{"title":"Developmental Disparities in Differing Levels of Conceptions of the Beautiful and Implications on Marriage as a Fundamental Organizational Unit","authors":"Albert Erdynast","doi":"10.1037/bdb0000060","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents the empirical results of a study with 70 adult respondents concerning whether Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d′ Avignon (1907) and The Bull Series (1945–1946) are beautiful or not. The correlation between responses to these 2 complex Cubist art works is .97, p = .01. Disparities between subjects’ conceptions of what the works of art are about in contrast to what Picasso depicted are characterized by 2 structural-developmental levels. This study extends some of the findings of conceptions of the beautiful (Erdynast & Chen, 2014). The hypothesis that a higher chronological age cannot be equated with a higher exhibited developmental level of conception of the beautiful and that some older age subjects exhibited lower-level responses than some younger age subjects was supported. Content choice changes concerning the 2 artworks were always unidirectional, from “not beautiful to beautiful” or from “undecided” to “beautiful;” never in the opposite direction. Developmental disparities of conceptions of the beautiful are illustrated in the late period of the marriage and divorce of the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter and actress Vivien Merchant. Their structural-developmental conceptual analyses of aesthetic (and political and human rights) issues were so disparate that Harold Pinter could not effectively communicate about his conceptions as a playwright and social critic. Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d′ Avignon and The Bull Series illustrate general principles of design and command of line: composition and balance, movement, dynamic tensions, interplay between abstraction and realism, rhythms of form and planes, distinctness of style and craft.","PeriodicalId":91847,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral development bulletin","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Behavioral development bulletin","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1037/bdb0000060","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
This paper presents the empirical results of a study with 70 adult respondents concerning whether Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d′ Avignon (1907) and The Bull Series (1945–1946) are beautiful or not. The correlation between responses to these 2 complex Cubist art works is .97, p = .01. Disparities between subjects’ conceptions of what the works of art are about in contrast to what Picasso depicted are characterized by 2 structural-developmental levels. This study extends some of the findings of conceptions of the beautiful (Erdynast & Chen, 2014). The hypothesis that a higher chronological age cannot be equated with a higher exhibited developmental level of conception of the beautiful and that some older age subjects exhibited lower-level responses than some younger age subjects was supported. Content choice changes concerning the 2 artworks were always unidirectional, from “not beautiful to beautiful” or from “undecided” to “beautiful;” never in the opposite direction. Developmental disparities of conceptions of the beautiful are illustrated in the late period of the marriage and divorce of the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter and actress Vivien Merchant. Their structural-developmental conceptual analyses of aesthetic (and political and human rights) issues were so disparate that Harold Pinter could not effectively communicate about his conceptions as a playwright and social critic. Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d′ Avignon and The Bull Series illustrate general principles of design and command of line: composition and balance, movement, dynamic tensions, interplay between abstraction and realism, rhythms of form and planes, distinctness of style and craft.