Kulturelle Varianzen bei der Kunstbetrachtung

Überlegungen zur empirischen Erforschung von Sehgewohnheiten

Abstract

It is a common practice in art history to infer from the characteristics of a picture how it is viewed. In many cases, ideal rather than real viewers are assumed. However, art is culturally diverse and so are its viewers. Nonetheless, differences in viewing practices have been little studied, and mainly only on a theoretical level. Moreover, most often a universal vision is assumed. Based on Michael Baxandall’s thoughts on the “period eye”, a historical conditionality of art perception, this article addresses cultural variances in art perception. With the concept of the “cultural eye”, the article introduces a multi-perspective, empirical approach to viewing art using eye tracking, focusing on visual-cultural variances. The empirical approach that is proposed advances one possibility for opening the discipline to different (cultural) perspectives on one and the same work of art, and questions the notion of unified perception.