Babies Already Have Their Own Taste in Art, According to Research

Initiatives geared towards children are being introduced by museums and other cultural organizations more often than those directed at newborns. Even the smallest newborns, though, may be quite responsive. According to a recent British research that was published in the Journal of Vision, they may even show their aesthetic tastes as early as infancy.

25 adults and 25 infants between the ages of four and nine months participated in an experiment at the University of Surrey that led to this finding. The latter watched as 40 landscape paintings by Vincent van Gogh were shown on a tablet as they sat on their parents’ laps. To ascertain which artworks piqued their interest the most, the scientists live-captured their responses. Participants in the research who were adults were asked to choose which of two paintings they liked after seeing the identical ones as the newborns.

It turned out that the newborns and the grownups liked the same kinds of art. In fact, the Van Gogh landscapes that the infants admired the most were those that their parents favored. They all had a lot of green and significant color and brightness contrasts. Study participants of all ages preferred the artwork that showed green corn stalks in the center of a field, whereas they disliked the image that showed an olive grove.

The creative choices of newborns and their seniors did, however, vary little, according to the study. One such distinction involved the way paintings were put together. Contrary to their parents, the newborns preferred Van Gogh’s curved-lined landscapes. The results imply that infants may have far more advanced visual preferences and skills than is typically believed. According to the paper’s primary author, professor Anna Franklin, “newborn babies’ vision is very blurry, but our findings demonstrate that by four months old, babies can see well enough to look longer at some paintings than others, and can pay attention to many of the artistic details.”

These results could persuade more parents, even those with very young children, to take them to museums. By creating visits, excursions, and events for (very) young art enthusiasts, art institutions are encouraging people to do this. Even more museums are being created just for youngsters, like the Young V&A in London, which reopened to the public in July after three years of renovations.