception, “artistic research” must also be the mode of a process. Therefore, there can be no categorical distinction between “scientific” and “artistic” research – because the attributes independently modulate a common carrier, namely, the aim for knowledge within research. Artistic research can therefore always also be scientific research (Ladd 1979). For this reason, many artistic research projects are genuinely interdisciplinary, or, to be more exact, indisciplinary (Ranciery in Birrell 2008, Klein & Kolesch 2009).

Against this background, the phrase “art as research” seems somewhat inaccurate, because it is not art that somehow evolves into research. What exists, however, is research that becomes artistic; hence, it should actually be called “Research as Art,” with the central question being, “ When is Research Art?”

Over the course of a specific research undertaking, artistic experience can occur at different times, differ in duration and vary in importance. This complicates the categorization of the undertaking while on the other hand allowing for a dynamic taxonomy: At what times and in which phases can research be artistic? First, in its methods (such as searching, archiving, collecting, interpreting and explaining, modeling, experimenting, intervening and petitioning); but also in its underlying motivation, its inspiration, in its reflection, its discussion, in the formulation of research questions, in its conception and composition, in its implementation, in its publication, in its evaluation, in the manner of discourse – just to name a few. These phases can only be summarized and categorized post-hoc, such as in the customary triad of object, method and product. This sequence, however, is important in order to avoid falling into the normative restriction of a canonical system within the discussion on artistic research (Lesage 2009).

At what level does the reflection of artistic research take place? Generally, at the level of artistic experience itself. This excludes neither a (subjective or intersubjective) interpretation on a descriptive level nor a theoretical analysis and modeling on a meta-level. However, “It is a myth that reflection is only possible from the outside” (Artega 2010). Artistic experience is a form of reflection.

Artistic Knowledge

Who are we? How do we want to live? What do things mean? What is real? What can we know? When does something exist? What is time? What has causality? What is intelligence? Where is sense? Could it also all be different? These are examples of interests common to art and science. Their treatment does not always lead to secure and universally valid knowledge (with regard to the history of science, only in very few cases, no?). The arts are granted the authority to formulate and address such basal and yet complex issues in their specific ways, which must not necessarily be less reflected than those of philosophy or physics, and which are in a position to gain specific knowledge that could not be delivered in any other way.

Whether an artistic thirst for knowledge is acceptable as a reason for also calling an investigation “research” obviously depends on the question as to what types of knowledge fall under the concept of cognition, or which types of cognition count toward knowledge. Even if we could agree that knowledge is “justified true belief,” we still would not have won our case, because we would have to come to a common understanding as to when an opinion is a belief and exactly what can be a justification for this – not to mention the concept of truth. This path, no matter how we travel it, leads to final arguments, which either appear acceptable to us or not (see Eisner 2008). The following applies to those kinds of terms that, in the end, are part of a meta-language such as knowledge: The more we try to proscribe them, the more we are constrained to normative judgments, at their core supported only by what we want them to mean. Then it is equally feasible to posit that knowledge also includes experience as a third species in addition to cognition and skill or that knowledge and experience stand side by side as forms of cognition – they should at least be considered equivalent.

Some authors require that artistic knowledge, notwithstanding it all, must be able to be verbalized and thus be comparable to declarative knowledge (e.g., Jones 1980, 2004 AHRB). Many say it is embodied in the products of art (e.g., Langer 1957, McAllister 2004, Dombois 2006, Lesage 2009, Bippus 2010). Ultimately, however, it has to be acquired through sensory and emotional perception, through the very artistic experience from which it cannot be separated. Whether silent or verbal, declarative or procedural, implicit or explicit, artistic knowledge is, in each and every case, sensual and physical, “embodied knowledge.” The knowledge for which artistic research strives is a felt knowledge.

Originally published in German in: Gegenworte 23, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften 2010.

D. Baecker: "Kunstformate” (Kulturrecherche), in: Rey/Schöbi 2009, pp. 79-97.

A. W. Balkema und H. Slager (Hg.): Artistic Research . Lier en Boog, Series of Philosophy of Art and Art Theory 18. Amsterdam 2004.

E. Barrett und B. Bolt: Practice as Research. Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry . London 2009.

R. Barthes: Die helle Kammer [La chambre claire. Paris 1980]. Frankfurt am Main 1989.

E. Bippus (Hg.): Kunst des Forschens. Praxis eines ästhetischen Denkens. Zürich 2009.

E. Bippus: "Die epistemische Praxis künstlerischer Forschung", in: Gegenworte 23 (2010).

R. Birell: "Jacques Rancière and The (Re)Distribution of the Sensible: Five Lessons in Artistic Research”, in: Art & Research 2/1 (2008), pp. 1-11.

H. Borgdorff: "The debate on research in the arts”, in: Dutch Journal of Music Theory 12/1 (2007) S. 1-17; [deutsch:] "Die Debatte über Forschung in der Kunst", in: Rey/Schöbi 2009, pp. 23-51

K. Busch: "Artistic Research and the Poetics of Knowledge”, in: Lesage/Busch 2007, p. 41

D. Carr: "Art, Practical Knowledge and Aesthetic Objectivity”, in: Ratio 12/3 (1999), p. 240256

J. Dewey: Kunst als Erfahrung [Art as Experience 1934 ]. Frankfurt am Main 1980

F. Dombois: "0-1-1-2-3-5-8-. Zur Forschung an der Hochschule der Künste Bern“, in: Hochschule der Künste Bern (Hg.): Forschung. Jahrbuch Nr. 4/2009. Bern 2009, p. 1122

F. Dombois: "Kunst als Forschung. Ein Versuch, sich selbst eine Anleitung zu entwerfen“, in: Hochschule der Künste Bern (Hg.): Hochschule der Künste Bern 2006. Bern 2006, pp. 21-29

E. W. Eisner: "On the Differences between Scientific and Artistic Approaches to Qualitative Research”, in: Educational Researcher 10/4 (1981), pp. 5-9

E. W. Eisner: "Art and Knowledge”, in: Knowles/Cole 2008, pp. 3-12

D. Everitt und A. Robertson: "Emergence and complexity: Some observations and reflections on transdisciplinary research involving performative contexts and new media”, in: International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media 3/2 (2007), pp. 239-252

E. Fischer-Lichte: Ästhetik des Performativen . Frankfurt am Main 2004

Chr. Frayling: "Research in Art and Design”, in: Royal College of Art Research Papers 1.1. (1993), pp. 1-5

N. Goodman: "Wann ist Kunst?“, in: ders.: Weisen der Welterzeugung [Ways of Worldmaking 1978] Frankfurt am Main 1990, pp. 83-85

M. Hannula, J. Suornta und T. Vadén (Hg.): Artistic Research . Helsinki 2005

T. Jones: "A Discussion Paper on Research in the Visual Fine Arts”, in: Leonardo 13/2 (1980), pp. 89-93

J. Kaila und A. Herlin: The Artist’s Knowledge 2. Helsinki 2008

S. Kiljunen und M. Hannula (Hg.): Artistic Research . Helsinki 2002

J. Klein: "Zur Dynamik bewegter Körper. Die Grundlagen der ästhetischen Relativitätstheorie", in: ders. (Hg.): per.SPICE! – Wirklichkeit und Relativität desÄsthetischen . Berlin 2009, pp. 104-134

J. Klein und D. Kolesch: "Galileis Kugel oder das absolut Relative des ästhetischen Erlebens", in: Klein 2009, pp. 7-18

J. G. Knowles und A. L. Cole: Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: perspectives, methodologies, examples, and issues . Thousand Oaks/London 2008

G. W. Ladd: "Artistic Research Tools for Scientific Minds”, in: American Journal of Agricultural Economics 61/1 (1979), pp. 1-11

S. K. Langer: Problems of art: Ten philosophical lectures . New York 1957

B. Latour: Wir sind nie modern gewesen [Nous n’avons jamais été modernes. Paris 1991] . Frankfurt am Main 2008

P. Leavy: Method Meets Art: Arts-Based Research Practice . New York 2009

D. Lesage: "Who’s Afraid of Artistic Research?”, in: Art & Research 2/2 (2009), pp. 1-10

D. Lesage und K. Busch (Hg.): A Portrait of the Artist as a Researcher . Antwerpen 2007

J. McAllister: "Seven Claims”, in: Balkema/Slager 2004, pp. 18-22

S. McNiff: Art-Based Research . London 1998

D. Mersch und M. Ott (Hg.): Kunst und Wissenschaft . München 2007

A. Pakes: "Art as action or art as object? The embodiment of knowledge in practice as research", in: Working Papers in Art and Design 3 (2004). Internet Publikation ISSN 1466-4917, http://sitem.herts.ac.uk/artdes_research/papers/wpades/vol3/apfull.html

A. Piccini und B. Kershaw: "Practice as Research in Performance: from epistemology to evaluation”, in: Journal of Media Practice 4/2, pp. 113-123

M. Polanyi: Implizites Wissen [The Tacit Dimension, 1966] . Frankfurt am Main 1985

J. Rancière: Die Aufteilung des Sinnlichen [Le partage du sensible. Paris 2000] . Berlin 2006

A. Rey und St. Schöbi (Hg.): Künstlerische Forschung – Positionen und Perspektiven . Zürich 2009 H.-J. Rheinberger: Experiment – Differenz – Schrift: Zur Geschichte epistemischer Dinge. Marburg 1992

H. Smith und R. T. Dean: (Hg.): Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts . Edinburgh 2009

D. Strand: Research in the Creative Arts . Canberra 1998

G. Sullivan: Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in Visual Arts. Thousand Oaks/London 2010

P. Thomson: "Practice as Research”, in: Studies in Theatre and Performance 22/3 (2003), pp. 159-180

Photograph Credit

Manuel Klein

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Art in an age of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) will affect almost every aspect of our lives and replace many of our jobs. On one view, machines are well suited to take over automated tasks and humans would remain important to creative endeavors. In this essay, I examine this view critically and consider the possibility that AI will play a significant role in a quintessential creative activity, the appreciation and production of visual art. This possibility is likely even though attributes typically important to viewers–the agency of the artist, the uniqueness of the art and its purpose might not be relevant to AI art. Additionally, despite the fact that art at its most powerful communicates abstract ideas and nuanced emotions, I argue that AI need not understand ideas or experience emotions to produce meaningful and evocative art. AI is and will increasingly be a powerful tool for artists. The continuing development of aesthetically sensitive machines will challenge our notions of beauty, creativity, and the nature of art.

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) will permeate our lives. It will profoundly affect healthcare, education, transportation, commerce, politics, finance, security, and warfare ( Ford, 2021 ; Lee and Qiufan, 2021 ). It will also replace many human jobs. On one view, AI is particularly suited to take over routine tasks. If this view is correct, then humans involvement will remain relevant, if not essential, for creative endeavors. In this essay, I examine the potential role of AI in one particularly creative human activity—the appreciation and production of art. AI might not seem well suited for such aesthetic engagement; however, it would be premature to relegate AI to a minor role. In what follows, I survey what it means for humans to appreciate and produce art, what AI seems capable of, and how the two might converge.

Agency and purpose in art

If an average person in the US were asked to name an artistic genius they might mention Michelangelo or Picasso. Having accepted that they are geniuses, the merit of their work is given the benefit of the doubt. A person might be confused by a cubist painting, but might be willing to keep their initial confusion at bay by assuming that Picasso knew what he was doing Art historical narratives value individual agency ( Fineberg, 1995 ). By agency, I mean the choices a person makes, their intentionality, motivations, and the quality of their work. Even though some abstract art might look like it could be made by children, viewers distinguish the two by making inferences about the artists’ intentionality ( Hawley-Dolan and Winner, 2011 ).

Given the importance we give to the individual artist, it is not surprising that most people react negatively to forgeries ( Newman and Bloom, 2012 ). This reaction, even when the object is perceptually indistinguishable from an original, underscores the importance of the original creator in conferring authenticity to art. Authenticity does not refer to the mechanical skills of a painter. Rather it refers to the original conception of the work in the mind of the artist. We value the artist’s imagination and their choices in how to express their ideas. We might appreciate the skill involved in producing a forgery, but ultimately devalue such works as a refined exercise in paint-by-numbers.

Children care about authenticity. They value an original object and are less fond of an identical object if they think it was made by a replicator ( Hood and Bloom, 2008 ). Such observations suggest that the value of an original unique object made by a person rather than a machine is embedded in our developmental psychology. This sensibility persists among adults. Objects are typically imbued with something of the essence of its creator. People experience a connection between the creator and receiver transmitted through the object, which lends authenticity to the object ( Newman et al., 2014 ; Newman, 2019 ).

The value of art made by a person rather than a machine also seems etched in our brains. People care about the effort, skill, and intention that underly actions ( Kruger et al., 2004 ; Snapper et al., 2015 ); features that are more apparent in a human artist than they would be with a machine. In one study, people responded more favorably to identical abstract images if they thought the images were hanging in a gallery than if they were generated by a computer ( Kirk et al., 2009 ). This response was accompanied by greater neural activity in reward areas of the brain, suggesting that the participants experienced more pleasure if they thought the image came from a gallery than if it was produced by a machine. We do not know if such responses that were reported in 2009, will be true in 2029 or 2059. Even now, biases against AI art are mitigated if people anthropomorphize the machine ( Chamberlain et al., 2018 ). As AI art develops, we might be increasingly fascinated by the fact that people can create devices that themselves can create novel images.

Before the European Renaissance, agency was probably not important for how people thought about art ( Shiner, 2001 ). The very notion of art probably did not resemble how we think of artworks when we walk into a museum or a gallery. Even if the agency of an artist did not much matter, purpose did. Religious art conveyed spiritual messages. Indigenous cultures used art in rituals. Forms of a gaunt Christ on the crucifix, sensual carvings at Khajuraho temples, and Kongo sculptures of human forms impaled with nails, served communal purposes. Dissanayake (2008) emphasized the deep roots of ritual in the evolution of art. Purpose in art does not have to be linked to agency. We admire cave paintings at Lascaux or Alta Mira but do not give much thought to specific artists who made them. We continue to speculate about the purpose of these images.

Art is sometimes framed as “art for art’s sake,” as if it has no purpose. According to Benjamin (1936/2018) this doctrine, l’art pour l’art , was a reaction to art’s secularization. The attenuation of communal ritualistic functions along with the ease of art’s reproduction brought on a crisis. “Pure” art denied any social function and reveled in its purity.

Some of functions of art shifted from a communal purpose to individual intent. The Sistine Chapel, while promoting a Christian narrative, was also a product of Michelangelo’s mind. Modern and contemporary art bewilder many because the message of the art is often opaque. One needs to be educated about the point of a urinal on a pedestal or a picture of soup cans to have a glimmer as to why anybody considers these objects as important works of art. In these examples, intent of the artist is foregrounded while communal purpose recedes and for most viewers is hard to decipher. Even though 20th Century art often represented social movements, we emphasize the individual as the author of their message. Guernica, and its antiwar message, is attributed to an individual, even when embedded in a social context. We might ask, what was Basquiat saying about identity? How did Kahlo convey pain and death? How did depression affect Rothko’s art?

Would AI art have a purpose? As I will recount later, AI at the very least could be a powerful tool for an artist, perhaps analogous to the way a sophisticated camera is a tool for a fine art photographer. In that case, a human artist still dictates the purpose of the art. For a person using AI art generating programs, their own cultural context, their education, and personal histories influence their choices and modifications the initial “drafts” of images produced by the generator. If AI develops sentience, then questions about the purpose of AI art and its cultural context, if such work is even produced, will come to the fore and challenge our engagement with such art.

Reproduction and access

I mentioned the importance of authenticity in how a child reacts to reproductions and our distaste for forgeries. These observations point to a special status for original artwork. For Benjamin (1936/2018) the original had a unique presence in time and place. He regarded this presence as the artwork’s “aura.” The aura of art depreciates with reproduction.

Reproduction has been an issue in art for a long time. Wood cuts and lithographs (of course the printing press for literature) meant that art could be reproduced and many copies distributed. These copies made art more accessible. Photography and film, vastly increased reproductions of and access to art images.

Even before reproductions, paintings as portable objects within a frame, increased access to art. These objects could be moved to different locations, unlike frescoes or mosaics which had to be experienced in situ (setting aside the removal of artifacts from sites of origin to imperial collections). Paintings that could be transported in a frame already diminished their aura by being untethered to a specific location of origin.

Concerns about reproduction take on a different force in the digital realm. These concerns extend those raised by photographic reproduction. Analog photography retains the ghost of an original- in the form of a negative. Fine art photography often limits prints to a specific number to impart a semblance of originality and introduce scarcity to the physical artifact of a print. Digital photography has no negative. A RAW file might be close. Copies of the digital file, short of being corrupted, are indistinguishable from an original file, calling into question any uniqueness contained in that original. Perhaps non-fungible tokens could be used to establish an original unique identifier for such digital files.

If technology pushes art toward new horizons and commercial opportunities push advances in technology, then it is hard to ignore the likelihood that virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will have an impact on our engagement with art. The ease of mass production and commercial imperatives to make more, also renders the notion of the aura of an individual object or specific location in VR nonsensical. AI art, by virtue of being digital, will lack uniqueness and not have the same aura as a specific object tied to a specific time and place. However, the images will be novel. Novelty, as I describe later, is an important feature of creativity.

Artificial intelligence in our lives

As I mentioned at the outset of this essay, machine learning and AI will have a profound effect on almost every aspect of what we do and how we live. Intelligence in current forms of AI is not like human cognition. AI as implemented in deep learning algorithms are not taught rules to guide the processing of their inputs. Their learning takes different forms. They can be supervised, reinforced, or unsupervised. For supervised learning, they are fed massive amounts of labeled data as input and then given feedback about how well their outputs match the desired label. In this way networks are trained to maximize an “objective function,” which typically targets the correct answer. For example, a network might be trained to recognize “dog” and learn to identify dogs despite the fact that dogs vary widely in color, size, and bodily configurations. After being trained on many examples of images that have been labeled a priori as dog, the network identifies images of dogs it has never encountered before. The distinctions between supervised, reinforcement learning, and unsupervised learning are not important to the argument here. Reinforcement learning relies on many trial-and-error iterations and learns to succeed from the errors it makes, especially in the context of games. Unsupervised learning learns by identifying patterns in data and making predictions based on past patterns in that are not labeled.

Artificial intelligence improves with more data. With massive information increasingly available from web searches, commercial purchases, internet posts, texts, official records, all resting on enormous cloud computing platforms, the power of AI is growing and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The limits to AI are availability of data and of computational power.

Artificial intelligence does some tasks better than humans. It processes massive amounts of information, generates many simulations, and identifies patterns that would be impossible for humans to appreciate. For example, in biology, AI recently solved the complex problem of three-dimensional protein folding from a two-dimensional code ( Callaway, 2022 ). The output of deep learning algorithms can seem magical ( Rich, 2022 ). Given that they are produced by complex multidimensional equations, their results resist easy explanation.

Current forms of AI have limits. They do not possess common sense. They are not adept at analytical reasoning, extracting abstract concepts, understanding metaphors, experiencing emotions, or making inferences ( Marcus and Davis, 2019 ). Given these limits, how could AI appreciate or produce art? If art communicates abstract and symbolic ideas or expresses nuanced emotions, then an intelligence that cannot abstract ideas or feel emotions would seem ill-equipped to appreciate or produce art. If we care about agency, short of developing sentience, AI has no agency. If we care about purpose, the purpose of an AI system is determined by its objective function. This objective, as of now, is put in place by human designers and the person making use of AI as a tool. If we care about uniqueness, the easy reproducibility of digital outputs depreciates any “aura” to which AI art might aspire.

Despite these reasons to be skeptical, it might be premature to dismiss a significant role of AI in art.

Art appreciation and production

What happens when people appreciate art? Art, when most powerful, can transform a viewer, evoke deep emotions, and promote new understanding of the world and of themselves. Historically, scientists working in empirical aesthetics have asked participants in their studies whether they like a work of art, find it interesting, or beautiful ( Chatterjee and Cardilo, 2021 ). The vast repository of images, on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Flicker, and Pinterest, have images labeled with people’s preferences. These rich stores of data, growing every day, mean that AI programs can be trained to identify underlying patterns in images that people like.

Crowd-sourcing beauty or preference risks produce boring images. In the 1990s, Komar and Melamid (1999) conducted a pre-digital satirical project in crowd-sourcing art preferences. They hired polling companies to find out what paintings people in 11 countries wanted the most. For Americans, they found that 44% of Americans preferred blue; 49% preferred outdoor scenes featuring lakes, rivers, or oceans; more than 60% liked large paintings; 51% preferred wild, rather than domestic, animals; and 56% said they wanted historical figures featured in the painting. Based on this information, the painting most Americans want showed an idyllic landscape featuring a lake, two frolicking deer, a group of three clothed strollers, and George Washington standing upright in the foreground. For many critics, The Most Wanted Paintings were banal. They were the kind of anodyne images you might find in a motel. Is the Komar and Melamid experiment a cautionary tale for AI?

Artificial intelligence would not be polling people the way that Komar and Melamid did. With a large database of images, including paintings from various collections, the training phase would encompass an aggregate of many more images than collecting the opinions of a few hundred people. AI need not be confined to producing banal images reduced to a low common denominator. Labels for images in databases might end up being far richer than the simple “likes” on Instagram and other social media platforms. Imagine a nuanced taxonomy of words that describe different kinds of art and their potential impacts on viewers. At a small scale, such projects are underway ( Menninghaus et al., 2019 ; Christensen et al., 2022 ; Fekete et al., 2022 ). These research programs go beyond asking people if they like an image, or find it beautiful or interesting. In one such project, we queried a philosopher, a psychologist, a theologian, and art historian and a neuroscientist for verbal labels that could describe a work of art and labels that would indicate potential impacts on how they thought or felt. Descriptions of art could include terms like “colorful” or “dynamic” or refer to the content of art such as portraits or landscapes or to specific art historical movements like Baroque or post-impressionist. Terms describing the impact of art certainly include basic terms such as “like” and “interest,” but also terms like “provoke,” or “challenge,” or “elevate,” or “disgust.” The motivation behind such projects is that powerful art evokes nuanced emotions beyond just liking or disliking the work. Art can be difficult and challenging, and such art might make some viewers feel anxious and others feel more curious. Researchers in empirical aesthetics are increasing focused on identifying a catalog of cognitive and emotional impacts of art. Over the next few years, a large database of art images labeled with a wide range of descriptors and impacts could serve as a training set for an art appreciating AI. Since such networks are adept at extracting patterns in vast amounts of data, one could imagine a trained network describing a novel image it is shown as “playing children in a sunny beach that evokes joy and is reminiscent of childhood summers.” The point is that AI need not know what it is looking at or experience emotions. All it needs to be able to do is label a novel image with descriptions and impacts- a more complex version of labeling an image as a brown dog even if it has never seen that particular dog before.

Can AI, in its current form, be creative? One view is that AI is and will continue to be good at automated but not creative tasks. As AI disrupts work and replaces jobs that involve routine procedures, the hope is that creative jobs will be spared. This hope is probably not warranted.

Sequence transduction or transformer models are making strides in processing natural language. Self-GPT-3 (generative pre-trained transformers) as of now building on 45 terabytes of data can produce text based on the likelihood of words co-occurring in sequence. The words produced by transformer models can seem indistinguishable from sentences produced by humans. GPT-3 transformers can produce poetry, philosophical musings, and even self-critical essays ( Thunström, 2022 ).

The ability to use text to display images is the first step in producing artistic images. DALL-E 2, Imagen, Midjourney, and DreamStudio are gaining popularity as art generators that make images when fed words ( Kim, 2022 ). To give readers, who might not be familiar with the range of AI art images, a sense of these pictures I offer some examples.

The first set of images were made using Midjourney. I started with the prompt “a still life with fruit, flowers, a vase, dead game, a candle, and a skull in a Renaissance style” ( Figure 1 ). The program generates four options, from which I picked the one that came closest to how I imagined the image. I then generated another four variations from the one I picked and chose the one I liked best. The upscaled version of the figure is included.

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Midjourney image generated to the prompt “a still life with fruit, flowers, a vase, dead game, a candle, and a skull in a Renaissance style”.

To show variations of the kind of images produced, I used the same procedures and prompts, except changing the style to Expressionist, Pop-art, and Minimalist ( Figures 2 – 4 ).

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Midjourney image generated to the prompt “a still life with fruit, flowers, a vase, dead game, a candle, and a skull in an Expressionist style”.

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Midjourney image generated to the prompt “a still life with fruit, flowers, a vase, dead game, a candle, and a skull in a Minimalist style”.

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Midjourney image generated to the prompt “a still life with fruit, flowers, a vase, dead game, a candle, and a skull in a Pop-art style”.

“To show how one might build up an image I used Open AI’s program Dall-E, to generate an image to the prompt, “a Surreal Impressionist Landscape.” Then using the same program, I used the prompt, “a Surreal Impressionist Landscape that evokes the feeling of awe.” To demonstrate how different programs can produce different images to the same prompt,” a Surreal Impressionist Landscape that evokes the feeling of awe” I include images produced by Dream Studio and by Midjourney.

Regardless of the merits of each individual image, they only took a few minutes to make. Such images and many other produced easily could serve as drafts for an artist to consider the different ways they might wish to depict their ideas or give form to their intuitions ( Figures 5 – 8 ). The idea that artists use technology to guide their art is not new. For example, Hockney (2001) described ways that Renaissance masters used technology of their time to create their work.

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Dall-E generated image to the prompt “a Surreal Impressionist Landscape”.

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Midjourney generated image to the prompt “a Surreal Impressionist Landscape that evokes the feeling of awe”.

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Dall-E generated image to the prompt “a Surreal Impressionist Landscape that evokes the feeling of awe”.

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Dream Studio generated image to the prompt “a Surreal Impressionist Landscape that evokes the feeling of awe”.

Unlike the imperative for an autonomous vehicle to avoid mistakes when it needs to recognize a child playing in the street, art makes no such demands. Rather, art is often intentionally ambiguous. Ambiguity can fuel an artworks’ power, forcing viewers to ponder what it might mean. What then will be the role of the human artist? Most theories of creative processing include divergent and convergent thinking ( Cortes et al., 2019 ). Divergent thinking includes coming up with many possibilities. This phase can also be thought of as the generative or imaginative phase. A commonly used laboratory test is the Alternative Uses Test ( Cortes et al., 2019 ). This test asks people to offer as many uses of a common object, like a brick, that they can imagine. The more uses, that a person can conjure up, especially when they are unusual, is taken as a measure of divergent thinking and creative potential. When confronting a problem that needs a creative solution, generating many possibilities doesn’t mean that they are the right or the best one. An evaluative phase is needed to narrow the possibilities, to converge on a solution, and to identify a useful path forward. In producing a work of art, artists presumably shift back and forth between divergent and convergent processes as they keep working toward their final work.

An artist could use text-to-image platforms as a tool ( Kim, 2022 ). They could type in their intent and then evaluate the possible images generated, as I show in the figures. They might tweak their text several times. The examples of images included here using similar verbal prompts show how the text can be translated into images differently. Artists could choose which of the images generated they like and modify them. The divergent and generative parts of creative output could be powerfully enhanced by using AI, while the artist would evaluate these outputs. AI would be a powerful addition to their creative tool-kit.

Some art historians might object that art cannot be adequately appreciated outside its historical and cultural context. For example, Picasso and Matisse are better understood in relation to Cezanne. The American abstract expressionists are better understood as expressing an individualistic spirit while still addressed universal experiences; a movement to counter Soviet social realism and its collective ethos. We can begin to see how this important objection might be dealt with using AI. “Creative adversarial networks” can produce novel artworks by learning about historic art styles and then intentionally deviating from them ( Elgammal et al., 2017 ). These adversarial networks would use other artistic styles as a contextual springboard from which to generate images.

Artificial intelligence and human artists might be partners ( Mazzone and Elgammal, 2019 ), rather than one serving as a tool for the other. For example, in 2015 Mike Tyka created large-scale artworks using Iterative DeepDream and co-founded the Artists and Machine Intelligence program at Google. Using DeepDream and GANs he produced a series “Portraits of Imaginary People,” which was shown at ARS Electronica in Linz, Christie’s in New York and at the New Museum in Karuizawa (Japan) ( Interalia Magazine, 2018 ). The painter Pindar van Arman teaches robots to paint and believes they augment his own creativity. Other artists are increasingly using VR as an enriched and immersive experience ( Romano, 2022 ).

Kinsella (2018) Christie’s in New York sold an artwork called Portrait of Edmond de Belamy for $432,500. The portrait of an aristocratic man with blurry features was created by a GAN from a collective called Obvious. It was created using the WikiArt dataset that includes fifteen thousand portraits from the fourteenth to the twentieth century. Defining art has always been difficult. Art does not easily follow traditional defining criteria of having sufficient and necessary features to be regarded as a member of a specific category, and may not be a natural kind ( Chatterjee, 2014 ). One prominent account of art is an institutional view of art ( Dickie, 1969 ). If our social institutions agree that an object is art, then it is. Being auctioned and sold by Christie’s certainly qualifies as an institution claiming that AI art is in fact art.

In 2017, Turkish artist Refik Anadol, collaborating with Mike Tyka, created an installation using GANs called “Archive Dreaming.” This installation is an immersive experience with viewers standing in a cylindrical room. He used Istanbul’s SALT Galeta online library with 1.7 million images, all digitized into two terabytes of data. The holdings in this library relate to Turkey from the 19th Century to the present and include photographs, images, maps, and letters. Viewers stand in a cylindrical room and can gaze at changing displays on the walls. They can choose which documents to view, or the passively watch the display in an idle state. In the idle state, the archive “dreams.” Generators produce new images that resemble the original ones, but never actually existed—an alternate fictional historical archive of Turkey imagined by the machine ( Pearson, 2022 ).

Concerns, further future, and sentient artificial intelligence

Technology can be misused. One downside of deep learning is that biases embedded in training data sets can be reified. Systematic biases in the judicial system, in hiring practices, in procuring loans are written into AI “predictions” while giving the illusion of objectivity. The images produced by Dall-E so far perpetuate race and gender stereotypes ( Taylor, 2022 ). People probably do not vary much if asked to identify a dog, but they certainly do in identifying great art. Male European masters might continue to be lauded over women or under-represented minority artists and others of whom we have not yet heard.

On the other hand, current gatekeepers of art, whether at high-end galleries, museums, and biennales, are already biased in who and what art they promote. Over time, art through AI might become more democratized. Museums and galleries across the world are digitizing their collections. The art market in the 21st Century extends beyond Europe and the United States. Important shows as part of art’s globalization occur beyond Venice, Basel, and Miami—to now include major gatherings in Sao Paulo, Dakar, Istanbul, Sharjah, Singapore, and Shanghai. Beyond high profile displays, small galleries are digitizing and advertising their holdings. As more images are incorporated into training databases, including art from Asia, Africa, and South America, and non-traditional art forms, such as street art or textile art, what people begin to regard as good or great art might become more encompassing and inclusive.

Could art become a popularity contest? As museums struggle to keep a public engaged, they might use AI to predict which kinds of art would draw in most viewers. Such a use of AI might narrow the range of art that are displayed. Similarly, some artists might choose to make art (in the traditional way), but shift their output to what AI predicts will sell. Over time, art could lose its innovation, its subversive nature, and its sheer variety. The nature of the artist might also change if the skills involved in making art change. An artist collaborating with AI might use machine learning outputs for the divergent phase of their creations and insert themselves along with additional AI assessments in the convergent evaluative phases of producing art.

The need for artistic services could diminish. Artists who work as illustrators for books, technical manuals, and other media such as advertisement, could be replaced by AI generating images. The loss of such paying jobs might make it harder for some artists to pursue their fine art dreams if they do not have a reliable source of income.

Many experts working in the field believe that AI will develop sentience. Exactly how is up for debate. Some believe that sentience can emerge from deep learning architectures given enough data and computational power. Others think that combining deep learning and classical programming, which includes the insertion of rules and symbols, is needed for sentience to emerge. Experts also vary in when they think sentience will emerge in computers. According to Ford (2021) , some think it could be in a decade and others in over a 100 years. Nobody can anticipate the nature of that sentience. When Gary Kasparov (world Chess Champion at the time) lost to the program Deep Blue, he claimed that he felt an alien intelligence ( Lincoln, 2018 ). Deep Blue was no sentient AI.

Artificial intelligence sentience will truly be an alien intelligence. We have no idea how or whether sentient AI will engage in art. If they do, we have no idea what would motivate them and what purpose their art would have. Any comments about these possibilities are pure speculation on my part.

Sentient AI could make art in the real world. Currently, robots find and move objects in large warehouses. Their movements are coarse and carried out in well-controlled areas. A robot like Rosey, the housekeeper in the Jetsons cartoon, is far more difficult to make since it has to move in an open world and react to unpredictable contingencies. Large movements are easier to program than fine movements, precision grips, and manual dexterity. The difficulty in making a robot artist would fall somewhere between a robot in an Amazon warehouse and Rosey. It would not have to contend with an unconstrained environment in its “studio.” It would learn to choose and grip different brushes and other instruments, manipulate paints, and apply them to a canvas that it stretched. Robot arms that draw portraits have been programed into machines ( Arman, 2022 ). However, sentient AI with intent would decide what to paint and it would be able to assess whether its output matched its goal- using generative adversarial systems. The art appreciation and art production abilities could be self-contained within a closed loop without involving people.

Sentient AI might not bother with making art in the real world. Marc Zuckerberg would have us spend as much time as possible in a virtual metaverse. Sentient AI could create art residing in fantastical digital realms and not bother with messy materials and real-world implementation. Should sentient AI or sentient AIs choose to make art for whatever their purpose might be, humans might be irrelevant to the art making and appreciating or evaluating loop.

Ultimately, we do not know if sentient AI will be benevolent, malevolent, or apathetic when it comes to human concerns. We don’t know if sentient AI will care about art.

As AI continues to insinuate itself in most parts of our lives, it will do so with art ( Agüera y Arcas, 2017 ; Miller, 2019 ). The beginnings of art appreciation and production that we see now, and the examples provided in the figures, might be like the video game Pong that was popular when I was in high school. Pong is a far cry from the rich immersive quality of games like Minecraft in the same way that Dall-E and Midjourney images might be a far cry from a future art making and appreciating machine.

The idea that creative pursuits are an unassailable bastion of humanity is untenable. AI is already being used as a powerful tool and even as a partner for some artists. The ongoing development of aesthetically sensitive machines will challenge our views of beauty and creativity and perhaps our understanding of the nature of art.

Author contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Acknowledgments

I appreciate the helpful feedback I received from Alex Christensen, Kohinoor Darda, Jonathan Fineberg, Judith Schaechter, and Clifford Workman.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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333 Art Research Paper Topics & Ideas

18 January 2024

last updated

Art research paper topics cover a fascinating field, where numerous themes range from the study of specific artistic movements, periods, and styles to investigations into the socio-political context of art, including the use of new technologies in contemporary artistic practices. Various topics may explore the complexities of abstract expressionism, the intricacies of Renaissance art, or the cultural implications of street art. People may delve into the controversial world of art forgery, the influence of digital media on traditional art, or the role of women in the art world. Art from non-Western traditions, such as African or Asian art, offers many research possibilities. Moreover, cross-disciplinary subjects, like psychology of art, art therapy, or art in education, hold a valid potential. With such a broad study spectrum, art research paper topics provide a rich canvas for exploration, enabling scholars to gain a deeper understanding of human expression across cultures and throughout history.

Simple Art Research Paper Topics

Understanding Pointillism and Its Influence
Modernist Art: An Overview
Impressionism: Capturing Light and Moment
The Power of Portraiture in Art
A Glimpse Into the World of Sculpture
Unraveling the Intricacies of Calligraphy
Street Art: A Modern Phenomenon
Pop Art: Its Definition and Key Figures
Exploring the Art of Collage
Cubism: Breaking Down Traditional Forms
Oil Painting Techniques Throughout History
Watercolor: An Art Form Through the Ages
Frescoes: A Brief History and Technique
Art Nouveau: Characteristics and Key Artists
Expressionism: An Emotional Art Form
Exploration of Abstract Art Concepts
Art of Caricature: Humor in Visual Form
Artistic Influence of Surrealism
Graffiti: Street Art or Vandalism?

Interesting Art Research Paper Topics

Minimalism: The Power of Simplicity in Art
Fashion Illustration: A Creative Dialogue
Animation: Art in Motion
Exploring the Styles of Japanese Manga Art
Artificial Intelligence in the World of Art Creation
Film: Visual Storytelling as an Art
Analyzing the Use of Metaphors in Visual Art
Unraveling the Mysteries of Symbolism in Art
Digital Art: The Impact of Technology on Creativity
Psychedelic Art: A Window Into the Subconscious Mind
Mural Art and Community Expression
Emotional Response Triggered by Abstract Expressionism
Cultural Differences Reflected in Indigenous Art
Art Therapy: Healing Through Creation
Video Game Design: Art, Aesthetics, and Interaction
Body Art and Tattoos: A Cultural Perspective
Exploration of Artistic Activism
Art Market: Valuing Creativity and Aesthetics
Comparison of Eastern and Western Art Styles

Modern Art Research Topics

Decoding Cubism: Understanding Picasso and Braque
Surrealism: An Investigation Into the World of Dreams
Expressionism: Manifestation of Emotions in Modern Art
Analyzing Futurism: Speed, Technology and the Modern World
Exploring Dadaism: A Reaction to World War I
Conceptual Art: Ideas Over Aesthetics
Postmodern Art: Challenging Modernist Authority
Cybernetic Art: Intersection of Art and Technology
Street Art: An Unconventional Modern Canvas
Visual Culture and Gender in Modern Art
Digital Media’s Influence on Contemporary Art Practices
Art Installations: An Environment-Based Interpretation of Modern Art
Transformative Aspects of Performance Art
Appropriation in the Postmodern Art
Bauhaus Movement: Revolutionizing Art and Design
Abstract Expressionism: Freedom in Large-Scale Canvas
Study of Neo-Dada and Its Reflection on Society
Hyperrealism: The Imitation Game in Modern Art
Understanding the Pop Art Movement
Exploration of Minimalism: Art in Reduction

Art Research Topics on Ancient Civilizations

Egyptian Art: Symbolism and the Afterlife
Influence of Art on the Mayan Civilization
Decoding Symbols in Aztec Art
Analysis of Frescoes in Ancient Crete
Sculptural Art of the Ancient Greeks
Artistic Representation in Roman Architecture
Aesthetic Principles of Persian Art
Art in the Indus Valley Civilization
Carving Traditions in Ancient Polynesia
Unraveling the Art of the Ancient Incas
Exploring the Artistic Styles of Ancient Mesopotamia
Bronze Age Art in Scandinavia
Hellenistic Influence on Roman Art
Visual Narratives in Chinese Tomb Art
Art and Hieroglyphics in Ancient Egypt
Religious Influence on Byzantine Mosaics
Depiction of Gods in Ancient Hindu Art
Iconography in Ancient Celtic Art
Minoan Culture: Art and Archaeology

Artist Biography Research Topics

Vincent Van Gogh: A Life in Art
Artistic Vision of Leonardo da Vinci
Pablo Picasso: Cubism and Beyond
Exploration of Frida Kahlo’s Works
Salvador Dali: Surrealism Personified
Career Analysis of Rembrandt van Rijn
Personal Experiences in Georgia O’Keeffe’s Art
M.C. Escher: Master of Impossible Spaces
Depictions of Reality in Caravaggio’s Works
Life and Art of Claude Monet
Henri Matisse: The Joy of Fauvism
Artistic Innovations of Wassily Kandinsky
El Greco: Fusion of Byzantine and Western Art
Unraveling the Mysteries of Bosch’s Paintings
Paul Gauguin: From Paris to Tahiti
Exploring the Abstract Universe of Jackson Pollock
Journey through the Impressionism of Renoir
Analysis of Edward Hopper’s American Realism
Michelangelo’s Contribution to the Renaissance Art
The Life and Art of Auguste Rodin

Art Research Topics in Different Epochs

Baroque Art: Drama and Grandeur
Defining Characteristics of Romanticism in Art
Gothic Art: From Architecture to Illuminated Manuscripts
Byzantine Art and Its Cultural Significance
Transition Into Renaissance: A Shift in Artistic Style
Exploring Mannerism: Between Renaissance and Baroque
Art Deco: Elegance and Technological Progress
Impressionism: More than Light and Momentary Impressions
Abstract Expressionism: Freedom of Expression in Art
Fauvism: Bold Colors and Simplified Designs
Cubism: Changing Perspectives in Art
Surrealism: Unleashing the Power of the Unconscious
Art Nouveau: Nature in the Urban Environment
Pop Art: The Intersection of Art and Popular Culture
Neoclassicism: Rebirth of Ancient Traditions
Dada: An Art Movement of Protest
Expressionism: Emotions Over Realistic Representation
Futurism: Embracing the Energy of the Future
Post-Impressionism: Beyond the Limitations
Art of the Middle Ages: A Spiritual Journey

Compelling Renaissance Art Research Topics

Da Vinci’s Innovations in Art and Science
Botticelli and the Visual Interpretation of Mythology
Michelangelo’s Sculptures: Unraveling the Human Form
Portrayal of Women in Renaissance Art
Patronage System and Its Influence on Renaissance Art
Influence of Humanism on Renaissance Art
Differences in Northern and Italian Renaissance Art
Iconography in the Work of Hieronymus Bosch
Religious Themes in Renaissance Art
Exploring Perspective in the Paintings of Masaccio
Contrasting the Early and High Renaissance
Titian’s Contribution to Venetian Renaissance Art
Anatomy in Art: Lessons from Leonardo da Vinci
Understanding Raphael’s Use of Composition
Interpreting Allegory in Renaissance Art
The Architecture of the Renaissance: Brunelleschi’s Innovations
Renaissance Artistic Techniques: Chiaroscuro and Sfumato
El Greco’s Unique Approach in the Late Renaissance
Petrarch’s Influence on Renaissance Artists

Fascinating Photography in Art Research Topics

Pictorialism: Bridging Painting and Photography
Candid Street Photography: Reflections of Urban Life
Ansel Adams and the Majesty of Nature
History of Photojournalism: Truth in Images
Understanding Photomontage: From Dada to Today
Andy Warhol’s Use of Photography in Art
Diane Arbus: Confronting Norms Through Portraiture
War Photography: Documenting Humanity’s Dark Side
Evolution of Fashion Photography
Cinematic Aesthetics in Contemporary Photography
Study of Abstract Photography
Cindy Sherman and the Art of Self-Portraiture
HDR Photography: Artistic Merits and Criticisms
Photography’s Role in Constructing Identity
Exploring Ethereal Quality in Surrealist Photography
Vivian Maier: The Mystery of the Nanny Photographer
Exploring the Ethnographic Photography of Edward Curtis
Magnum Photos: Power of Collective Photography
Color Theory in Photography

Art Research Topics in Architecture

Gothic Architecture: Symbolism and Interpretation
Modernism in Architectural Design: Case Studies
Sustainable Architecture: Ecological Design Principles
Neoclassical Structures: Harmony and Order
Frank Lloyd Wright and the Concept of Organic Architecture
Brutalist Architecture: Power and Materiality
Architectural Marvels of Ancient Rome
Islamic Architecture: Geometric Patterns and Spiritual Symbolism
Deconstructivism: Challenging Traditional Architecture
Feng Shui Principles in Eastern Architecture
Revival Architectural Styles: Romanticism and Identity
Digital Architecture: Advances and Implications
Critical Regionalism: Adapting Modernism to Local Contexts
Bauhaus Movement: Intersection of Art, Craft, and Technology
Architectural Acoustics: Sound Design in Concert Halls
Sacred Spaces: Religious Influence on Architecture
Adaptive Reuse in Architecture: Redefining Existing Structures
Biomimicry in Architecture: Inspiration From Nature
Futurist Architecture: Imagining the City of Tomorrow
Art Nouveau Architecture: Organic Forms and Decorative Detailing

Art Research Topics About Theater

Elizabethan Theater: Innovation and Influence
Brechtian Theatre: Alienation Effect and Its Significance
Musical Theatre: Fusion of Art Forms
Greek Tragedy: Power and Catharsis
Commedia Dell’arte: Improvisation and Character Masks
Kabuki Theatre: Cultural Symbolism in Japan
Shakespearean Plays: Intricate Character Analysis
Modernist Theatre: Interpretation and Vision
Noh Theatre: Minimalist Aesthetics and Spirituality
Symbolism in French Theater: Maeterlinck and Claudel
Realism in Ibsen’s Theater: Social Critique
Absurdist Drama: Beckett, Ionesco, and Pinter
Ancient Roman Theater: Performance and Spectacle
Black Theater Movement: Social Change and Expression
Postmodern Performance: Hybridity and Intertextuality
Theater of the Oppressed: Augusto Boal’s Revolutionary Technique
Puppet Theater: Artistry Beyond Actors
Theater Criticism: Methods and Perspectives
Contemporary Immersive Theater: Audience Participation

Art Research Topics for Different Cultures

African Art: Aesthetics and Meaning in Yoruba Sculpture
Japanese Art: Wabi-Sabi and the Beauty of Imperfection
Australian Indigenous Art: Symbols and Dreamtime Stories
Russian Avant-Garde: Transformation of Artistic Language
Middle Eastern Islamic Art: Geometry and Calligraphy
Native American Art: Symbolism and Spiritual Traditions
Cuban Art: Politics and Expression after the Revolution
Chinese Art: Brushwork in Traditional Ink Painting
Mexican Muralism: Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros
South Asian Art: The Divine in Hindu Iconography
Greek Art: Harmony and Proportions in Classical Sculpture
Polynesian Art: Tattoos and Cultural Identity
Art of Ancient Egypt: Ritual and the Afterlife
Korean Art: Celadon Ceramics and Buddhist Influence
European Medieval Art: Illuminated Manuscripts
Art of the Inuit: Life and Mythology in Sculpture
Brazilian Graffiti: Street Art as Political Commentary
Art of the Maori: Carving, Weaving, and Tattooing
Byzantine Art: Icons and Mosaics in Christian Worship
Modern Persian Art: Negotiating Tradition and Modernity

Art History Research Paper Topics

Artistic Paradigms in Late Antiquity: A Shift towards Christianity
Baroque Art: Caravaggio’s Naturalism and Dramatic Lighting
Impressionism: Monet’s En Plein Air Technique
Surrealism: Dali’s Dreamscapes and the Subconscious Mind
Postmodernism: Koons and the Commodification of Art
Abstract Expressionism: Pollock’s Action Painting
Cubism: Picasso’s Deconstruction of Form
Renaissance Humanism: Anatomy in Leonardo’s Drawings
Romanticism: Turner’s Sublime Landscapes
Neoclassicism: David’s Use of Greco-Roman Themes
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: Rejection of Industrial Age Aesthetics
Art Nouveau: Mucha and the Integration of Art and Life
Fauvism: Matisse’s Bold Use of Color
German Expressionism: Kirchner’s Response to Urbanization
Dadaism: Duchamp’s Readymades and the Challenge to Artistic Convention
Pop Art: Warhol’s Reflections on Consumer Culture
Gothic Architecture: Chartres Cathedral’s Stained Glass
Arts and Crafts Movement: Morris’s Return to Handicrafts
Futurism: Boccioni’s Dynamism and the Machine Age

Art Therapy Research Topics

Art Therapy in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Creative Approach
Artistic Expression as a Coping Mechanism for Trauma Survivors
Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Art Therapy
Cognitive Behavioral Art Therapy for Anxiety Disorders
Integrating Mindfulness Techniques in Art Therapy
Art Therapy in Pediatric Oncology: Aiding Expression and Understanding
Clinical Art Therapy and Autism Spectrum Disorder
Art Therapy Interventions for Individuals with Schizophrenia
Artistic Creation as a Medium for Self-Expression in Depression
Group Art Therapy in Substance Abuse Treatment
Phototherapy: Exploring Personal Narratives through Photography
Art Therapy and Neurological Rehabilitation: A Stroke Case Study
Utilizing Art Therapy in Grief Counseling
Art Therapy as a Modality in the Treatment of Eating Disorders
Clinical Assessment through Art Therapy: Indicators and Interpretations
Sand Tray Therapy: A Nonverbal Therapeutic Approach
Expressive Art Therapy in Palliative Care: Enhancing Quality of Life
Biblio-Art Therapy: Integrating Literature in Therapeutic Practice
Virtual Reality and Art Therapy: Exploring New Horizons
Holistic Healing: Integrating Yoga and Art Therapy

Pop Art Research Topics

Andy Warhol: King of Pop Art
Consumerism in Pop Art: A Critical Analysis
Exploring Roy Lichtenstein’s Comic Strip Aesthetics
Pop Art and Its Reflection on Post-War Culture
Influence of Media and Advertising on Pop Art
Cultural Shifts Reflected in 1960s Pop Art
Pop Art and Its Interpretation of Femininity: Analysis of Works
Exploring Pop Art’s Impact on Fashion
British Pop Art: Distinct Features and Notable Artists
From Collage to Canvas: Techniques of Pop Art
How Pop Art Challenged Traditional Fine Art Values
Japanese Pop Art: Influence of Manga and Anime
Pop Art and Political Commentary: Works of Richard Hamilton
The Use of Irony and Parody in Pop Art
Crossover between Pop Art and Minimalism
Pop Art’s Influence on Music: Album Cover Designs
A Closer Look at Keith Haring’s Subway Drawings
Ed Ruscha and Pop Art Typography
Understanding Claes Oldenburg’s Soft Sculptures in Pop Art
Pop Art’s Impact on Modern and Contemporary Art

Visual Art Research Topics

Decoding Symbols in Medieval Visual Art
Concepts of Beauty in Renaissance Visual Art
Impressionism: Capturing the Moment in Visual Art
Street Art: Vandalism or Visual Culture?
Understanding Abstract Expressionism in Visual Art
Color Theory in Visual Art: A Comprehensive Study
Art Nouveau and its Influence on Visual Art
Depictions of War in Visual Art
Examining Surrealism in Visual Art
Cubism: Changing Perspectives in Visual Art
Visual Art in Advertising: An Analysis
Contemporary Visual Art: Trends and Techniques
Sculpture: 3D Perspectives in Visual Art
Depictions of Mythology in Visual Art
Bauhaus Movement and its Influence on Visual Art
Visual Art as a Tool for Social Commentary
Futurism: Anticipating the Future in Visual Art
Exploring Romanticism in Visual Art
Religious Iconography in Byzantine Visual Art

Classical Greek Art Research Topics

Classical Greek Sculpture: Aesthetic Analysis
Iconography in Classical Greek Vase Painting
Architectural Innovations of Classical Greek Temples
Classical Greek Art in the Context of Democracy
Mythology Depictions in Classical Greek Art
Mosaics and Frescoes: Detailed Examination of Classical Greek Mediums
Development of Human Figure Representation in Classical Greek Art
Classical Greek Theatre: An Artistic Perspective
Artistic Techniques Used in Classical Greek Coin Design
Classical Greek Art: An Inquiry Into Cultural Exchange
Metopes and Friezes: Sculptural Elements of Classical Greek Architecture
Gender Portrayal in Classical Greek Art
Classical Greek Art: Exploring Burial Customs
Artistic Conventions of Classical Greek Pottery
Aesthetic Values in Classical Greek Art: Detailed Analysis
Exploration of Classical Greek Military Art
Deciphering Messages in Classical Greek Art
Classical Greek Art: Analyzing Patterns and Motifs
Reflection of Philosophy in Classical Greek Art
Pediment Sculpture in Classical Greek Architecture

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Art History Research Paper Topics

Dive into the vibrant world of art history research paper topics through this meticulously curated guide, tailored for students immersed in studying history and tasked with crafting a research paper. The guide commences with a comprehensive list of 100 intriguing topics, segmented into ten well-defined categories, serving as an invaluable source of inspiration. Further guidance on how to select an art history research paper topic is provided, along with practical insights into the crafting of an exceptional art history research paper. The guide transitions into presenting the specialized writing services offered by iResearchNet, enabling students to commission custom art history research papers on any chosen topic.

100 Art History Research Paper Topics

Art history, as a field of study, covers thousands of years and countless cultures, offering an expansive array of topics for research papers. When embarking on an art history project, you can focus on certain eras, explore individual artists or art movements, investigate the role of art in specific cultures, or delve into the meanings behind specific pieces or collections. Below, we present a comprehensive list of art history research paper topics divided into ten major categories. Each topic is an invitation to dive into a unique aspect of art history and explore its significance in the global artistic landscape.

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Ancient Art

The Impact of Geography on Ancient Egyptian Art
Materials and Techniques in Ancient Greek Sculpture
Roman Architecture: Principles and Examples
Understanding the Art of the Ancient Maya Civilization
Development of Buddhist Art in Ancient India
Influence of Ancient Chinese Art on Later Dynasties
Ancient Persian Art and Its Impact on the Middle East
Representation of Deities in Ancient Egyptian Art
The Use of Color in Ancient Roman Frescoes
Comparative Analysis of Ancient Greek and Roman Sculpture

Medieval Art

Role of Art in Christian Worship in the Middle Ages
Gothic Architecture: Characteristics and Examples
The Influence of Islam on Medieval Art in Spain
The Evolution of Iconography in Medieval Paintings
Art as Propaganda in the Middle Ages
The Role of Women in Medieval Art and Society
Transition from Romanesque to Gothic Architecture
Analysis of Illuminated Manuscripts in the Medieval Period
The Influence of Byzantine Art on the Western Medieval Art
Representation of the Divine and Demonic in Medieval Art

Renaissance Art

Humanism and Its Impact on Renaissance Art
The Techniques of Leonardo da Vinci
The Role of Patronage in the Italian Renaissance
The Evolution of Self-Portraiture in the Renaissance
Comparison of Italian and Northern Renaissance Art
Michelangelo’s Influence on Art and Artists
Analysis of Female Figures in Renaissance Paintings
Use of Perspective in Renaissance Art
Interpretation of Mythology in Renaissance Art
Influence of Classical Antiquity on Renaissance Artists

Baroque and Rococo Art

Impact of the Counter-Reformation on Baroque Art in Italy
The Evolution of Landscape Painting in the Baroque Period
Use of Light in Caravaggio’s Paintings
Analysis of Rembrandt’s Portraiture
Comparison of French and Spanish Baroque Art
Women Artists of the Baroque Period
The Transition from Baroque to Rococo Art
Impact of Louis XIV’s Reign on French Art and Architecture
Rococo Art as a Reflection of Aristocratic Society
The Cultural and Artistic Influence of Versailles

Neoclassicism and Romanticism

Influence of Archaeological Discoveries on Neoclassical Art
Comparison of Neoclassicism and Romanticism
Exploration of the Sublime in Romantic Landscape Paintings
Impact of the French Revolution on Art
Analysis of David’s Oath of the Horatii
Romanticism and the Depiction of National Identity
Romantic Artists’ Fascination with the Exotic and the Orient
The Role of Women Artists in the Romantic Period
Neoclassical Architecture in Europe and America
Depiction of Mythology in Romantic Art

Modern Art Movements

Impressionism and the Art of Life
The Influence of Japanese Art on Vincent Van Gogh
Symbolism in Edvard Munch’s The Scream
Pablo Picasso and the Evolution of Cubism
The Impact of WWI on the Artistic Movements of the 1920s
Surrealism: Dreams and the Unconscious
Political Messages in Diego Rivera’s Murals
Abstract Expressionism and the Sublime
Pop Art as a Reflection of Consumer Culture
Minimalism and the Idea of Less is More

Contemporary Art

Conceptual Art and the Importance of Ideas
The Role of Art in Critiquing Contemporary Society
Environmental Messages in Contemporary Art
Representation of Identity in Contemporary Art
Feminism and Contemporary Art
The Use of New Media in Contemporary Art
Installation Art and Audience Participation
Street Art and Its Role in Urban Spaces
The Influence of Globalization on Contemporary Art
Impact of Digital Technologies on Contemporary Art Practices

Non-Western Art

The Influence of African Art on Modernist Artists
Understanding Islamic Calligraphy
The Role of Art in Traditional African Societies
Traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e Prints
The Development of Indian Mughal Painting
The Role of Ancestors in Oceanic Art
Comparison of Traditional and Contemporary Native American Art
Indigenous Australian Art and Its Connection to the Land
Artistic Traditions of the Inuit
Symbolism in Persian Miniature Painting

Women in Art

Female Representation in Ancient Greek Art
Depictions of Women in Baroque Art
Women Artists of the Renaissance and Their Struggles
The Influence of Feminism on Contemporary Art
Exploration of Gender Roles through Art
Mary Cassatt and Her Influence on Impressionism
Frida Kahlo: An Icon of Feminism and Mexican Heritage
The Evolution of Female Nude in Art History
The Guerrilla Girls and Their Fight for Equality in the Art World
The Impact of Postmodernism on Feminist Art

Art Theory and Criticism

The Role of the Art Critic: From Clement Greenberg to Jerry Saltz
Postmodernism and the Death of the Author
Formal Analysis: Its Role and Importance
The Semiotics of Art: Signs and Symbols
Influence of Psychoanalytic Theory on Art Criticism
Iconology and the Hidden Meanings in Visual Art
Deconstruction and the Analysis of Art
Feminist Approaches to Art Criticism
Influence of Marxism on Art Theory and Criticism
The Impact of Postcolonial Theory on Art Criticism

Each category in this comprehensive list of art history research paper topics provides a wide range of subjects to explore. These diverse topics cater to various interests and offer a rich field for academic exploration. They each represent an invitation to delve deeper into the fascinating world of art history, offering you the opportunity to develop your understanding and share your unique perspective with others.

Art History and the Range of Research Paper Topics it Offers

Art history is an exceptionally broad field that spans thousands of years, multiple continents, countless cultures, and myriad forms of artistic expression. From the earliest cave paintings to contemporary digital art, the study of art history allows us to explore human history through the lens of visual culture. This piece explores the expanse of art history and the wide range of research paper topics it offers to students.

Art history is often compartmentalized into periods and styles, such as Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, Romantic, Modern, and Contemporary art. Each era has its distinct characteristics, historical context, and notable artists, providing a myriad of potential research topics. For instance, one could study the impact of the Counter-Reformation on Baroque art in Italy or analyze the evolution of self-portraiture during the Renaissance.

A profound understanding of these periods and styles can also pave the way to comparative studies, allowing for interesting contrasts and parallels to be drawn between different epochs or artistic movements. For example, contrasting the logical, reason-based approach of Neoclassicism with the emotion and individualism of Romanticism can lead to a rich analysis of cultural shifts during these times.

Moreover, art history offers ample scope for studying non-Western art. Researching non-Western artistic traditions—such as African art, Islamic calligraphy, Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, or Indigenous Australian art—provides not only aesthetic appreciation but also deeper insights into these cultures’ philosophies, social structures, and spiritual beliefs.

Art history is not just the study of “high art” or the art of the elite and educated classes. Folk art, outsider art, street art, and other forms of “low art” are equally valuable subjects of study. These genres often give voice to marginalized groups and offer valuable insights into popular culture and the concerns of the everyday people.

Another compelling avenue of research is the exploration of thematic elements in art history. These themes could range from the representation of women, the interpretation of mythology, the depiction of national identity, to the portrayal of the sublime in nature. Thematic studies often transcend the boundaries of period and style, making them an exciting approach for those interested in cross-cultural and transhistorical comparisons.

The study of individual artists and their oeuvre is yet another rich area of research in art history. Focusing on a single artist’s work can provide a microcosmic view of broader artistic, cultural, and social trends. A deep dive into the works of influential artists like Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, or Frida Kahlo can reveal much about the time, place, and context in which they created their art.

Art history also encompasses the study of art theory and criticism, which could lead to engaging research on topics like the role of the art critic, the influence of psychoanalytic theory on art criticism, or the impact of postcolonial theory on art criticism.

Moreover, with the rise of new media and digital technologies, contemporary art offers a plethora of unique research areas. From conceptual art and installation art to digital art and virtual reality, these new forms of art reflect the changing world and often challenge traditional notions of what art can be.

Choosing a research topic in art history is a process of personal exploration. It involves identifying your interests, asking questions, and being willing to follow a path of inquiry wherever it may lead. It requires an openness to learning and discovery, a willingness to engage with different cultures and times, and an ability to appreciate different forms of artistic expression.

In conclusion, art history, as a field of study, offers an almost infinite range of potential research topics. Whether your interest lies in specific periods or styles, individual artists or movements, thematic elements or theoretical concerns, art history has something for everyone. Through studying art history and engaging in research, you can deepen your understanding of the world and your place in it, gaining insights that are both personally enriching and academically rewarding.

Choosing Art History Research Paper Topics

Choosing the right research paper topic is crucial in art history. It allows you to explore your interests, showcase your knowledge, and contribute to the field. This section provides expert advice on selecting art history research paper topics that are engaging, significant, and conducive to in-depth analysis.

Understand the Scope and Context : To choose an art history research paper topic, start by understanding the scope and context of the subject. Familiarize yourself with different art movements, periods, and regions. Consider the specific time period, artistic styles, cultural influences, and socio-political contexts that interest you.
Follow Your Passion : Passion is key when selecting a research paper topic. Identify aspects of art history that genuinely excite you. Whether it’s Renaissance art, modern sculpture, or ancient Egyptian paintings, selecting a topic that aligns with your interests will make the research process more enjoyable and rewarding.
Narrow Down the Focus : Art history is a vast field, so it’s important to narrow down your focus. Instead of choosing broad topics like “Renaissance art,” consider specific themes, artists, or art movements within that era. For example, you could explore the influence of Leonardo da Vinci’s techniques on Renaissance portraiture.
Conduct Preliminary Research : Before finalizing your topic, conduct preliminary research to ensure sufficient resources are available. Look for scholarly articles, books, museum catalogs, and online databases that provide relevant information and analysis. This step will help you determine if your chosen topic has enough material for a comprehensive research paper.
Analyze Existing Scholarship : Reviewing existing scholarship is crucial for identifying gaps in knowledge and potential research avenues. Read scholarly articles, dissertations, and books on art history topics related to your interests. This will help you develop a unique research question and contribute to the academic discourse.
Incorporate Interdisciplinary Approaches : Art history is an interdisciplinary field, so consider incorporating perspectives from other disciplines. Explore connections between art and politics, society, philosophy, or gender studies. This interdisciplinary approach will add depth and richness to your research paper.
Consult with Professors and Experts : Seek guidance from your professors or art history experts. They can provide valuable insights, suggest potential topics, and recommend relevant sources. Engage in discussions, attend lectures, and take advantage of their expertise to refine your research paper topic.
Brainstorm and Create a Shortlist : Brainstorm a list of potential art history research paper topics based on your interests, preliminary research, and consultations. Write down keywords, themes, and specific ideas that capture your attention. Then, narrow down the list to create a shortlist of the most compelling topics.
Consider Significance and Originality : Choose a topic that is both significant and original. Consider the broader implications of your research and how it contributes to the field of art history. Aim to uncover lesser-known artists, analyze understudied artworks, or challenge prevailing interpretations.
Refine and Finalize Your Topic : Refine your research topic based on the above considerations. Craft a clear and concise research question or thesis statement that guides your exploration. Ensure your topic is specific, manageable within the scope of your research paper, and aligned with the requirements of your assignment.

Selecting an art history research paper topic requires careful consideration and a balance between personal interest and academic significance. By understanding the scope, conducting preliminary research, and seeking expert guidance, you can choose a topic that allows you to delve into the fascinating world of art history and make a meaningful contribution to the field.

How to Write an Art History Research Paper

Writing an art history research paper requires a combination of critical analysis, research skills, and effective writing techniques. This section provides a comprehensive guide on how to write an art history research paper, from selecting a topic to organizing your findings and presenting a compelling argument.

Understand the Assignment : Start by understanding the requirements of your research paper assignment. Pay attention to the guidelines, word count, formatting style (e.g., MLA, APA), and any specific research questions or prompts provided by your instructor. This will help you structure your paper accordingly.
Choose a Compelling Topic : Select a research topic that aligns with your interests and offers ample opportunities for exploration. Refer to the expert advice section on choosing art history research paper topics for guidance. Ensure your topic is specific, manageable, and allows for in-depth analysis.
Conduct In-Depth Research : Gather relevant sources and conduct in-depth research on your chosen topic. Explore scholarly articles, books, museum catalogs, primary sources, and online databases. Take detailed notes, citing the sources properly, and keep track of key findings, arguments, and interpretations.
Develop a Thesis Statement : Craft a clear and concise thesis statement that presents the main argument or focus of your research paper. Your thesis should be debatable, supported by evidence, and guide the direction of your analysis. It is the foundation upon which your entire paper will be built.
Create an Outline : Outline your research paper to provide structure and organization. Divide your paper into sections, including an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Each section should address a specific aspect of your research, supporting your thesis statement and providing a logical flow of ideas.
Write a Compelling Introduction : Begin your research paper with an engaging introduction that grabs the reader’s attention and provides necessary background information. Clearly state your thesis statement and provide a brief overview of your research objectives, setting the tone for the rest of the paper.
Present Well-Structured Body Paragraphs : The body paragraphs of your research paper should present your analysis, evidence, and supporting arguments. Each paragraph should focus on a specific point, providing clear topic sentences and supporting evidence from your research. Use proper citations to credit your sources.
Analyze Artworks and Interpretations : Engage in critical analysis of artworks, considering their formal elements, stylistic features, cultural context, and historical significance. Compare and contrast different interpretations, theories, or scholarly viewpoints to develop a well-rounded analysis of your chosen topic.
Incorporate Visual Evidence : Include visual evidence in your research paper to enhance your analysis. Include high-quality images of artworks, architectural structures, or artifacts relevant to your topic. Label and refer to them in the text, providing insightful descriptions and analysis.
Craft a Strong Conclusion : End your research paper with a strong conclusion that summarizes your main arguments and restates your thesis statement. Reflect on the significance of your research findings, discuss any limitations or unanswered questions, and suggest avenues for further exploration.
Revise and Edit : After completing the initial draft, revise and edit your research paper for clarity, coherence, and adherence to academic standards. Check for grammatical errors, ensure proper citations, and refine your arguments for precision and conciseness.
Seek Feedback : Share your research paper with peers, professors, or mentors for feedback. Consider their suggestions and critique to improve the quality of your paper. Pay attention to clarity of expression, logical organization, and the strength of your argument.
Proofread and Format : Before submitting your research paper, thoroughly proofread it to eliminate any spelling, punctuation, or formatting errors. Ensure that your paper adheres to the required formatting style, including proper citations and a bibliography or works cited page.

Writing an art history research paper requires a combination of research skills, critical thinking, and effective writing techniques. By following these steps, you can create a well-structured and compelling research paper that showcases your understanding of art history, engages with scholarly discourse, and contributes to the field.

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Expert Degree-Holding Writers : We take pride in our team of expert writers, who hold advanced degrees in art history and related disciplines. They have a deep understanding of the subject matter and possess the knowledge and expertise to handle a wide range of art history topics. Our writers are committed to delivering high-quality and well-researched papers that meet your academic requirements.
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Title: video editing via factorized diffusion distillation.

Abstract: We introduce Emu Video Edit (EVE), a model that establishes a new state-of-the art in video editing without relying on any supervised video editing data. To develop EVE we separately train an image editing adapter and a video generation adapter, and attach both to the same text-to-image model. Then, to align the adapters towards video editing we introduce a new unsupervised distillation procedure, Factorized Diffusion Distillation. This procedure distills knowledge from one or more teachers simultaneously, without any supervised data. We utilize this procedure to teach EVE to edit videos by jointly distilling knowledge to (i) precisely edit each individual frame from the image editing adapter, and (ii) ensure temporal consistency among the edited frames using the video generation adapter. Finally, to demonstrate the potential of our approach in unlocking other capabilities, we align additional combinations of adapters

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Article contents

Introduction

Why Use Art?

Art, Research Purpose, and Research Validity

Different Kinds of Purpose

Using Art to Research Social Issues: Collecting Data

Art Processes as Tools for Analysis

Art as a Means to Present Findings

Emotion—and Its Power

A/r/tography and Examination of Places Between

A Conference Debate, and the Politics of Research

Site for Possibilities—and Questions

Further Reading

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Data Collection Methods

Data Analysis Methods

Artistic Research Methodology

Examples of Artistic Research

When to use Artistic Research

Purpose of Artistic Research

Characteristics of Artistic Research

Advantages of Artistic Research

Limitations of Artistic Research

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Muhammad Hassan

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