Looking at original art brings out more emotion than reproduced works; a study shows

Looking at original art evokes ten times more emotion than seeing reproductions, even if they are shown in the best museum-like conditions. This was the result of a study of 20 people's neurological activity while looking at original and reproduced paintings.

The subjects were five paintings from the Mauritshuis in The Hague: The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt's self-portrait from 1669 and his The Anatomy Lesson from 1632, Vermeer's View of Delft from 1660-61 and Gerard van Honthorst's The Violinist from 1626.

During the study, ten people were first given a wearable EEG cap and an eye-tracker to wear before they walked through the Mauritshuis and looked at real artworks. Later, they were shown a number of reproductions of the works in the same way.

Ten others were first shown the reproduced paintings and then the original works. At the University of Amsterdam, another MRI scan was taken when looking at reproductions.

In all the cases, an original painting brought out more emotion in people, but The Girl with the Pearl Earring stood out in the study. People look at the eyes and mouth first when seeing a face, but the famous pearl was added in this case.

This "loop" of eyes, mouth, and pearl continues to hold the viewer so that the whole thing increasingly grabs the viewer. This phenomenon, the Sustained Attentional Loop, was only observed in the Girl. The Girl also does not express any negative emotions, which increases the viewer's involvement with this painting.

Research from Neurofactor en Neurensics researchers showed that the precuneus, the part of the brain responsible for the subconscious, self-reflection, and the memory of personal life experiences, was also the most active while looking at The Girl with the Pearl Earring.