The Idea of Time: How Do You Perceive Time When Looking at Art?

I came across an interview with Christian Boltanski the other day. Boltanski is a French sculptor, photographer, painter and film maker, most well known for his photography installations and contemporary conceptual style. He brought up the concept of time, and it’s influence on art.

“Being a painter means speaking with visual things. But it’s also interesting to note the difference between filmmaking and painting. The question of time is the thing here. When you watch a video piece (or painting) you can stand there for two seconds or two hours—there’s no beginning or end and you can move around while you’re doing it. When you see a film, on the other hand, you sit there watching it from beginning to end. In films, novels, and music there is always this issue of time; when you’re looking at a static image, there isn’t that progression.” 

The idea of time. It raises questions. Film has a beginning and end. Painting does not. I might stand before a painting and study it for an hour, or walk past it after a few seconds. Reading a novel, though, requires an investment in time. Watching a film takes time, too. Films, music and novels have a beginning, middle, and end. The dramatic structure is based on Three Acts, with an arc of movement that progresses over time. A painting is different. It just exists in its own space and time, without past or future. It just is, hanging there on the wall. How does our perception of time influence the way we perceive art? Has the perception of time, the way people use their time and perceive it, changed since the rise of the Internet? How has it changed? Are people less patient?

The study of time in the sciences is continuing. Research is underway to study how we perceive time. The use of language is important. Studies have shown that the words we use, the language we speak, influences how we perceive time. (It could also be the other way around, the perception of time in certain cultures is reflected in their language.) Different languages frame time differently. Swedish and English speakers, for example, tend to think of time in terms of distance—what a long day, we say. Time becomes an expanse one has to traverse. Spanish and Greek speakers, on the other hand, tend to think of time in terms of volume—what a full day, they exclaim. Time becomes a container to be filled. These linguistic differences, according to a recently published study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, actually affect our perception of time’s passage.

I’m interested in how time is experienced in the observation of a painting. Studies suggests that our perception of time is based in memory (Thank you, St. Augustine. Augustine postulated that when we measure the duration of an event or interval of time, it is in the memory.) The assumption is that we measure time by remembering what just occurred, providing a reference for what is happening in the present. “How long have I been staring at this painting? About five minutes? I remember when I first started looking at it. I am now still looking at it. I think it has been about five minutes.”

 All of this makes my head hurt, but it also makes me think: some paintings grab my attention in an instant and won’t let me go. I have to keep staring at them. Conversely, some paintings fail to make an impression on me and I keep walking, never giving them another thought. “Not wasting my time looking at that!” On Instagram and Facebook, this becomes even more profound.
As I’m scanning paintings online, which ones make me stop?

 This brings me to the Internet, and how images of art are perceived online. What images make an impact and stop a viewer in their tracks? What images fail to register at all and barely get a glimpse? Is art perceived differently online than in a gallery or museum? Let’s assume a certain painting in a gallery immediately impacts a viewer and makes them stop cold, forcing them to take a longer look. Post that same painting on Facebook. Does it have the same impact on viewers? How important is context, the venue, the set up, of the art?

I assume people walking into a gallery or museum spend more time looking at art, than they spend time scanning images on Instagram. Perhaps in a gallery, your painting has 1 to 3 seconds to get someone's attention. On Instagram, you have tenths of a second, maybe less. We need more research in this area. As visual artists, we need to know the best way to display our work online, and in the gallery, in order for our paintings to have the impact we desire. Time is of the essence. When viewers online scan thousands of images per second, how do we get their attention?

I also wonder what role memory has in the perception of art, and how it impacts the amount of time a viewer looks at a piece of art.