The Experience of Art in the Museum. Psychological Notes

Abstract

This paper aims to propose both a theoretical discussion on the dynamics of the enjoyment of art museums in accordance with a psychological approach, and a brief illustration of the empirical research conducted. The theoretical discussion takes into account in particular the studies of the Gestalt psychology in the field of visual perception, and the contributions of psychology that deals with aesthetic experience. The empirical studies highlight the impact of several factors related to the enjoyment of the museum’s collections, in particular, the typology of art museums visited (ancient art/modern and contemporary art) and some personality traits (openness to experience, sensation seeking). Results show that ancient art museums visitors have an approach to the visit mainly aimed to the cultural enrichment, while visitors to the modern and contemporary art museums are mostly inclined to conduct an affective experience, which includes emotions articulated along the positive-negative dimension as interest, amazement, excitement and anxiety. Moreover, modern and contemporary art museum visitors have higher values in the personality trait sensation seeking, compared to ancient art museum visitors. Applied implications of the results are also analyzed.