Why we prefer a photorealist painting over a photo

Psychologist Paul Bloom does a really interesting TED Talk about how our brains value something more or less based on our perception of its origins. He begins with a story about a Nazi officer who learns that his prized Vermeer painting is actually a very precise forgery, and commits suicide soon after.


This explains why someone might pass over as image they perceive as a photograph without a second glance, and look at it for hours if they later learn its really a painting. Though I feel that we've sort of resolved this issue in class already, Blooms does a very thorough job of explaining why our experience with an object is altered according to our perception of it's history. A Richter painting, for example, would be received very differently if it were a photograph. I'm totally guilty of this. I kept walking through the Richter room in AIC without a second glance at that painting of the yellow flowers, thinking absentmindedly that it was a photograph. Only upon learning that it was a painted image did I begin to grow a fondness for it. When we experience a painting, we imagine that it takes time and effort. We are dissatisfied with simply the image, and need illusions of labor and process in order to respect or appreciate it.


The video's kinda long, but Bloom is a really engaging speaker and I bet if you start watching that you won't stop until the end.