Scientists in Netherlands using eye-tracking and MRI scans found ‘enormous difference’ between real, original works and posters.
A neurological study in the Netherlands has revealed that real works of art in a museum stimulate the brain in a way that is 10 times stronger than looking at a poster. That probably comes as no surprise to avid museum goers but the researchers wanted to double-check their hunch.
Commissioned by the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, home to Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, the independent study used eye-tracking technology and MRI scans to record the brain activity of volunteers looking at genuine artworks and reproductions. Scientists found the volunteers had a much stronger response when looking at the former.
“A factor of 10 is an enormous difference, and this is what happens when you look at a reproduction compared to a real work,” said Martine Gosselink, director of the Mauritshuis. “You become [mentally] richer when you see things, whether you are conscious of it or not, because you make connections in your brain.”
Gosselink said she had been convinced of the power of the real before the study but had wanted her hunch to be formally investigated. “We all feel the difference – but is it measurable, is it real?” she said she had asked her colleagues a year ago. “Now, today we can really say that it is true.”