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Mentee Workshop - Managing Stress and Boosting Confidence

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Mentee Workshop - Managing Stress and Boosting Confidence

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Pablo Milanés - El Breve Espacio en Que No Estás

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la letra me gusta

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Hermanos Gómez Ortega - Hoja Seca (Reynaldo Saltos Quijano, Rafael Carpio Abad)

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fave

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"Alma Solitaria" Pasillo de Angel leonidas Araujo y Música de Alejandro lasso.  "Samy" Michuy.

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Fave song

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Fox incaico - PERU (inicios del jazz en la música peruana)

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El fox incaico surgió en el Perú en la década de 1920. Está ligado a la tradición musical de la lírica andina, protagonizada por mujeres de altos registros v...

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faveeee

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faveee

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Lamento indiano - Manuel Castillo Chanove

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¿Por qué siempre son Sex Pistols y Ramones los que luchan por un puesto que no merecen? El sonido horrendo y la ejecución violenta no es necesariamente punk. "El Malo del Bronx" y "El Abogado" hicieron en 1977 un disco más punk que ninguna otra cosa jamás escuchada: Metiendo Mano! Inicia el round 40

En una esquina: de muy mala pinta, unos ingleses mal educados con ropa de diseñador y motivos irónicos, corbatas y botas de obrero en el mismo look. Del otro lado: unos sujetos escuálidos y altos con chamarras de piel y cortes de pelo ridículo. Se presume de estos sujetos que son el orgullo de Queens, Nueva York. El premio es el título de "creadores del punk".

Antes de ellos había ya un acercamiento al punk y, junto a ellos, otras bandas también se encuentran en la pelea.

Cerca de Queens, aproximadamente a 30 minutos, según la ruta más corta de Google Maps, se encuentra El Bronx. Así, con un "El" antes de nombrarlo. Ahí, a tan sólo 30 minutos de uno de los contendientes, vivían Willie Colón y la escena de la salsa legendaria; en el mismo universo de la pelea del punk.

Años antes, en Panamá, un sujeto llamado Rubén, en ocasiones conocido como "Rubencito", se encontraba en una situación de esas que hacen que hasta el alma más pura y noble se corrompa y opte por la ideología punk, anticapitalista y específicamente -en el caso de Rubén- antiyanqui. Un asesinato por parte de estadounidenses en 1964 en el canal de Panamá hizo que "El Poeta de La Salsa" se forjara una meta: Llevar su música con la misión de unir a Latinoamérica.

Para el año en que dio inicio de la pelea por definir al rey del punk (1977), Rubén Blades ya estaba también en Nueva York y ya había conocido a Willie. Y por supuesto el "Bad Boy" le extendió la mano para trabajar juntos.

Metiendo Mano! es un álbum inteligente, atrevido y sobretodo, activista. Entre los nueve tracks del disco, una letra de Tite Curet Alonso salta al ring y noquea con el primer uper a los mediocres punketos: "Plantación Adentro", una canción ubicua e indescifrable como la salsa misma, pero icónica como pocas. ¿Cómo decodificar el recuerdo de una armonía de este ritmo latino?

La melodía es preocupante y caótica, se autodevora y permite que aparezca por momentos una inquietante algarabía de los metales. A primera instancia, pareciera que las risas de Rubén Blades hablan del éxtasis en la fiesta más memorable de la vida. El ritmo juega la misma broma, la forma en la que suenan los instrumentos irónicamente continúa con este triste evento. Al poner atención uno cae en cuenta de la historia de Camilo Manrique, asesinado brutalmente en manos de un Mayoral.

Escondida en lo alto de los plantíos se encuentra una fuerte referencia a la violencia en contra del latino, el de abajo, el que trabaja en el campo, el que es arrojado a una fosa común, el que muere "naturalmente" a costa de las tundas de los que gozan del poder. En este caso en forma de un palo contra un cuerpo humano. "¡Claro, si después de una tunda e' palo que te mueras es normal..."

[embed]https://youtu.be/rT188aCW_Ck[/embed]

Para Blades siempre ha sido imperante que su letra tenga un mensaje, es por eso que incluso se le llama salsa intelectual a su obra.

Pareciera que entonces la canción se convierte en un grito de guerra, en el Caballo de Troya, todo oculto en la interpretación de la salsa desde la trinchera de un sujeto considerado el chico malo y Rubén, quien estudió leyes en NY: ambos levantando el puño; la intelectualidad del jolgorio latino, pensado pitorreo versus el yanqui, y que sigue latente y aparentemente necesario al día de hoy.

1745 ó 2017, "Plantación Adentro" engloba los padecimientos del latino. Los convierte en una celebración, una burla a la situación que a pesar de los años no mejora.

La portada del Metiendo Mano! tiene motivos de box. No es por nada, pero el universo hace las cosas por algo. A lo largo de la historia, el punk ha caído ante casi todos los géneros que ideológicamente logran ser superiores. Round 40, la salsa, más punk que el punk ni se preocupa por una pelea de pesos mosca. El rey de los ritmos, la salsa, sigue siendo el gran rey y "Rubencito", con su gancho intelectual, por mucho una deidad no sólo del género sino de la historia de la música, por decisión unánime, se lleva el triunfo a casa.

Suena la campana.

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La salsa siempre fue más punk que el punk - IBERO 90.9

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¿Por qué siempre son Sex Pistols y Ramones los que luchan por un puesto que no merecen? El sonido horrendo y la ejecución violenta no es necesariamente punk. "El Malo del Bronx" y "El Abogado" hicieron en 1977 un disco más punk que ninguna otra cosa jamás escuchada: Metiendo Mano!

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Sol del Peru   Grandeza Del Inca Greatness of the Incas

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Música Peruana. Wara Wara. "Amor Indio". Fox Incaico.

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DOLOR INDIO : INTERPRETA MARFIZA DEL PERU

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Música Peruana 1930.  "Lamentos del Indio". Fox Trot "Los Castilians"

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Joe Arroyo / Rebelión [ Karaoke Discos Fuentes ]

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Inspired by disturbed faces and amplified lucid dreams of its creator, BFA fashion designer Kenneth Brody McCasland created an avant-garde collection driven by imagery drawn from his subconscious. Conceptualized and constructed to portray the effects of sleep paralysis, he explains how it feels to be trapped in-between dreams and wakefulness. "[It's when] the body is left behind and taken over," he says. "[You're] free to explore feelings [you] can't recall when awake."

Taking inspiration from an otherworldly reality, McCasland often transports his designs to whichever obscure world best fits his vision. In this collection, he summons an in-between world, a sphere where dream and reality meet. To visualize this, a black vinyl pleated skirt is belted at the waist like body armor so the body is compressed but protected. It reminds us that something lurks in the night, and we're given the power to feel it, much like the smoldering creatures in sketches by illustrator Tony Viramontes.

To further distort reality, he incorporates obscure silhouettes, shaped by hollow circles and semicircles, fitted at the wrists, necks, thighs and ankles that restrict movement around different body parts. "It's not that I'm being dishonest," McCasland says, quoting his perpetual inspiration, Stefani Germanotta, "It's just that I loathe reality."

The collection's color palette has been narrowed down to earthy mustards, deep maroons and stark blacks. The woman wearing these clothes is bold, feminine and sensual, and she walks into the night with a moonlit, blank face. The holes represent the mystery of our minds, things that are there but we can't see, and memories that are lost forever.

The garments are crafted with such meticulous attention to detail, with McCasland building the skeleton for his clothes before assembling them. Semi-circle rings are made out of corsetry bones, and backed with fusible horsehair and buckram to strengthen the structure. Mega-sized three-dimensional shapes are seamlessly incorporated into the collection to give an impression of restricted movements, a primary effect of sleep paralysis.

His silhouettes are overwhelming, exaggerating the body's form, and feminine lines are juxtaposed with sharp shoulders and draped fabrics. This is a collection brought up from the depths of the psyche; a subliminal concept, born from the idea of impracticality and formed into garments that are fully realized. Look hard enough and you'll find the half and full circles start to creep into your mind, pushing you slowly into another state of being.

Words: Anna Vo, BA Fashion Journalism
Photography: Danielle Rueda

Model: Tiffany, STARS Management

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To Loathe Reality - Fashion School Daily

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BFA fashion designer Kenneth Brody McCasland shares his 2020 senior thesis collection. | Academy of Art University School of Fashion

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What things are considered intangible about the human experience ; Intangible aspects of the human experience refer to elements that are difficult to quantify, measure, or physically grasp. These aspects often involve subjective feelings, perceptions, and qualities that are deeply personal and can vary from person to person. Here are some intangible aspects of the human experience:

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What things are considered intangible about the human experience ; Intangible aspects of the human experience refer to elements that are difficult to quantify, measure, or physically grasp. These aspects often involve subjective feelings, perceptions, and qualities that are deeply personal and can vary from person to person. Here are some intangible aspects of the human experience:

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1. **Emotions:** Emotions are subjective, internal states that are challenging to measure objectively. Love, joy, sadness, and other emotions are essential components of the human experience, yet they cannot be directly observed or quantified.

2. **Subjective Well-Being:** Happiness, life satisfaction, and overall well-being are subjective states that vary from person to person. Assessing and comparing individual levels of happiness involves intangible factors influenced by personal values, expectations, and life circumstances.

3. **Personal Identity:** The sense of self and personal identity is an intangible aspect of the human experience. It includes how individuals perceive themselves, their values, beliefs, and the narrative they construct about their own lives.

4. **Spirituality:** Spiritual experiences and beliefs involve a connection to something beyond the material world. The search for meaning, purpose, and transcendence often involves intangible aspects related to faith, beliefs, and personal connection.

5. **Intuition:** Intuition is a form of knowledge or decision-making that operates beyond conscious reasoning. It involves a gut feeling or instinct that is difficult to explain or articulate, making it an intangible aspect of human cognition.

6. **Dreams and Imagination:** The world of dreams and imagination involves mental processes that are not easily tangible. Dreams, creative ideas, and imaginative thoughts contribute to the richness of the human experience but are challenging to pin down concretely.

7. **Memories:** Memories are intangible aspects of the past that influence an individual's identity and perceptions. The way memories are stored, recalled, and shaped by emotions can be highly subjective and elusive.

8. **Social Bonds and Connection:** The depth of social relationships, such as love, friendship, and empathy, involves intangible qualities that contribute to a sense of connection with others. These bonds are emotional, subjective, and difficult to quantify.

9. **Time Perception:** How individuals experience and perceive time is subjective and can vary widely. The passage of time, the feeling of the present moment, and the anticipation of the future are intangible aspects of temporal experience.

10. **Aesthetic Appreciation:** The subjective experience of beauty and aesthetic appreciation involves personal preferences and responses that are challenging to standardize or measure objectively. Art, music, and natural landscapes evoke diverse, intangible reactions.

11. **Personal Growth and Fulfillment:** The sense of personal growth, purpose, and fulfillment is an intangible aspect of the human journey. It involves the pursuit of meaningful goals and a sense of satisfaction that is deeply personal.

These intangible aspects contribute to the richness and complexity of the human experience, and they often resist easy categorization or measurement. Understanding these elements requires consideration of individual perspectives, subjective experiences, and the diverse ways in which people navigate the complexities of being human.

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At IdeelArt, you can buy curated artworks by some of the greatest abstract artists in the world, available for you to buy in just a few clicks.

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A lifestyle magazine about the joy of downtime created by CSM Fashion Communication students

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CSM Fashion Communication students, Pie Sutithon and Deborah Wangsaputri on how they created Rubbertime Journal and the notion of relaxing

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At the end of the custodianship, new agreement will be made with the artist and his community, either to renew Tate’s custodianship, to pass it on to another institution, or to return the elements of the work to the earth.

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Tate Liverpool has formally taken on custodianship of an installation, in an agreement with the artist inspired by Mayan custom.

The artwork is titled ''Ru k'ox k'ob'el jun ojer etemab'el' (The Echo of an Ancient Form of Knowledge') by Maya-Kaqchikel artist Edgar Calel.

Rather than owning the work outright, Tate created the model of custodianship with the artist, alongside Guatemalan contemporary art platform Proyectos Ultravioleta, in a first for the institution.

The installation was previously acquired through the 2021 Frieze Tate Fund supported by Endeavor.

Tate will be its custodian for the next 13 years, with the start of this custodianship being marked by a ritual ceremony performed by the artist during preparations for the work's inaugural display as part of this year's Liverpool Biennial.

Tate said: "Recognising that Calel's work is more than just physical form, the custodianship pays homage to the local indigenous communities within Guatemala and acknowledges the importance of sharing knowledge with the Maya-Kaqchikel people.

It said the custodianship's 13 year length is based on Mayan thinking and custom, and "is significant as the number represents a sacred cycle of time in the Mayan calendar".

At the end of the custodianship, new agreement will be made with the artist and his community, either to renew Tate's custodianship, to pass it on to another institution, or to return the elements of the work to the earth.

The work comprises a range of fruits and vegetables placed as offerings to the artist's ancestors upon large rocks arranged on the gallery floor.

Artist Calel explained: "These stones are not just stones. These fruits are not just fruits. Together they form altars and become a sacred site for rituals. When placing a fruit or a vegetable atop a stone with the proper intention, these elements become an offering to our ancestors and the land, and a way to thank them for their wisdom, experiences, and guidance."

Gregor Muir, Tate's Director of Collection, International Art, said the installation "fascinated us from the get go.

"The work purposely asks us to redefine collecting through a custodial agreement whereby the Tate retains a direct line to the artist and the Maya community. While we can never own Calel's installation, we have much to learn from its intrinsic questioning."

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Mayan custom inspires custodianship agreement at Tate Liverpool

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In a first for Tate, the custodianship agreement was created alongside artist Edgar Calel, and will last 13 years

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In Mayan Kaqchikel, Oyonïk is a healing ritual for people who are lost, both physically missing or spiritually adrift. According to Kaqchikel culture, one becomes lost when the body is separated from the spirit. Oyonïk calls on the heart of the sky and the heart of the earth to ask for a person’s spirit to return to their body, so they might be found again. This ritual is also used to communicate with individuals, who are far away and can receive messages through dreams and signs that manifest themselves through nature and animals. As such, Oyonïk is both a healing ritual and a communications technology. Édgar Calel’s (b. 1987 in Chi Xot (San Juan Comalapa); lives and works in Chi Xot (San Juan Comalapa)) Oyonïk (The Calling)(2022) is comprised of clay pots filled with water, rose petals, and tree branches, as well as paintings and drawings of ceramic pottery shards that were found buried in the earth on the artist’s family’s land. Through conversations with his father, Calel has come to believe the shards were intentionally broken and buried by their ancestors, as an act of cultural preservation to prevent colonizers from seizing objects and the cultural knowledge manifest in them. The artist works from a counter-ethnographic perspective, thinking through archeology from the point of view of the people who live with these objects and histories “under their feet.”

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In Mayan Kaqchikel, Oyonïk is a healing ritual for people who are lost, both physically missing or spiritually adrift. According to Kaqchikel culture, one becomes lost when the body is separated from the spirit. Oyonïk calls on the heart of the sky and the heart of the earth to ask for a person’s spirit to return to their body, so they might be found again

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Tate has officially become custodian of The Echo of an Ancient Form of Knowledge (2021) by Maya-Kaqchikel artist Edgar Calel (b.1987, Guatemala) in a first for the institution. Rather than owning the work outright, the artist and Proyectos Ultravioleta shaped the model of custodianship, enabling Tate to push the boundaries of how museum collections traditionally operate. Tate will instead be its custodian for the next 13 years, with the start of this custodianship being marked by a ritual ceremony performed by the artist during preparations for the work's inaugural display as part of this year's Liverpool Biennial (uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things). Visitors will be able to view The Echo of an Ancient Form of Knowledge (2021) at Tate Liverpool until 17 September 2023.

Calel's work is both a material object and a ritual, which serves as a container of ancestral knowledge. It comprises a range of fruits and vegetables placed as offerings to the artist's ancestors upon large rocks arranged on the gallery floor. Each rock represents an altar related to the story of Wuqub' Kaqix - a deity who takes the form of part human, part bird - from the sacred Mayan book of creation. A ritual is performed on the fruit by a member of the artist's Maya-Kaqchikel community in order to bless it and allow it to transcend into the spiritual realm. Through this process, Calel encourages viewers to consider the complexities of indigenous communities whose culture, language and lands are under threat.

The agreement between Tate and the artist is based on Mayan thinking and custom. Recognising that Calel's work is more than just physical form, the custodianship pays homage to the local indigenous communities within Guatemala and acknowledges the importance of sharing knowledge with the Maya-Kaqchikel people. The custodianship period of 13 years is significant as the number represents a sacred cycle of time in the Mayan calendar. At the end of the 13 years, a new agreement will be made with the artist and his community, either to renew Tate's custodianship, to pass it on to another institution, or to return the elements of the work to the earth.

Edgar Calel said: " These stones are not just stones. These fruits are not just fruits. Together they form altars and become a sacred site for rituals. When placing a fruit or a vegetable atop a stone with the proper intention, these elements become an offering to our ancestors and the land, and a way to thank them for their wisdom, experiences, and guidance.
"We offer fruits with different flavors, colors, and textures, and to them we bring a little beverage to calm their thirst. Along with this we also bring the smell of incense to expand into infinity so they feel the aroma of these offerings. "In this way, we can thank here and there the grandmothers and grandfathers who inhabit the dimension of immateriality. The same ones who are now in the particles of dust and the grains of sand, the same ones who have clear knowledge and white hair. "All this is a way to say: thank you for the knowledge and wisdom that they left to our people and we keep in our hearts with much respect and love."
Gregor Muir, Tate's Director of Collection, International Art, said: "Acquired for the collection in 2021, Edgar Calel's installation fascinated us from the get go. Functioning like altarpieces on which we see sacrificial fruits and vegetables, his arrangement of rocks with all their associated rituals challenge the very concept of what it is to own something. The work purposely asks us to redefine collecting through a custodial agreement whereby the Tate retains a direct line to the artist and the Maya community. While we can never own Calel's installation, we have much to learn from its intrinsic questioning."

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Tate Liverpool exhibition showcases radical new approach to collecting art - Press Release | Tate

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Tate has officially become custodian of The Echo of an Ancient Form of Knowledge (2021) by Maya-Kaqchikel artist Edgar Calel (b.1987, Guatemala) in a first for the institution. Rather than owning the work outright, the artist and Proyectos Ultravioleta shaped the model of custodianship, enabling Tate to push the boundaries of how museum collections traditionally operate.

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Mixed Image Editing

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Free AI image generator: Art, Social Media, Marketing | Playground

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Playground is a free-to-use online AI image creator. Use it to create art, social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos and more.

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Mixed mediums example at Somerset house 

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Mixed mediums example at Somerset house 

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Although in the nineteenth century realism had a special meaning as an art term, since the rise of abstract approaches in modern art, realism, or realist, or realistic, has come to be primarily a stylistic description referring to painting or sculpture that continues to represent things in a way that more or less pre-dates post-impressionism and the succession of modern styles that followed. Much of the best modern realist art still has the edginess of subject matter that was the essential characteristic of nineteenth-century realism.

In the twentieth century, realism saw an upsurge in the 1920s when the shock of the First World War brought a reaction, known as the return to order, to the avant-garde experimentation of the pre-war period. In Germany this led to the Neue Sachlichkeit movement (Otto Dix, Christian Schad) and magic realism. In France, Andre Derain, previously a fauve painter, became a central figure in what was called traditionisme. In the USA there was the phenomenon of regionalism, and the great realist Edward Hopper. In Britain there was the Euston Road School and the painter Meredith Frampton. The British Kitchen Sink artists could be included, but they used essentially modern styles to paint realist subjects.

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Tate glossary definition for modern realism: Painting or sculpture created since the development of abstraction in modern art but which continues to represent things in a realistic manner

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Summary of Philip Pearlstein

Radically cropped composition of mannequin-like nude models posed under harsh artificial lighting juxtaposed with a Mickey Mouse figurine, duck decoy, mask, whirligig, and other objects is what greets viewers to a Philip Pearlstein painting. Pearlstein is considered one of the greatest figure artists. His realistic portrayal of the figure during the art world's embrace of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art ushered in a revival of realism painting. Pearlstein's approach created a new and dramatic shift in the perspective of the figure indicating that the body is complex and interesting enough to view without any sexual, emotional, or political commentary.

Accomplishments

Pearlstein's highly realistic paintings are akin to the images of Photorealism. There is an emphasis on precision and accuracy with a faithful attention to details. His approach however stands apart from the Photorealist ethos in that he works from direct observation rather than relying on photographs.

Pearlstein treats his subjects as components of a still life composition directing attention toward their form, colour, and play of light on their bodies. He portrays his models as elements of design presenting us with the opportunity to know the human body as an ever-changing composite interacting with objects of similar and contrasting complexities.

Philip Pearlstein has an unwavering fascination with the nude body, but as one reviewer says, he is not interested in the human flesh. The flesh is not seductive; it does not invite you to touch it. He is intrigued with the body as another object treating the flesh no differently than the surface quality of the inanimate objects. This creates as much interest in the props as the figure, eliminating a hierarchy between the figure and the objects.

Important Art by Philip Pearlstein

Biography of Philip Pearlstein

Childhood and Adolescence

Philip M. Pearlstein was born in Pittsburgh in May 1924 to David and Libby Kalser Pearlstein. His mother was born in Lithuania and his father was born in Pittsburgh shortly after his parents arrived from Russia. Up until the age of nine, he lived in large, racially-mixed neighbourhood, in which many of the white families were first-generation immigrants from various European countries. During the height of the Great Depression of the 1930s, after briefly living in Wheeling, West Virginia, the family relocated back to Pittsburgh. Prior to obtaining their own apartment, they shared a small house occupied by his father's seven siblings and mother. It was in this location that Pearlstein says he began to make art.

His early, more formal, artistic experience began when he attended classes on Saturday mornings at Carnegie Museum of Art. And later, he became a member of Taylor Allderdice High School's art club helping create sets for school theatrical productions. And a milestone took place when in 11 th grade he won first and third place prizes in the National High School Art Exhibition by Scholastic Magazine - the winning paintings were featured in Life Magazine.

Education and Training

Pearlstein graduated from high school in 1942, and after a year of study at art school of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, he was drafted into service during World War II in 1943 by the US Army. During his training at Camp Blanding in Florida, he worked in the Training Aids unit creating charts, weapon assembly signs and diagrams. He also created road signs for the Army during his military tour in Italy.

He additionally created personal sketches and watercolours, which documented life as a soldier. Furthermore, his life in the army sparked an intrigue into the human form, as a result of noticing how his own body composition underwent significant changes.

Following his discharge from the Army in 1946, Pearlstein returned to Pittsburgh and resumed his education at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. After showing professor Robert Lepper, head of the Design Program the work he created during his time in the Army, he was hired as an assistant. The two worked together for three years, with Pearlstein assisting Lepper in creating illustrations and layouts.

During his return to the Institute, he met fellow art students Andy Warhol (at the time, Warhola) and Dorothy Cantor. Pearlstein and Warhol became friends, and after graduating college in 1949, they moved to New York City and shared an apartment. The two moved in 1950 to another apartment, sublet by the American dancer Franziska Marie Boas (daughter of the famous anthropologist Franz Boas). This was also the year in which Pearlstein and Cantor married and subsequently moved to their own apartment.

Pearlstein gained additional experience in graphic design working with the designer Ladislav Sutnar, who is known for his work in the field of information design. This working relationship continued for eight years. With encouragement from his friends and family Pearlstein enrolled into the master's program at New York University Arts Institute in 1950. He received a M.A. in art history in 1955 producing a thesis on the French Dadaist Francis Picabia.

Early Period

Pearlstein is best known for his works of the figure; however, a significant volume of his work during this early period were landscapes. An early display of one of his paintings was in a group show in 1952 at the Tanager Gallery, which was one of the first co-operative galleries in New York City. In 1954, the art critic Clement Greenberg noticed his work, and selected him to exhibit in a show for emerging artists at the Kootz Gallery. Pearlstein's first solo exhibition in 1955 was held at the Tanager Gallery. His paintings were a fusion of ideas from medieval Chinese landscape painting, Paul Cezanne, and Abstract Expressionism.

In 1958, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, and while on leave of absence from Life Magazine as a graphic designer, he travelled to Italy where he spent a year producing images of ancient ruins. The paintings from the drawings were initially highly influenced by Abstract Expressionism, but gradually showed an increasing realism with a more defined representation of the images.

Mature Period

After returning from Italy, he taught at the Pratt Institute from 1959 to 1962 before moving on to Brooklyn College where he taught from 1963 to 1987. Teaching allowed him the opportunity to articulate his mental process of producing art.

The mental process involved focussing on the problems realistic painting presented. He established several rules regarding his personal work. He wanted his paintings to possess enough strength and intrigue to be competitively exhibited alongside his friends' more abstract work. He chose to draw more directly from his visual experiences, avoiding any preconceived knowledge and understanding of the human form, colours and perspective. His work additionally was to be detached from social, political and mythological discourses as well as not providing any insight into his models' concerns, beliefs, and emotions.

In the early 1960s, he began hiring models to produce portraits in tightly controlled studio conditions. The paintings initially followed the expressionistic style of his earlier landscape work, but eventually became more realistic and larger in size.

His figurative works gained exposure in 1962 at the Allan Frumkin Gallery in New York City. The work shocked the art scene, as the detached, emotionless qualities of his pieces contradicted the overly emotional and dramatic works that were currently accepted. In 1963, his work received a positive response from the art critic Sydney Tillim, who praised him for his portrayal of the human figure without any attachment to history or tradition. Tillim stated that Pearlstein had regained the figure for painting, putting it behind the picture plane and deep space without resorting to nostalgia or fashion. Soon after, his work gained greater recognition.

During this period, he began to include props from his home, which played key roles in highlighting the movements and compositions of the models. Art historian Linda Nochlin commented that in his work of the 1960s and 1970s, he was as engaged with the empty spaces as with the subjects.

Later Period and Recent Work

His later and recent work evidences his journey of refinement in exercising a hard, sculptural and technical meticulousness to faithfully depict reality. In the 1980s, his works became more increasingly complex in which nudes were entangled with assortments of props. These complicated works consisted of amplified compositions with surrounding objects that were as dominant as the models themselves. Whirligigs, Japanese lanterns, pond boats, masks, large model airplanes, carved figures, folk art horses, and decorative fabrics are examples of the prominent objects.

Still active in his nineties, Pearlstein continues to work and participate in exhibitions. The press release for his 2018 Philip Pearlstein, Today exhibition at Betty Cuningham Gallery stated that "Pearlstein remains sustained by a voracious hunger to paint exactly what is in front of him. Over time his paintings have evolved in their visual complexity, challenging his skill yet adhering to the original premise of an abstracted realism that he set forth in 1971."

The Legacy of Philip Pearlstein

Philip Pearlstein's successful fight for realism challenged Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, generating a renewal of representational painting in America. He is quoted as saying that he decided his fight would be to have realism accepted as a valid modern style, upsetting the basic proposition of contemporary critics and tastemakers that abstraction was the only valid path of contemporary art.

He inspired his students to approach art with an open mind, exploring a variety of artistic styles and works. He also encouraged the notion of exploring an idea as deeply as possible and approaching it with ambition.

Curator and artist Charles David Viera, a former student of Pearlstein organized the 2017 exhibition, "Philip Pearlstein: A Legacy of Influence" to pay homage to his former teacher. The show featured Pearlstein, Viera, Janet Fish, Altoon Sultan, Tony Philips, Stephen Lorber, Thomas Corey, George Nick, and Lorraine Shemesh. In an interview, Viera stated that the artists in the exhibition had the opportunity to study under Pearlstein at some point in their careers, and that in speaking for all of them, Pearlstein's full legacy of influence has yet to be felt.

Influences and Connections

Useful Resources on Philip Pearlstein

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Philip Pearlstein turned his attentions to figurative studies of the human body, led a revival of realism and are considered some of the finest of the twentieth century.

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Summary of Photorealism

The name Photorealism (also known as Hyperrealism or Superrealism) was coined in reference to those artists whose work depended heavily on photographs, which they often projected onto canvas allowing images to be replicated with precision and accuracy. The exactness was often aided further by the use of an airbrush, which was originally designed to retouch photographs. The movement came about within the same period and context as Conceptual art, Pop art, and Minimalism and expressed a strong interest in realism in art, over that of idealism and abstraction. Among several male practitioners of Photorealism there is an interest in themes of machinery and objects of industry such as trucks, motorcycles, cars, and even gumball machines, whereas Audrey Flack, the sole female practitioner, infuses her works with greater emotionality and the transience of life. Ultimately, the Photorealists were successful in attracting a wide audience, but they are often overlooked by art historians as an important avant-garde style.

Key Ideas & Accomplishments

To a degree not previously accomplished, Photorealism complicates the notion of realism by successfully mixing together that which is real with that which is unreal. While the image on the canvas is recognizable and carefully delineated to suggest that it is accurate, the artist often based their work upon photographs rather than direct observation. Therefore, their canvases remain distanced from reality factually and metaphorically.

Many Photorealists adamantly insist that their works, which are laden with such mass and consumer culture icons as trucks, fast food restaurants, and mechanical toys, are not communicative of social criticism or commentary. However, it is hard to deny that these works are recognizably American. At times, the actual work rather than the artist's words is our most useful guide. In this manner, there is the contrast between the reality and primacy of the word or text, over the visual within our society.

Since the advent of photography in the early-19th-century artists have used the camera as a tool in picture making; however, artists would never reveal in paint their dependency on photographs as to do so was seen as "cheating". In contrast, Photorealists acknowledge the modern world's mass production and proliferation of photographs, and they do not deny their dependence on photographs. In fact, several artists attempt to replicate the effects of photography (getting away from the natural vision of our eyes) such as blurriness or multiple-viewpoints, because they favor the aesthetic and look. Therefore, while the resulting image is realistic, it is simultaneously one-stage away from reality by its dependence on the reproduced image. These works question traditional artistic methods, as well as the differences between reality and artificiality.

The representation of light, as well as the interaction of light and color together has concerned artists throughout the ages. By using slide machines to project images onto bare canvas Photorealism for the first time unites color and light together as one element. The capturing of light is most especially evident in the highly reflective surfaces of steel and chrome.

Photorealists, along with some practitioners of Pop art, reintroduced the importance of process and deliberate planning over that of improvisation and automatism, into the making of art, draftsmanship, and exacting brushwork. In other words, the traditional techniques of academic art are again of great significance, and painstaking craftsmanship is prized after decades of the spontaneous, accidental, and improvisational.

Overview of Photorealism

Artworks and Artists of Photorealism

Artist: Charles Bell

Artist: Malcolm Morley

Oil on linen - Private Collection

Artist: Denis Peterson

Beginnings of Photorealism

During the late 1950s and early 1960s in New York City, the dominant art movements advanced by artists, critics, and gallerists alike were Abstract Expressionism, followed by Pop art, then Minimalism. In the mid-1960s, a far smaller movement of individual artists producing realistic paintings related to photography began to practice their craft, also in New York. It would take over a decade for this movement to achieve any official and cohesive identity.

In 1956, a recent graduate from the Art Institute of Chicago named Richard Estes, aged 24 at the time, relocated to New York City. In his student years Estes specialized in representational subject matter such as landscapes, and would regularly use his camera to shoot and develop photographs as visual aids. He continued this practice during the early 1960s when reinterpreting snapshots of his adopted city in paint. But unlike typical landscape or en plein air artists, Estes' land- and cityscapes were executed with a heightened level of detail and lifelike accuracy. The results were accolades from his peers, and an artistic following which in turn led to more Photorealists, as the artists were soon called.

Estes, who by the mid 1960s was living in Spain, worked to give his realistic two-dimensional paintings a three-dimensional feel that they could be mistaken for actual photographs. In a paradox, many of the contextual details one might find in a photo - pedestrians, litter, a puddle of water or patch of snow - are noticeably absent from Estes' paintings.

The First Photorealists

The first Photorealists were Chuck Close, Don Eddy, Richard Estes, Ralph Goings, Robert Bechtle, Audrey Flack, Denis Peterson, and Malcolm Morley. Each began practicing some form of Photorealism around the same time, often utilizing different modes of application and techniques, and citing different inspirations for their work. However, for the most part they all worked independent from one another. For example, Chuck Close came of age at the height of Pop art and Andy Warhol's Factory, and was based out of SoHo in lower Manhattan. And Audrey Flack, a graduate of Yale, began creating photo-based works in the early 1960s.

The Five Principles

In 1969, Brooklyn-born art dealer Louis K. Meisel, operated his own gallery in SoHo, coined the term "Photorealism," which first appeared in print the following year for the Whitney Museum's exhibition "Twenty-two Realists." In 1972, Meisel published a formal five-point definition of the movement at the request of a prominent collector who commissioned the largest collection of Photorealist works to date. Meisel's definition was as elementary in its terminology as it was careful to curtail those who might wish to stretch the technological and visual boundaries of the movement. Meisel's criteria, it should be noted, favored those artists that he represented.

1.The photorealist uses the camera and photograph to gather information
2.The photorealist uses a mechanical or semi-mechanical means to transfer the information to the canvas
3.The photorealist must have the technical ability to make the finished work appear photographic
4.The artist must have exhibited work as a photorealist by 1972 to be considered one of the central photorealists
5.The artist must have devoted at least five years to the development and exhibition of photorealist work

As with many modern art movements, Photorealism was not comprised of any cohesive structure or unified purpose within the ranks of the artists, so adhering to any or all of Meisel's qualifications were, at best, elective. The British painter Malcolm Morley, for example, has often used toy models instead of photographs to create his figurative paintings; however, Meisel does not consider Morley to be a Photorealist (nor represents his art in his gallery). Meisel remains to this day the world's preeminent collector and scholar of Photorealism, and the Louis K. Meisel Gallery still operates in SoHo, New York City.

Documenta 5

This radical painting style received a broader audience in 1972, when the Swiss curator and art historian Harald Szeeman invited several Photorealists to exhibit at the Documenta 5. The German-based international art exhibition, Documenta 5 which is held every five years has become infamous through a variety of controversial exhibits. This particular show was lambasted by most critics, among them Barbara Rose, who called the show "overtly deranged." What proved unpopular was Szeeman's reconceptualization of the exhibition. Whereas all prior Documentas selected work individually for inclusion based upon artistic merit, under Szeeman's control the exhibition became thematic and of a unified vision. This allowed for more social and historical context to be considered which some critics felt detracted from the show's aesthetic prominence.

Szeeman subtitled his Documenta the discreetly ominous "100 Days of Inquiry into Reality - Today's Imagery." Of the 220 artists who exhibited, including Claes Oldenburg and Joseph Beuys, Szeeman also showed works by the relatively unknown Chuck Close, Richard Estes, Ralph Goings, Malcolm Morley, Don Eddy, Robert Bechtle, John Salt, and Charles Bell. At the time this represented the greatest number of Photorealist works by multiple artists displayed in a single art exhibition, and one worthy of international recognition. Further, these artists' association with such a controversial event seemed to establish Photorealism as an outlier movement within the modernist canon.

Photorealism: Concepts, Styles, and Trends

Photorealism and Pop Art

Although Photorealism emerged roughly around the same time as Pop art in the 1960s, the style itself was not a response to its immediate predecessor, despite some historical accounts that tether the two. Photorealism and Pop art do share, however, a common visual ground: they both are indebted to the wide distribution of photographic media in popular culture. When examining the paintings from the movement's zenith in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there is an evident lack of clutter and extraneous detail. The prevalent subject matter, or rather just simply, scenery, is of the plain views of the American cityscape, such as parking lots, street scenes, and low-rise buildings. The visual coolness and emotional detachment of these scenes give Photorealism a conceptual attachment to modern movements like Pop and Minimalism, but there's never any mistaking one for the other.

Photorealism and Minimalism

Despite the ties between Pop art and Photorealism, as a practice and an artistic approach, the movement is far closer to Minimalism. Their mutual lack of affectation, visual clutter, and the appearance of improvisation made the two movements unlikely cousins, albeit with two very divergent aesthetics. The visual language of Photorealism was comprised of portraiture, landscape, still-life, and scenery painting, while Minimalism made exclusive use of geometric abstraction and the careful placement of lines and forms within a defined space. Yet, Minimalists' use of industrial fabrication in their constructions, and the resulting absence of individualism in the work (previously a hallmark of Abstract Expressionist and even Pop art) was likewise a shared characteristic with Photorealism, where the artist's individual marks are not present.

Photorealism and Trompe l'oeil

A controversial attribution regarding Photorealism is its association to, and even equation with trompe l'oeil. The strict and traditional definition of trompe l'oeil is a painting that is meant to deceive the viewer's eye into believing they are actually viewing a real object and not a painting. By this definition, Photorealism is not trompe l'oeil because the viewer is meant to be conscious that they're in fact looking at a painting, and often, a painted image of a photograph. However, a somewhat more liberal explanation of Photorealism defines it as being made in the manner of trompe l'oeil, which is to say, the faithful reproduction of a photographic image on canvas is a trompe l'oeil style. Consciousness of the medium is an intentional outcome and at no time is Photorealism designed to trick the eye and fool the viewer.

Gridding

One working technique adopted by several early Photorealists was to project the image of a photograph onto the canvas, which oftentimes would be inverted or turned upside down. The artist then divides the canvas into an intricate grid system, whereby he or she is able to focus in up close, similar to examining pixels in a high-resolution digital photo, and incrementally copy the smallest line or shadow or miscellaneous detail. This approach is most recognizable in the paintings of Chuck Close, who creates his larger-than-life portraits using a gridded photograph and, always beginning from the canvas' left-hand corner, applies small and precise brushstrokes that take shape over time. Perhaps more so than any other painting style or medium in the modern era, the gridding system demonstrates the exacting technical prowess that is required of Photorealist painters.

Photorealist Sculpture

Similar to Photorealist paintings which mimic the imagery and visual effects of a two-dimensional photograph, Photorealist sculptures are designed to mimic individual objects or people, and often does so on an exaggerated scale. At times, Photorealist sculpture can fool the eye and play with perception. Such sculptors as Duane Hanson produce eerily lifelike works that are dressed in actual clothing and accompanied by actual objects -- coffee cups, shopping bags, and other pedestrian materials. Because these pieces, or the artist's sculptures of everyday people, appear in the special context of art museums and galleries, the viewer is challenged to extract the work's meaning within this rarified context. Further complicating the visual effects is the fact that there tends to be an evident artificiality to the sculpture's surface, whether through the use of shiny fiberglass or plaster or wood.

Later Developments - After Photorealism

New advancements in photography brought about new advancements in the practice of Photorealism, allowing both painter and sculptor to focus on minute details of a particular subject that in earlier decades may have been harder to dissect with such precision. The term originated in 1973, from the French Hyperréalisme, by Belgian art dealer Isy Brachot. After an exhibition at Brachot's gallery in Brussels (which included a number of the original Photorealists), the moniker Hyperrealism would eventually come to represent the work of a succeeding generation of painters, namely the Spaniard Agustin Reche Mora and American Denis Peterson.

By the late-20 th century, a new generation of American and European artists was producing portraits and still lifes that provided stunning degrees of clarity. But what set these works apart from their Photorealist predecessors was that Hyper-realist artists had no interest in recreating a scene from a photograph. Instead, they constructed a fiction comprised of a variety of images and details culled from multiple sources, much in the way Synthetist artists in the Post-Impressionism era would create paintings derived de tête (from memory or imagination) rather than from any visual aid, natural or otherwise.

The overall intent of the artists working in Photorealist and Hyperrealist veins has changed as well. No longer satisfied with an art-for-art's sake approach to realist cityscapes and the like, such painters as Denis Peterson have recently used the medium as vehicle of social change, oftentimes conjuring themes of corruption, decadence, and genocide in his subject matter. Variations of Photorealism, Hyperrealism, Superrealism and other permutations of the style continue throughout the contemporary art world, most noticeably with painters like Richard Prince and Kehinde Wiley.

Useful Resources on Photorealism

Similar Art

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The Photorealists often used photographs and the byproducts of photography for their artistic explorations and powerful depictions.

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On View

Betty Cuningham Gallery
November 11, 2021 - January 22, 2022
New York

For those of us who can't help but wonder about the colleagues, companions, and strangers who populate our lives on a daily basis, one of the fascinating outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the unexpected view into the interior lives of others. With so much time spent communicating through video conferencing mechanisms over the past two years, curious daydreamers have been afforded an intimate peek into the personal situations of others, as the idea of "home" has been variously reconfigured as school, a bar, a workplace, and then made visible to others through the oblique glow of a laptop screen.

As a prodigy of figure painting who has devoted nearly 60 years to rendering the nude human form from life, Philip Pearlstein is well-versed in intimacy as a corollary of his work. However, during the long months of pandemic-enforced physical separation, Pearlstein was unable to invite models into his studio. Seeking an outlet, he turned to the many treasures he has accrued through 97 years of a sociable, cultivated, and well-traveled life. These accumulations of a lifetime became the subjects of the watercolor paintings now on view in I Love Mud, Pearlstein's current exhibition at Betty Cuningham Gallery. The offbeat title of the show comes from the artist's own observation that, upon surveying the artifacts, antiquities, and knickknacks that make up his vast and varied collection, he could only conclude that-based on the number of clay, terracotta, and other earthenware objects in his array-he must be especially fond of the substance.

This affinity is obvious at the outset, as the first three paintings one encounters upon entering the gallery, all entitled Antiquities on My Shelf (and all dated 2021), depict varied clusters of items from regions across the globe, their one unifying quality being that they each seem to have originated in the medium of wet earth. Across the trio of works, a clay urn provides a backdrop to a serene Hindu bust, among other characters, while a Han warrior gazes to a point beyond the frame in another. In the third, an assortment of Asian artifacts sits at jaunty angles to one another, drawing the eye through the painting at an upwards slant.

This diagonal thrust is common to a number of the paintings, deriving from a natural effect of the chance groupings of objects that Pearlstein depicts. It has the added benefit of enticing the viewer into the given scene, as if we too are in close commune with the items on the shelves. In Thai Piggybank and Other Antiquities (2021) the piggy bank in question sits front and center on the table, Pearlstein's tender brushstrokes belying the pig's fierce expression. Arranged around it are a horse, a monkey, a hippopotamus, no one of them aligned precisely. And in Gaggle of Decoys in Studio (2021) a charming assemblage of the lifelike hunting lures are heaped on a sumptuous rug, their heads criss crossing each other as if in lively, almost human conversation.

Not every subject that Pearlstein paints is made of clay. Several of the most personal works are devoted to old toys, many of which have been in Pearlstein's collection since he was a child. In Antique Toys with Godzilla (2021) the eponymous monster towers over a sweeter variety of plaything: a merry-go-round, a drumming bear, a windup chicken, and a swan on wheels. In the catalogue that accompanies the show, Pearlstein recalls the receipt of Godzilla as a childhood birthday gift, and that it once featured glowing red eyes and moving arms and legs before its mechanical innards quit long ago.

What is the human impulse to amass collections? We collect because, on some fundamental level, the objects gathered bring us satisfaction. We collect what we revere. In Pearlstein's endearing works, the viewer gains a little insight into his private domain, what one individual among the billions in the world reveres: rare antiquities and broken toys, the sacred and the profane. And by exalting them in his paintings, Pearlstein acknowledges the powerful effects a collection can have, and the balm it can elicit in difficult or sorrowful times-times like our pandemic age, when we're too often cut off from people and experiences we cherish. It's rare to see a body of work not only untouched by cynicism but also infused with comfort and hope, but that's what Pearlstein's gracious paintings have given us. They feel like home.

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The accumulations of a sociable, cultivated, and well-traveled lifetime became the subjects of the watercolor paintings now on view in I Love Mud, Philip Pearlstein's current exhibition at Betty Cuningham Gallery.

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Contemporary art is diverse and encompasses a wide range of styles - CHATGPT

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Contemporary art is diverse and encompasses a wide range of styles - CHATGPT

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Contemporary art is diverse and encompasses a wide range of styles, techniques, and approaches. The term "contemporary art" generally refers to art created in the present or recent times. Here are some prominent contemporary art styles:

1. Abstract Expressionism: Characterized by spontaneous, often gestural brushwork and a focus on the emotional and expressive qualities of the artwork. Artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning are associated with this style.

2. Pop Art: Emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, emphasizing popular culture and everyday objects. Artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein are key figures in the Pop Art movement.

3. Minimalism: Involves the use of simple geometric shapes, minimal color palettes, and a focus on the materials and form of the artwork. Artists like Donald Judd and Agnes Martin are known for their contributions to Minimalism.

4. Conceptual Art: Emphasizes the idea or concept behind the artwork rather than the visual aesthetics. Conceptual artists may use a variety of media to convey their ideas, and the process often takes precedence over the final product.

5. Installation Art: Involves creating an entire environment or immersive experience for the viewer. Artists may use various media, including sculpture, video, sound, and other elements, to transform a space.

6. Street Art and Graffiti: Originally associated with urban environments, street art has gained recognition in contemporary art circles. It includes murals, stencils, and other forms of public expression.

7. Digital Art: Encompasses art created using digital technology, including computer-generated imagery (CGI), digital painting, and interactive installations.

8. Neo-Expressionism: A revival of expressionist techniques with an emphasis on bold colors, emotional intensity, and a return to figurative representation. Artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Julian Schnabel are associated with this movement.

9. Contemporary Realism: Artists working in a style that embraces traditional techniques of representation but often with a modern or personal twist.

10. Postmodern Art: Rejects the idea of a single, dominant style and often incorporates elements from various art movements. It may involve a playful exploration of cultural references and the blending of high and low art.

These are just a few examples, and contemporary art is continually evolving, with artists exploring new forms, materials, and concepts. The diversity within contemporary art reflects the pluralistic nature of the art world today.

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Summary of Contemporary Realism

Contemporary Realism emerged out of New York in direct defiance to the prevailing popularity of Abstract Expressionism. The movement signified a return to a straightforward representation of life via figurative artworks. A loosely connected and disparate group of initial artists borrowed heavily from roots embedded earlier by the 19 th century Realist painters who aimed to depict the real rather than the ideal. Yet these new artists, proficient in modern art, employed this mission in a decidedly fresh fashion that built upon tradition while incorporating a contemporary sophistication and techniques in line with the current times. Reality suddenly became cool again swathed in the unique perspectives of artists working with, and documenting, their own experiences within a 20 th century world.

Key Ideas & Accomplishments

Many of the movement's artists came from an earlier inclusion in the Abstract Expressionist movement. Even as they eschewed its principles, they did adapt many of its techniques such as a similar use of brushwork, flatness, the use of large canvas, and innovative color and composition.

Although there were other branches of art simultaneously inspired by the 19th century philosophies of Realism, such as Social Realism and American Regionalism, Contemporary Realist painters were largely distinctive for showing both urban and rural life in a simple fashion absent of sentimentality.

Contemporary Realism was a way to express an immediate environment, most often through a glance at the people, landscapes, geography, still lifes and interiors that informed an artist's personal existence. These first glimpses originated around life in New York, Maine and Southampton, yet they were inspirational in establishing the concept of regional centers of art for other painters working in this vein.

The movement revitalized realism, dusted off the perception of it being a dated historical antiquation, and gave it a new momentum that has continued throughout today in various forms including Photorealism, and Neo-Expressionism.

Artworks and Artists of Contemporary Realism

Beginnings of Contemporary Realism

Beyond the New York School

In the 1950s, the dominant artistic movement was Abstract Expressionism, an anti-literal and anti-figuration movement that emphasized a burst of emotion, shape, and color on canvas as a visual metaphor for an artist's inner emotional state in regard to subject, circumstance or matter. The critic Russell Ferguson has written that this was the "most mythologized period in American art...the oversimplified narrative remains only too familiar: a heroic generation of Abstract Expressionist pioneers followed by a less popular " second generation," and then by the explosion of Pop Art. In that version of history, there is little room for the strong tradition of realist and figurative painting that continued throughout the period."

Never formally organized as a group or a movement, the Contemporary Realists were a close network of friendships and artistic associations surrounding the New York School, an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians. This included Philip Pearlstein, Neil Welliver, William Bailey, Leland Bell, and Louisa Matthiasdottir, A number of Contemporary Realists, like Jack Beal, Nell Blaine, and Jane Freilicher began as noted Second Generation Abstract Expressionists, but by the mid-1950s were creating realist works. They began painting more traditional subjects like landscape, portraiture, domestic interiors, and still life, though with a contemporary awareness and technique influenced by various movements including the New York School's emphasis on capturing the everyday moment, and the color palette and line styles of their 19 th-century artistic forefathers Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard. The realist artists retained some elements of Abstract Expressionism, as the art historian Linda Nochlin wrote, "The largeness of scale, the constant awareness of the field-like flatness of the pictorial surface, (and) the concern with measurement, space, and interval."

At the same time, some artists like Lois Dodd, Alex Katz, and Fairfield Porter were promoting realism as art critics and educators. Porter was particularly influential as an active art critic throughout the 1950s. Furthermore, his concurrent appreciation of Abstract Expressionism and his friendships with the artists and poets of the New York School meant that his preference for realism took on intellectual credibility. He had studied at the Art Students' League with Thomas Hart Benton and had been influenced by Benton's emphasis upon the human figure, and also by the works of Vuillard and Bonnard. Porter, in effect, became a kind of artistic bridge between the earlier movements and Contemporary Realism. The most important art critic for The New York Times at the time, Hilton Kramer was also a noted proponent of the group and of individual artists associated with it.

The Many Names for the Contemporary Realists

In the early 1960s the work began to receive greater critical attention and was dubbed Contemporary Realism, collecting all of the artists working in the style beneath an umbrella term. The movement has also been called "New Realism," "Modern Realism," and "American Realism." These artists viewed themselves as stubbornly independent and often came up with their own names for their representational work. For instance, Katz preferred to call his works "post abstract," and Freilicher used the term "painterly realism." Additionally, Contemporary Realism has sometimes been included in the term "new figuration" that was coined by the French art critic Michel Ragon in 1961 for all figurative work.

Contemporary Realism and American Scene Painting

Developing after World War I and given further impetus by the Depression, American Scene painting often incorporated Social Realism, which focused on social issues and the hardships of urban America, and American Regionalism, which focused on rural America, particularly the Deep South and Midwest. Noted Social Realists were the artists Jack Levine, Jacob Lawrence, and Ben Shahn, while the best known American Regionalists were Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood. Both Social Realism and American Regionalism were critically viewed as sometimes sentimental or idealized - characteristics that were typical of much pre-WWII art. Nonetheless, into the 1950s the artist Andrew Wyeth and the illustrator Norman Rockwell continued creating Regionalist works that found a large audience.

A number of Contemporary Realists studied with Thomas Hart Benton, including Fairfield Porter and Philip Pearlstein, as did the Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock. Like the Regionalists, Contemporary Realists took on a geographical focus, creating rural artist enclaves in Maine and Southampton. However, they avoided American Regionalism's view of rural life and discarded its folk elements, preferring instead their own sophisticated contemporary techniques and cool approach. Unlike Social Realism, Contemporary Realism was usually unconcerned with social issues.

One exception to this was the work of Jack Beal. Noted in the 1950s for his boldly-colored nudes and still lifes, by the 1970s his work moved toward painting social issues, as seen in his four murals The History of Labor (1977) which he painted as a commission for the Department of Labor in Washington D.C. Reviewing the work, critic Hilton Kramer called Beal "the most important Social Realist to have emerged in American painting since the 1930s," though he went on to say "Given the generally low esteem - a disfavor bordering at times on contempt - that the Social Realist impulse has suffered in recent decades, this is not a position likely to be a cause of envy."

Contemporary Realism and the Galleries

Several New York City galleries played a significant role in promoting Contemporary Realism. Representing both Second Generation Abstract Expressionists and realist painters, the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, which began in 1950, was the first to exhibit the works of Jane Freilicher and Fairfield Porter. The gallery also first published the poetry of the New York School poets John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, and Frank O'Hara. As a result, it became a hub of continuing connections while promoting representational work as a noteworthy movement.

The Tanager Gallery was founded in 1952 by artists Lois Dodd, Angelo Ippolito, Charles Cajori, and Fred Mitchell. Irving Sandler, a popular art critic and historian who had been a major proponent of Abstract Expressionism, became the gallery's manager. William King, Philip Pearlstein, and Alex Katz were also members. The gallery was influential in the establishment of artist cooperative galleries throughout the city and also launched what was called "the 10 th Street scene." Hilton Kramer described Contemporary Realism as not so much a school or a movement but as a group of artists who first gathered and associated with the Tanager. Ronald Bladen, Lois Dodd, Sally Hazelet Drummond, Al Held, Alex Katz, William King, Phillip Pearlstein, and George Sugarman all launched their careers at the gallery, which, Frank O'Hara wrote, could "confer on a first show by an unknown artist a distinction pretty much unavailable to the younger artist elsewhere."

The gallery also forged many long lasting relationships, including the marriage of Katz and his iconic muse Ada Del Moro. They met at a Tanager art show in October 1957; Katz has said of that meeting that Ada was "already an art-world legend," though she said she was "shy about going into galleries, " and that "The thing I do remember from when we met is that I was sitting with my hands in my lap, and this guy that I was interested in was looking at my eyes, my ears, my shoulders. The whole thing was just very sensual. And I didn't think I could handle it. But then it became just this thing that he did. I was sitting and he was painting, and that was it."

Robert Schoelkopf's gallery, which he opened in 1962 in New York City, was also devoted to showcasing contemporary figurative work and played a significant role in promoting Contemporary Realism as a viable artistic movement.

The First Regional Centers: Maine and Southampton

While New York was the central hub of Contemporary Realism, both Maine and Southampton became regional centers as well due to the large influx of artists interested in the idyllic landscape and social atmosphere found there. In 1951 Lois Dodd, William King, and Alex Katz began summering in Maine, which Dodd said, "...got us all working outdoors." They also opened the Accent Gallery in Lakewood, Maine to exhibit their own work, thus establishing a kind of central location for representative art, which attracted even more artists to the area. Subsequently, Neil Welliver moved to the state, leading to the group's being coined "the Lincolnville artists." Rackstraw Downes soon moved to Maine to study with Welliver. This migration to the country influenced the painting of landscapes and a revival of plein air painting. Welliver, for instance, would trek for miles into the woods to paint a particular landscape, like Lower Duck Trap (1978).

Fairfield Porter had family homes in Southampton and Maine, and both were a kind of breeding ground for representational artists, influencing their work in the direction of domestic interiors combined with landscape. Creating a bond with Long Island's Parrish Art Museum, Porter eventually donated over 250 works to the museum. The museum now houses the Fairfield Porter Collection, as well as many permanent collection pieces by poets and painters of the time that includes such works as Katz's Portrait of Frank O'Hara (2009). Jane Freilicher began spending her summers in Long Island as well, where she turned to creating works like Autumnal Landscape (1976-1977).

Contemporary Realism and the University

Various educational institutions played a significant role in the promotion and practice of Contemporary Realism. Neil Welliver, Alex Katz, Philip Pearlstein, and William Bailey all taught at Yale, where they influenced a number of upcoming artists. Rackstraw Downes was already a noted abstract painter while studying at Yale, who, after hearing several lectures by Fairfield Porter, was persuaded to switch to representational art. Robert Schoelkopf, who also taught at Yale, was inspired by his encounters with his Contemporary Realist peers and went on to open a New York gallery that played a great role in the revival of figurative art.

Lois Dodd taught at Brooklyn College and advocated for realist art combined with formalist sophistication, where her work had an influence on Porter. Pearlstein also, eventually, taught at Brooklyn College where his realist practice and theory influenced several generations of artists.

Contemporary Realism: Concepts, Styles, and Trends

The individual artists associated with Contemporary Realism continued painting in the realist manner for the rest of their careers, and some like Philip Pearlstein and Alex Katz are still active today. Accordingly, a number of separate groups and movements have been associated with Contemporary Realism. What follows is a discussion of some of the most significant and cohesively joined realist groups. Although, from the 1970's forward, the term Contemporary Realism has come to be seen in a more general sense, relating to all individual artists working in a representational style.

Contemporary Realism and The New York School

Most of the Contemporary Realists were part of a network of poets and visual artists that made up the New York School from the 1950s through the 1960s. The New York School poets Kenneth Koch, Barbara Guest, James Schuyler, Alice Notley, Frank O'Hara, and John Ashbery often drew inspiration from contemporary art movements. As a curator for the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara was particularly influential and he, like Ashbery and Schuyler, was a noted art reviewer. Jane Freilicher played a leading role in creating connections within the New York School. Every Friday night she held gatherings, which Alex Katz described as "a fantastic education," where it seemed everyone could "play the piano, speak French and be totally brilliant in English." She was considered to be a kind of "muse" to the New York School poets as a number of them wrote works about her. In turn, she collaborated with them on a number of projects. She and Ashbery were notably great friends and after O'Hara's untimely death in 1966, she collaborated on memorial projects for the poet.

As a result of the connections between the Contemporary Realists and the New York School, representational art found a positive critical response as well as artistic encouragement and a shared influence. The New York School emphasized a witty urban style combined with a kind of stream of consciousness method that strived to capture a given moment by using vivid imagery. A number of the Contemporary Realists also focused on capturing the everyday moment and developed a style that was urbane and modern. Members of the New York School would continue to connect to other ensuing branches of the movement well into the 1980s. For instance, Ashbery, not only promoted the work of his East Coast community, but also subsequently promoted and wrote eloquently about the works of the American-born, yet English-based painter R.B. Kitaj.

The School of London

R. B. Kitaj was unallied with Contemporary Realism but was perhaps first influenced by the movement through such exhibitions as "Realism Now" and the Berlin exhibition, "Documenta 5." Both had brought international attention to realist works. Subsequently, Kitaj organized "The Human Clay," a 1976 exhibition in London that exhibited exclusively figurative paintings and drawings. In the catalogue Kitaj named the participating artists as the School of London.

The 48 artists that exhibited in the show were of varied backgrounds and connected to various movements. This included William Roberts and Richard Carline who were known for their realistic depictions of their time served in World War I. Carline painted depictions of the aerial views of bombing raids like his Baghdad 1919 that in their two-dimensional abstraction reflected a Cubist influence. Roberts was a war artist in both World Wars; his work The First German Gas Attack at Ypres (1918) depicted the horror of war in a style that reflected both Social Realism and Neue Sachlichkeit. Collin Self and Maggi Hambling, both born in the 1940s were of a later generation that showed with the group. Self's work was to become primarily associated with Pop art, and Hambling was known for her portraiture, though she also created figurative sculpture, such as her 2004 Scallop.

The show also included well-known artists who did figurative work. David Hockney had done a number of realist portraits like his Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy (1970), and Lucien Freud was also known for portraiture, as for example, The Painter's Mother II (1972). Francis Bacon, Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Howard Hodgkin and Leon Kossoff also exhibited. Due to the involvement of these artists, there was a renewal of interest in figurative painting among the younger generation of artists in the 1970s and 1980s and figurative elements played a role in the development of Neo-Expressionism.

Contemporary Realism and Photorealism

The art historian Linda Nochlin co-curated, along with Mary Delahod, the figurative exhibition, "Realism Now," at Vassar College in 1968. Themed as "life of the sixties," the exhibit was meant to illustrate that, as Nochlin wrote, "it has become increasingly clear during the course of the last two years that the new realism, far from being an aberration or a throwback in contemporary art, is a major innovating impulse." Forty paintings were shown, including works by Philip Pearlstein, Jack Beal, Fairfield Porter, and Alex Katz. Also included was Alfred Leslie, who in 1962 began painting portraits in grisaille - a method of using monotone gray to emulate the look of sculpture.

The exhibition also included the Photorealist works of Ralph Goings, Malcolm Morley, and Richard Estes. Photorealism had emerged as a practice of using traditional mediums like paint and drawing to emulate the look of a photograph. As a result, a kind of blurring occurred between the two movements. Nochlin felt that the realism's "precise quality of novelty, it would seem to me, lies more in its connection with photography, with new directions in that most contemporary of all media." However, while some Contemporary Realists, like Katz, used cropping, stopgap motion, and other techniques reminiscent of film, both he and Pearlstein were outspoken in saying they had no use for the camera.

One of the best-known artists associated with Photorealism, Chuck Close, studied at Yale and became good friends with Pearlstein and Katz. However, Close did not study with them at the same time and has said, "I chafe under the term realist; the work is, I suppose, about reality, but it's also highly artificial. It's the artificiality which really interests me, the fact that it's this distribution of colored dirt on a flat surface."

That artificiality and its subject matter made Photorealism more aligned with Pop art. Photorealist subjects - storefronts, office buildings, and automobiles - were taken from contemporary Americana as can be seen in Richard Estes's Bus with Reflection of the Flatiron Building (1966-67). In contrast, domestic interiors, landscapes without figures or framed by a bouquet or a window, and scenes of family life, dominated Contemporary Realism.

While only a few Contemporary Realists, like Leland Bell, worked from photographs, most of the realists worked directly from the model or in plein air. Contemporary Realism also simplified its subject to its elements or evinced a strong sense of painterly composition, brushstrokes, and color palette. Photorealism was much informed by the technology of the camera and the photograph, and as Close said, "The camera is not aware of what it is looking at. It just gets it all down."

In the 1970s, Hyperrealism would emerge as an extension of Photorealism. What initially differentiated the two movements were the artist's intentions. Photorealist work evoked a distance between the artist and the artwork. Although Hyperrealists sought to duplicate a photo as accurately as possible, they also depicted scenes in which narrative elements or emotion came into play.

Later Developments - After Contemporary Realism

Since the 1970s the term Contemporary Realism has been used generally for artists who practice realist art with contemporary techniques. The movement's greatest influence was in creating a critical and artistic receptivity for realism as a viable continuing practice within the overall art canon. In a sense it established a foundation for artists who painted realistically to be viewed as contemporary and innovative. Many Contemporary Realists Lois Dodd, Alex Katz, and Philip Pearlstein are still active today, and their work continues to exert an influence.

At the age of 69 Rackstraw Downes was awarded a MacArthur grant for his depictions of landscapes altered by human activity, like his Presidio: In the Sand Hills Looking West with ATV Tracks & Cell Tower (2012) and his work has been connected with the 1970s New Topographic photographers (and Earth artists) like Bernd and Hilla Becher and Robert Smithson. Katz, as the Smithsonian Magazine wrote, is "cooler than ever," and his work has influenced young artists like Elizabeth Peyton, Peter Doig, and Merlin James. Pearlstein's work and his teaching at Yale and Brooklyn College have influenced the contemporary artists Janet Fish, Thomas Corey, Stephen Lorber, Charles Viera, Altoon Sultan, Tony Phillips, George Nick, and Lorraine Shemesh. Fish wrote of Pearlstein's influence, "What has stuck with me was his insistence that we take a hard and rigorous look at the world that is in front of our eyes."

Other contemporary artists are working in a realist vein, like Amy Sherald whose It Made Sense...Mostly in Her Mind (2011), is in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Dana Schutz, Jenny Saville, and John Currin are also noted contemporary realists, though their work reflects a number of influences.

With its art enclaves in Maine and the Hamptons Contemporary Realism also influenced the development of regional art centers, focused around a particular gallery or museum, often promoting realist work centered on local landscape or rural scenes. Each area has its own well-known realists; for example, Jeffrey Ripple is noted in San Francisco galleries for his precise still lifes, such as Figs (1999).

Useful Resources on Contemporary Realism

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Common literary devices, such as metaphors and similes, are the building blocks of literature, and what make literature so enchanting. Language evolves through the literary devices in poetry and prose; the different types of figurative language make literature spark in different ways.

Consider this your crash course in common literary devices. Whether you're studying for the AP Lit exam or looking to improve your creative writing, this article is crammed with literary devices, examples, and analysis.

Let's start with the basics. What are literary devices?

What are Literary Devices?

Literary devices take writing beyond its literal meaning. They help guide the reader in how to read the piece.

Literary devices are ways of taking writing beyond its straightforward, literal meaning. In that sense, they are techniques for helping guide the reader in how to read the piece.

Central to all literary devices is a quality of connection: by establishing or examining relationships between things, literary devices encourage the reader to perceive and interpret the world in new ways.

One common form of connection in literary devices is comparison. Metaphors and similes are the most obvious examples of comparison. A metaphor is a direct comparison of two things-"the tree is a giant," for example. A simile is an indirect comparison-"the tree is like a giant." In both instances, the tree is compared to-and thus connected with-something (a giant) beyond what it literally is (a tree).

Other literary devices forge connections in different ways. For example, imagery, vivid description, connects writing richly to the worlds of the senses. Alliteration uses the sound of words itself to forge new literary connections ("alligators and apples").

By enabling new connections that go beyond straightforward details and meanings, literary devices give literature its power.

What all these literary devices have in common is that they create new connections: rich layers of sound, sense, emotion, narrative, and ultimately meaning that surpass the literal details being recounted. They are what sets literature apart, and what makes it uniquely powerful.

Read on for an in-depth look and analysis at 112 common literary devices.

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Literary Devices List: 14 Common Literary Devices

In this article, we focus on literary devices that can be found in both poetry and prose.

There are a lot of literary devices to cover, each of which require their own examples and analysis. As such, we will start by focusing on common literary devices for this article: literary devices that can be found in both poetry and prose. With each device, we've included examples in literature and exercises you can use in your own creative writing.

Afterwards, we've listed other common literary devices you might see in poetry, prose, dialogue, and rhetoric.

Let's get started!

Metaphors, also known as direct comparisons, are one of the most common literary devices. A metaphor is a statement in which two objects, often unrelated, are compared to each other.

Example of metaphor: This tree is the god of the forest.

Obviously, the tree is not a god-it is, in fact, a tree. However, by stating that the tree is the god, the reader is given the image of something strong, large, and immovable. Additionally, using "god" to describe the tree, rather than a word like "giant" or "gargantuan," makes the tree feel like a spiritual center of the forest.

Metaphors allow the writer to pack multiple descriptions and images into one short sentence. The metaphor has much more weight and value than a direct description. If the writer chose to describe the tree as "the large, spiritual center of the forest," the reader won't understand the full importance of the tree's size and scope.

2. Simile

Similes, also known as indirect comparisons, are similar in construction to metaphors, but they imply a different meaning. Like metaphors, two unrelated objects are being compared to each other. Unlike a metaphor, the comparison relies on the words "like" or "as."

Example of simile: This tree is like the god of the forest.
OR: This tree acts as the god of the forest.

What is the difference between a simile and a metaphor?

The obvious difference between these two common literary devices is that a simile uses "like" or "as," whereas a metaphor never uses these comparison words.

Additionally, in reference to the above examples, the insertion of "like" or "as" creates a degree of separation between both elements of the device. In a simile, the reader understands that, although the tree is certainly large, it isn't large enough to be a god; the tree's "godhood" is simply a description, not a relevant piece of information to the poem or story.

Simply put, metaphors are better to use as a central device within the poem/story, encompassing the core of what you are trying to say. Similes are better as a supporting device.

Does that mean metaphors are better than similes? Absolutely not. Consider Louise Gluck's poem " The Past. " Gluck uses both a simile and a metaphor to describe the sound of the wind: it is like shadows moving, but is her mother's voice. Both devices are equally haunting, and ending the poem on the mother's voice tells us the central emotion of the poem.

Learn more about the difference between similes and metaphors here:

Simile vs. Metaphor vs. Analogy: Definitions and Examples

Simile and Metaphor Writing Exercise: Tenors and Vehicles

Most metaphors and similes have two parts: the tenor and the vehicle. The tenor refers to the subject being described, and the vehicle refers to the image that describes the tenor.

So, in the metaphor "the tree is a god of the forest," the tenor is the tree and the vehicle is "god of the forest."

To practice writing metaphors and similes, let's create some literary device lists. grab a sheet of paper and write down two lists. In the first list, write down "concept words"-words that cannot be physically touched. Love, hate, peace, war, happiness, and anger are all concepts because they can all be described but are not physical objects in themselves.

In the second list, write down only concrete objects-trees, clouds, the moon, Jupiter, New York brownstones, uncut sapphires, etc.

Your concepts are your tenors, and your concrete objects are your vehicles. Now, randomly draw a one between each tenor and each vehicle, then write an explanation for your metaphor/simile. You might write, say:

"Peace, like an uncut sapphire, gleams with labor."

Have fun, write interesting literary devices, and try to incorporate them into a future poem or story!

3. Analogy

An analogy is an argumentative comparison: it compares two unalike things to advance an argument. Specifically, it argues that two things have equal weight, whether that weight be emotional, philosophical, or even literal. Because analogical literary devices operate on comparison, it can be considered a form of metaphor.

For example:

Making pasta is as easy as one, two, three.

This analogy argues that making pasta and counting upwards are equally easy things. This format, "A is as B" or "A is to B", is a common analogy structure.

Another common structure for analogy literary devices is "A is to B as C is to D." For example:

Gordon Ramsay is to cooking as Meryl Streep is to acting.

The above constructions work best in argumentative works. Lawyers and essayists will often use analogies. In other forms of creative writing, analogies aren't as formulaic, but can still prove to be powerful literary devices. In fact, you probably know this one:

"That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet" - Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

To put this into the modern language of an analogy, Shakespeare is saying "a rose with no name smells as a rose with a name does." The name "rose" does not affect whether or not the flower smells good.

Analogy Writing Exercise

Analogies are some of the most common literary devices, alongside similes and metaphors. Here's an exercise for writing one yourself.

On a blank sheet of paper: write down the first four nouns that come to mind. Try to use concrete, visual nouns. Then, write down a verb. If you struggle to come up with any of these, any old word generator on the internet will help.

The only requirement is that two of your four nouns should be able to perform the verb. A dog can swim, for example, but it can't fly an airplane.

Your list might look like this:

Verb: Fall
Nouns: Rain, dirt, pavement, shadow

An analogy you create from this list might be: "his shadow falls on the pavement how rain falls on the dirt in May.

Your analogy might end up being silly or poetic, strange or evocative. But, by forcing yourself to make connections between seemingly disparate items, you're using these literary devices to hone the skills of effective, interesting writing.

4. Imagery

Is imagery a literary device? Absolutely! Imagery can be both literal and figurative, and it relies on the interplay of language and sensation to create a sharper image in your brain.

Imagery is what it sounds like-the use of figurative language to describe something.

Imagery is what it sounds like-the use of figurative language to describe something. In fact, we've already seen imagery in action through the previous literary devices: by describing the tree as a "god", the tree looks large and sturdy in the reader's mind.

However, imagery doesn't just involve visual descriptions; the best writers use imagery to appeal to all five senses. By appealing to the reader's sense of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, your writing will create a vibrant world for readers to live and breathe in.

The best writers use imagery to appeal to all five senses.

Let's use imagery to describe that same tree. (I promise I can write about more than just trees, but it's a very convenient image for these common literary devices, don't you think?)

Sight imagery: The tree spread its gigantic, sun-flecked shoulders.
Sound imagery: The forest was hushed, resounding with echoes of the tree's stoic silence.
Touch imagery: The tree felt smooth as sandstone.
Taste imagery: The tree's leaves tasted bitter, like unroasted coffee beans.
Smell imagery: As we approached the tree, the air around it smelled crisp and precise.

There are two other, less discussed types of imagery: organic and kinesthetic imagery. Organic imagery refers to descriptions of internal sensations-things happening within the body. Kinesthetic imagery is imagery of motion and movement-think of the sensations one might feel when running against the wind.

Organic imagery: The tree felt its xylem collapse at the news. (This is also an example of personification, since trees can't "feel" the way people feel.)

Kinesthetic imagery: The tree cooled down as its own leaves rushed against its bark.

Notice how these literary device examples also used metaphors and similes? Literary devices often pile on top of each other, which is why so many great works of literature can be analyzed endlessly. Because imagery depends on the object's likeness to other objects, imagery upholds the idea that a literary device is synonymous with comparison.

Imagery Writing Exercise

Want to try your hand at imagery? You can practice this concept by describing an object in the same way that this article describes a tree! Choose something to write about-any object, image, or idea-and describe it using the five senses. ("This biscuit has the tidy roundness of a lady's antique hat." "The biscuit tastes of brand-new cardboard." and so on!)

Then, once you've written five (or more) lines of imagery, try combining these images until your object is sharp and clear in the reader's head.

Imagery is one of the most essential common literary devices. To learn more about imagery, or to find more imagery writing exercises, take a look at our article Imagery Definition: 5+ Types of Imagery in Literature.

5. Symbolism

Symbolism combines a lot of the ideas presented in metaphor and imagery. Essentially, a symbol is the use of an object to represent a concept-it's kind of like a metaphor, except more concise!

Symbols are everywhere in the English language, and we often use these common literary devices in speech and design without realizing it. The following are very common examples of symbolism:

A few very commonly used symbols include:

"Peace" represented by a white dove

"Love" represented by a red rose

"Conformity" represented by sheep

"Idea" represented by a light bulb switching on

The symbols above are so widely used that they would likely show up as clichés in your own writing. (Would you read a poem, written today, that started with "Let's release the white dove of peace"?) In that sense, they do their job "too well"-they're such a good symbol for what they symbolize that they've become ubiquitous, and you'll have to add something new in your own writing.

Symbols are often contextually specific as well. For example, a common practice in Welsh marriage is to give your significant other a lovespoon, which the man has designed and carved to signify the relationship's unique, everlasting bond. In many Western cultures, this same bond is represented by a diamond ring-which can also be unique and everlasting!

Symbolism makes the core ideas of your writing concrete.

Finally, notice how each of these examples are a concept represented by a concrete object. Symbolism makes the core ideas of your writing concrete, and also allows you to manipulate your ideas. If a rose represents love, what does a wilted rose or a rose on fire represent?

Symbolism Writing Exercise

Often, symbols are commonly understood images-but not always. You can invent your own symbols to capture the reader's imagination, too!

Try your hand at symbolism by writing a poem or story centered around a symbol. Choose a random object, and make that object represent something. For example, you could try to make a blanket represent the idea of loneliness.

When you've paired an object and a concept, write your piece with that symbol at the center:

The down blanket lay crumpled, unused, on the empty side of our bed.

The goal is to make it clear that you're associating the object with the concept. Make the reader feel the same way about your symbol as you do!

6. Personification

Personification, giving human attributes to nonhuman objects, is a powerful way to foster empathy in your readers.

Personification is exactly what it sounds like: giving human attributes to nonhuman objects. Also known as anthropomorphism, personification is a powerful way to foster empathy in your readers.

Think about personification as if it's a specific type of imagery. You can describe a nonhuman object through the five senses, and do so by giving it human descriptions. You can even impute thoughts and emotions-mental events-to a nonhuman or even nonliving thing. This time, we'll give human attributes to a car-see our personification examples below!

Personification (using sight): The car ran a marathon down the highway.

Personification (using sound): The car coughed, hacked, and spluttered.

Personification (using touch): The car was smooth as a baby's bottom.

Personification (using taste): The car tasted the bitter asphalt.

Personification (using smell): The car needed a cold shower.

Personification (using mental events): The car remembered its first owner fondly.

Notice how we don't directly say the car is like a human-we merely describe it using human behaviors. Personification exists at a unique intersection of imagery and metaphor, making it a powerful literary device that fosters empathy and generates unique descriptions.

Personification Writing Exercise

Try writing personification yourself! In the above example, we chose a random object and personified it through the five senses. It's your turn to do the same thing: find a concrete noun and describe it like it's a human.

Here are two examples:

The ancient, threadbare rug was clearly tired of being stepped on.

My phone issued notifications with the grimly efficient extroversion of a sorority chapter president.

Now start writing your own! Your descriptions can be active or passive, but the goal is to foster empathy in the reader's mind by giving the object human traits.

7. Hyperbole

You know that one friend who describes things very dramatically? They're probably speaking in hyperboles. Hyperbole is just a dramatic word for being over-dramatic-which sounds a little hyperbolic, don't you think?

Basically, hyperbole refers to any sort of exaggerated description or statement. We use hyperbole all the time in the English language, and you've probably heard someone say things like:

I've been waiting a billion years for this

I'm so hungry I could eat a horse

I feel like a million bucks

You are the king of the kitchen

None of these examples should be interpreted literally: there are no kings in the kitchen, and I doubt anyone can eat an entire horse in one sitting. This common literary device allows us to compare our emotions to something extreme, giving the reader a sense of how intensely we feel something in the moment.

This is what makes hyperbole so fun! Coming up with crazy, exaggerated statements that convey the intensity of the speaker's emotions can add a personable element to your writing. After all, we all feel our emotions to a certain intensity, and hyperbole allows us to experience that intensity to its fullest.

Hyperbole Writing Exercise

To master the art of the hyperbole, try expressing your own emotions as extremely as possible. For example, if you're feeling thirsty, don't just write that you're thirsty, write that you could drink the entire ocean. Or, if you're feeling homesick, don't write that you're yearning for home, write that your homeland feels as far as Jupiter.

As a specific exercise, you can try writing a poem or short piece about something mundane, using more and more hyperbolic language with each line or sentence. Here's an example:

It was a brutally hot 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The April spring sun boiled blood and sent birds exploding. I'm sorry that I'm mowing my lawn on THE SURFACE OF THE SUN. (...and so on!)

A well-written hyperbole helps focus the reader's attention on your emotions and allows you to play with new images, making it a fun, chaos-inducing literary device.

8. Irony

Is irony a literary device? Yes-but it's often used incorrectly. People often describe something as being ironic, when really it's just a moment of dark humor. So, the colloquial use of the word irony is a bit off from its official definition as a literary device.

Irony is when the writer describes something by using opposite language. As a real-life example, if someone is having a bad day, they might say they're doing " greaaaaaat ", clearly implying that they're actually doing quite un-greatly. Or a story's narrator might write:

Like most bureaucrats, she felt a boundless love for her job, and was eager to share that good feeling with others.

In other words, irony highlights the difference between "what seems to be" and "what is." In literature, irony can describe dialogue, but it also describes ironic situations: situations that proceed in ways that are elaborately contrary to what one would expect. A clear example of this is in The Wizard of Oz. All of the characters already have what they are looking for, so when they go to the wizard and discover that they all have brains, hearts, etc., their petition-making a long, dangerous journey to beg for what they already have-is deeply ironic.

Irony Writing Exercise

For verbal irony, try writing a sentence that gives something the exact opposite qualities that it actually has:

The triple bacon cheeseburger glistened with health and good choices.

For situational irony, try writing an imagined plot for a sitcom, starting with "Ben lost his car keys and can't find them anywhere." What would be the most ironic way for that situation to be resolved? (Are they sitting in plain view on Ben's desk... at the detective agency he runs?) Have fun with it!

9. Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition refers to the placement of contrasting ideas next to each other, often to produce an ironic or thought-provoking effect. Writers use juxtaposition in both poetry and prose, though this common literary device looks slightly different within each realm of literature.

In poetry, juxtaposition is used to build tension or highlight an important contrast. Consider the poem " A Juxtaposition " by Kenneth Burke, which juxtaposes nation & individual, treble & bass, and loudness & silence. The result is a poem that, although short, condemns the paradox of a citizen trapped in their own nation.

Just a note: these juxtapositions are also examples of antithesis, which is when the writer juxtaposes two completely opposite ideas. Juxtaposition doesn't have to be completely contrarian, but in this poem, it is.

Juxtaposition accomplishes something similar in prose. A famous example comes from the opening A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of time." Dickens opens his novel by situating his characters into a world of contrasts, which is apt for the extreme wealth disparities pre-French Revolution.

Juxtaposition Writing Exercise

One great thing about juxtaposition is that it can dismantle something that appears to be a binary. For example, black and white are often assumed to be polar opposites, but when you put them next to each other, you'll probably get some gray in the middle.

To really master the art of juxtaposition, try finding two things that you think are polar opposites. They can be concepts, such as good & evil, or they can be people, places, objects, etc. Juxtapose your two selected items by starting your writing with both of them-for example:

Across the town from her wedding, the bank robbers were tying up the hostages.

I put the box of chocolates on the coffee table, next to the gas mask.

Then write a poem or short story that explores a "gray area," relationship, commonality, or resonance between these two objects or events-without stating as much directly. If you can accomplish what Dickens or Burke accomplishes with their juxtapositions, then you, too, are a master!

10. Paradox

A paradox is a juxtaposition of contrasting ideas that, while seemingly impossible, actually reveals a deeper truth. One of the trickier literary devices, paradoxes are powerful tools for deconstructing binaries and challenging the reader's beliefs.

A simple paradox example comes to us from Ancient Rome.

Catullus 85 ( translated from Latin)

I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask.
I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.

Often, "hate" and "love" are assumed to be opposing forces. How is it possible for the speaker to both hate and love the object of his affection? The poem doesn't answer this, merely telling us that the speaker is "tortured," but the fact that these binary forces coexist in the speaker is a powerful paradox. Catullus 85 asks the reader to consider the absoluteness of feelings like hate and love, since both seem to torment the speaker equally.

Another paradox example comes from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

"To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up."

Here, "natural" and "pose" are conflicting ideas. Someone who poses assumes an unnatural state of being, whereas a natural poise seems effortless and innate. Despite these contrasting ideas, Wilde is exposing a deeper truth: to seem natural is often to keep up appearances, and seeming natural often requires the same work as assuming any other pose.

Note: paradox should not be confused with oxymoron. An oxymoron is also a statement with contrasting ideas, but a paradox is assumed to be true, whereas an oxymoron is merely a play on words (like the phrase "same difference").

Paradox Writing Exercise

Paradox operates very similarly to literary devices like juxtaposition and irony. To write a paradox, juxtapose two binary ideas. Try to think outside of the box here: "hate and love" are an easy binary to conjure, so think about something more situational. Wilde's paradox "natural and pose" is a great one; another idea could be the binaries "awkward and graceful" or "red-handed and innocent."

Now, situate those binaries into a certain situation, and make it so that they can coexist. Imagine a scenario in which both elements of your binary are true at the same time. How can this be, and what can we learn from this surprising juxtaposition?

11. Allusion

If you haven't noticed, literary devices are often just fancy words for simple concepts. A metaphor is literally a comparison and hyperbole is just an over-exaggeration. In this same style, allusion is just a fancy word for a literary reference; when a writer alludes to something, they are either directly or indirectly referring to another, commonly-known piece of art or literature.

The most frequently-alluded to work is probably the Bible. Many colloquial phrases and ideas stem from it, since many themes and images from the Bible present themselves in popular works, as well as throughout Western culture. Any of the following ideas, for example, are Biblical allusions:

Referring to a kind stranger as a Good Samaritan

Describing an ideal place as Edenic, or the Garden of Eden

Saying someone "turned the other cheek" when they were passive in the face of adversity

When something is described as lasting "40 days and 40 nights," in reference to the flood of Noah's Ark

Of course, allusion literary devices aren't just Biblical. You might describe a woman as being as beautiful as the Mona Lisa, or you might call a man as stoic as Hemingway.

Why write allusions? Allusions appeal to common experiences: they are metaphors in their own right, as we understand what it means to describe an ideal place as Edenic.

Like the other common literary devices, allusions are often metaphors, images, and/or hyperboles. And, like other literary devices, allusions also have their own sub-categories.

Allusion Writing Exercise

See how densely you can allude to other works and experiences in writing about something simple. Go completely outside of good taste and name-drop like crazy:

Allusions (way too much version): I wanted Nikes, not Adidas, because I want to be like Mike. But still, "a rose by any other name"-they're just shoes, and "if the shoe fits, wear it."

From this frenetic style of writing, trim back to something more tasteful:

Allusions (more tasteful version): I had wanted Nikes, not Adidas-but "if the shoe fits, wear it."

12. Allegory

An allegory is a story whose sole purpose is to represent an abstract concept or idea. As such, allegories are sometimes extended allusions, but the two common literary devices have their differences.

For example, George Orwell's Animal Farm is an allegory for the deterioration of Communism during the early establishment of the U.S.S.R. The farm was founded on a shared goal of overthrowing the farming elite and establishing an equitable society, but this society soon declines. Animal Farm mirrors the Bolshevik Revolution, the overthrow of the Russian aristocracy, Lenin's death, Stalin's execution of Trotsky, and the nation's dissolution into an amoral, authoritarian police state. Thus, Animal Farm is an allegory/allusion to the U.S.S.R.:

Allusion (excerpt from Animal Farm):

"There were times when it seemed to the animals that they worked longer hours and fed no better than they had done in [Farmer] Jones's day."

However, allegories are not always allusions. Consider Plato's " Allegory of the Cave," which represents the idea of enlightenment. By representing a complex idea, this allegory could actually be closer to an extended symbol rather than an extended allusion.

Allegory Writing Exercise

Pick a major trend going on in the world. In this example, let's pick the growing reach of social media as our "major trend."

Next, what are the primary properties of that major trend? Try to list them out:

More connectedness

A loss of privacy

People carefully massaging their image and sharing that image widely

Next, is there something happening at-or that could happen at-a much smaller scale that has some or all of those primary properties? This is where your creativity comes into play.

Well... what if elementary school children not only started sharing their private diaries, but were now expected to share their diaries? Let's try writing from inside that reality:

I know Jennifer McMahon made up her diary entry about how much she misses her grandma. The tear smudges were way too neat and perfect. Anyway, everyone loved it. They photocopied it all over the bulletin boards and they even read it over the PA, and Jennifer got two extra brownies at lunch.

Try your own! You may find that you've just written your own Black Mirror episode.

13. Ekphrasis

Ekphrasis refers to a poem or story that is directly inspired by another piece of art. Ekphrastic literature often describes another piece of art, such as the classic " Ode on a Grecian Urn ":

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Ekphrasis can be considered a direct allusion because it borrows language and images from other artwork. For a great example of ekphrasis-as well as a submission opportunity for writers!-check out the monthly ekphrastic challenge that Rattle Poetry runs.

Ekphrasis writing exercise

Try your hand at ekphrasis by picking a piece of art you really enjoy and writing a poem or story based off of it. For example, you could write a story about Mona Lisa having a really bad day, or you could write a black-out poem created from the lyrics of your favorite song.

Or, try Rattle's monthly ekphrastic challenge! All art inspires other art, and by letting ekphrasis guide your next poem or story, you're directly participating in a greater artistic and literary conversation.

14. Onomatopoeia

Flash! Bang! Wham! An onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like the noise it describes. Conveying both a playfulness of language and a serious representation of everyday sounds, onomatopoeias draw the reader into the sensations of the story itself.

Onomatopoeia words are most often used in poetry and in comic books, though they certainly show up in works of prose as well. Some onomatopoeias can be found in the dictionary, such as "murmur," "gargle," and "rumble," "click," and "vroom." However, writers make up onomatopoeia words all the time, so while the word "ptoo" definitely sounds like a person spitting, you won't find it in Merriam Webster's.

Here's an onomatopoeia example, from the poem "Honky Tonk in Cleveland, Ohio" by Carl Sandburg.

It's a jazz affair, drum crashes and cornet razzes.
The trombone pony neighs and the tuba jackass snorts.
The banjo tickles and titters too awful.
The chippies talk about the funnies in the papers.
The cartoonists weep in their beer.

The onomatopoeias have been highlighted in bold. These common literary devices help make your writing fresh, interesting, and vivid, creating a sonic setting that the reader can fall into.
Learn more about onomatopoeias here!
Onomatopoeia Writing Exercise

Onomatopoeias are fun literary devices to use in your work, so have fun experimenting with them. In this exercise, take a moment to listen to the noises around you. Pay close attention to the whir of electronics, the fzzzzzzz of the heater, the rumbling of cars on the street, or the tintintintintin of rain on the roof.

Whatever you hear, convert those sounds into onomatopoeias. Make a list of those sounds. Try to use a mix of real words and made up ones: the way you represent noise in language can have a huge impact on your writing style.

Do this for 5 to 10 minutes, and when you have a comprehensive list of the sounds you hear, write a poem or short story that uses every single word you've written down.

15. Pun

If you built your political campaign off of wordplay, would you be punning for president?

A pun is a literary device that plays with the sounds and meanings of words to produce new, often humorous ideas. For example, let's say you used too much butter in your recipe, and it ruined the dish. You might joke that you were "outside the margarine of error," which is a play on the words "margin of error."

Puns have a rich literary history, and famous writers like Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, as well as famous texts like The Bible, have used puns to add depth and gravity to their words.

Pun Writing Exercise

Jot down a word or phrase that you commonly use. If you're not sure of what to write down, take a look at this list of English idioms. For example, I might borrow the phrase "blow off steam," which means to let out your anger.

Take any saying, and play around with the sounds and meanings of the words in that saying. Then, incorporate the new phrase you've created into a sentence that allows for the double meaning of the phrase. Here's two examples:

If I play with the sound of the words, I might come up with "blowing off stream." Then, I would put that into a sentence that plays with the original meaning of the phrase. Like: "Did you hear about the river boat that got angry and went off course? It was blowing off stream."

Or, I might play with the meanings of words. For example, I might take the word "blowing" literally, and write the following: "someone who cools down their tea when they're angry is blowing off steam."

Searching for ways to add double meanings and challenge the sounds of language will help you build fresh, exciting puns. Learn more about these common literary devices in our article on puns in literature.

16-27. Common Literary Devices in Poetry

The following 12 devices apply to both poetry and prose writers, but they appear most often in verse. Learn more about:

12 Literary Devices in Poetry: Identifying Poetic Devices

28-37. Common Literary Devices in Prose

The following 10 devices show up in verse, but are far more prevalent in prose. Learn more about:

10 Important Literary Devices in Prose: Examples & Analysis

38-48. Repetition Literary Devices

Though they have uncommon names, these common literary devices are all forms of repetition.

Repetition Definition: Types of Repetition in Poetry and Prose

49-57. Dialogue Literary Devices

While these literary elements pertain primarily to dialogue, writers use euphemisms, idioms, and neologisms all the time in their work.

How to Write Dialogue in a Story

58-67. Word Play Literary Devices

The following literary devices push language to the limits. Have fun with these!

Word Play: Examples of a Play on Words

68-72. Parallelism Literary Devices

Parallelism is a stylistic device where a sentence is composed of equally weighted items. In essence, parallel structure allows form to echo content. Learn all about this essential stylistic literary device below.

1. Grammatical parallelism

2. Rhetorical parallelism

3. Synthetic parallelism

4. Antithetical parallelism

5. Synonymous parallelism

Parallelism Definition: Writing With Parallel Structure

73-112. Rhetorical Devices

Rhetorical devices are literary devices intended to persuade the reader of something. You might have heard of ethos, pathos, and logos, but do you know your aposiopesis from your hyperbaton?

Many literary devices can also be considered rhetorical devices. After all, a metaphor can convince you of something just as well as a syllogism. Nonetheless, the following 40 rhetorical/literary devices will sharpen your style, argumentation, and writing abilities.

Common Rhetorical Devices List: The Art of Argument

Master These Common Literary Devices With Writers.com!

The instructors at Writers.com are masters of literary devices. Through masterful instruction and personal expertise, our instructors can help you add, refine, and improve your literary devices, helping you craft great works of literature. Check out our upcoming courses, and join our writing community on Facebook!

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Common literary devices, such as metaphors and similes, are the building blocks of literature, and what make literature so enchanting. Language evolves through the literary devices in poetry and prose; the different types of figurative language make literature spark in different ways.

Consider this your crash course in common literary devices. Whether you're studying for the AP Lit exam or looking to improve your creative writing, this article is crammed with literary devices, examples, and analysis.

Let's start with the basics. What are literary devices?

What are Literary Devices?

Literary devices take writing beyond its literal meaning. They help guide the reader in how to read the piece.

Literary devices are ways of taking writing beyond its straightforward, literal meaning. In that sense, they are techniques for helping guide the reader in how to read the piece.

Central to all literary devices is a quality of connection: by establishing or examining relationships between things, literary devices encourage the reader to perceive and interpret the world in new ways.

One common form of connection in literary devices is comparison. Metaphors and similes are the most obvious examples of comparison. A metaphor is a direct comparison of two things-"the tree is a giant," for example. A simile is an indirect comparison-"the tree is like a giant." In both instances, the tree is compared to-and thus connected with-something (a giant) beyond what it literally is (a tree).

Other literary devices forge connections in different ways. For example, imagery, vivid description, connects writing richly to the worlds of the senses. Alliteration uses the sound of words itself to forge new literary connections ("alligators and apples").

By enabling new connections that go beyond straightforward details and meanings, literary devices give literature its power.

What all these literary devices have in common is that they create new connections: rich layers of sound, sense, emotion, narrative, and ultimately meaning that surpass the literal details being recounted. They are what sets literature apart, and what makes it uniquely powerful.

Read on for an in-depth look and analysis at 112 common literary devices.

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Literary Devices List: 14 Common Literary Devices

In this article, we focus on literary devices that can be found in both poetry and prose.

There are a lot of literary devices to cover, each of which require their own examples and analysis. As such, we will start by focusing on common literary devices for this article: literary devices that can be found in both poetry and prose. With each device, we've included examples in literature and exercises you can use in your own creative writing.

Afterwards, we've listed other common literary devices you might see in poetry, prose, dialogue, and rhetoric.

Let's get started!

Metaphors, also known as direct comparisons, are one of the most common literary devices. A metaphor is a statement in which two objects, often unrelated, are compared to each other.

Example of metaphor: This tree is the god of the forest.

Obviously, the tree is not a god-it is, in fact, a tree. However, by stating that the tree is the god, the reader is given the image of something strong, large, and immovable. Additionally, using "god" to describe the tree, rather than a word like "giant" or "gargantuan," makes the tree feel like a spiritual center of the forest.

Metaphors allow the writer to pack multiple descriptions and images into one short sentence. The metaphor has much more weight and value than a direct description. If the writer chose to describe the tree as "the large, spiritual center of the forest," the reader won't understand the full importance of the tree's size and scope.

2. Simile

Similes, also known as indirect comparisons, are similar in construction to metaphors, but they imply a different meaning. Like metaphors, two unrelated objects are being compared to each other. Unlike a metaphor, the comparison relies on the words "like" or "as."

Example of simile: This tree is like the god of the forest.
OR: This tree acts as the god of the forest.

What is the difference between a simile and a metaphor?

The obvious difference between these two common literary devices is that a simile uses "like" or "as," whereas a metaphor never uses these comparison words.

Additionally, in reference to the above examples, the insertion of "like" or "as" creates a degree of separation between both elements of the device. In a simile, the reader understands that, although the tree is certainly large, it isn't large enough to be a god; the tree's "godhood" is simply a description, not a relevant piece of information to the poem or story.

Simply put, metaphors are better to use as a central device within the poem/story, encompassing the core of what you are trying to say. Similes are better as a supporting device.

Does that mean metaphors are better than similes? Absolutely not. Consider Louise Gluck's poem " The Past. " Gluck uses both a simile and a metaphor to describe the sound of the wind: it is like shadows moving, but is her mother's voice. Both devices are equally haunting, and ending the poem on the mother's voice tells us the central emotion of the poem.

Learn more about the difference between similes and metaphors here:

Simile vs. Metaphor vs. Analogy: Definitions and Examples

Simile and Metaphor Writing Exercise: Tenors and Vehicles

Most metaphors and similes have two parts: the tenor and the vehicle. The tenor refers to the subject being described, and the vehicle refers to the image that describes the tenor.

So, in the metaphor "the tree is a god of the forest," the tenor is the tree and the vehicle is "god of the forest."

To practice writing metaphors and similes, let's create some literary device lists. grab a sheet of paper and write down two lists. In the first list, write down "concept words"-words that cannot be physically touched. Love, hate, peace, war, happiness, and anger are all concepts because they can all be described but are not physical objects in themselves.

In the second list, write down only concrete objects-trees, clouds, the moon, Jupiter, New York brownstones, uncut sapphires, etc.

Your concepts are your tenors, and your concrete objects are your vehicles. Now, randomly draw a one between each tenor and each vehicle, then write an explanation for your metaphor/simile. You might write, say:

"Peace, like an uncut sapphire, gleams with labor."

Have fun, write interesting literary devices, and try to incorporate them into a future poem or story!

3. Analogy

An analogy is an argumentative comparison: it compares two unalike things to advance an argument. Specifically, it argues that two things have equal weight, whether that weight be emotional, philosophical, or even literal. Because analogical literary devices operate on comparison, it can be considered a form of metaphor.

For example:

Making pasta is as easy as one, two, three.

This analogy argues that making pasta and counting upwards are equally easy things. This format, "A is as B" or "A is to B", is a common analogy structure.

Another common structure for analogy literary devices is "A is to B as C is to D." For example:

Gordon Ramsay is to cooking as Meryl Streep is to acting.

The above constructions work best in argumentative works. Lawyers and essayists will often use analogies. In other forms of creative writing, analogies aren't as formulaic, but can still prove to be powerful literary devices. In fact, you probably know this one:

"That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet" - Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

To put this into the modern language of an analogy, Shakespeare is saying "a rose with no name smells as a rose with a name does." The name "rose" does not affect whether or not the flower smells good.

Analogy Writing Exercise

Analogies are some of the most common literary devices, alongside similes and metaphors. Here's an exercise for writing one yourself.

On a blank sheet of paper: write down the first four nouns that come to mind. Try to use concrete, visual nouns. Then, write down a verb. If you struggle to come up with any of these, any old word generator on the internet will help.

The only requirement is that two of your four nouns should be able to perform the verb. A dog can swim, for example, but it can't fly an airplane.

Your list might look like this:

Verb: Fall
Nouns: Rain, dirt, pavement, shadow

An analogy you create from this list might be: "his shadow falls on the pavement how rain falls on the dirt in May.

Your analogy might end up being silly or poetic, strange or evocative. But, by forcing yourself to make connections between seemingly disparate items, you're using these literary devices to hone the skills of effective, interesting writing.

4. Imagery

Is imagery a literary device? Absolutely! Imagery can be both literal and figurative, and it relies on the interplay of language and sensation to create a sharper image in your brain.

Imagery is what it sounds like-the use of figurative language to describe something.

Imagery is what it sounds like-the use of figurative language to describe something. In fact, we've already seen imagery in action through the previous literary devices: by describing the tree as a "god", the tree looks large and sturdy in the reader's mind.

However, imagery doesn't just involve visual descriptions; the best writers use imagery to appeal to all five senses. By appealing to the reader's sense of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, your writing will create a vibrant world for readers to live and breathe in.

The best writers use imagery to appeal to all five senses.

Let's use imagery to describe that same tree. (I promise I can write about more than just trees, but it's a very convenient image for these common literary devices, don't you think?)

Sight imagery: The tree spread its gigantic, sun-flecked shoulders.
Sound imagery: The forest was hushed, resounding with echoes of the tree's stoic silence.
Touch imagery: The tree felt smooth as sandstone.
Taste imagery: The tree's leaves tasted bitter, like unroasted coffee beans.
Smell imagery: As we approached the tree, the air around it smelled crisp and precise.

There are two other, less discussed types of imagery: organic and kinesthetic imagery. Organic imagery refers to descriptions of internal sensations-things happening within the body. Kinesthetic imagery is imagery of motion and movement-think of the sensations one might feel when running against the wind.

Organic imagery: The tree felt its xylem collapse at the news. (This is also an example of personification, since trees can't "feel" the way people feel.)

Kinesthetic imagery: The tree cooled down as its own leaves rushed against its bark.

Notice how these literary device examples also used metaphors and similes? Literary devices often pile on top of each other, which is why so many great works of literature can be analyzed endlessly. Because imagery depends on the object's likeness to other objects, imagery upholds the idea that a literary device is synonymous with comparison.

Imagery Writing Exercise

Want to try your hand at imagery? You can practice this concept by describing an object in the same way that this article describes a tree! Choose something to write about-any object, image, or idea-and describe it using the five senses. ("This biscuit has the tidy roundness of a lady's antique hat." "The biscuit tastes of brand-new cardboard." and so on!)

Then, once you've written five (or more) lines of imagery, try combining these images until your object is sharp and clear in the reader's head.

Imagery is one of the most essential common literary devices. To learn more about imagery, or to find more imagery writing exercises, take a look at our article Imagery Definition: 5+ Types of Imagery in Literature.

5. Symbolism

Symbolism combines a lot of the ideas presented in metaphor and imagery. Essentially, a symbol is the use of an object to represent a concept-it's kind of like a metaphor, except more concise!

Symbols are everywhere in the English language, and we often use these common literary devices in speech and design without realizing it. The following are very common examples of symbolism:

A few very commonly used symbols include:

"Peace" represented by a white dove

"Love" represented by a red rose

"Conformity" represented by sheep

"Idea" represented by a light bulb switching on

The symbols above are so widely used that they would likely show up as clichés in your own writing. (Would you read a poem, written today, that started with "Let's release the white dove of peace"?) In that sense, they do their job "too well"-they're such a good symbol for what they symbolize that they've become ubiquitous, and you'll have to add something new in your own writing.

Symbols are often contextually specific as well. For example, a common practice in Welsh marriage is to give your significant other a lovespoon, which the man has designed and carved to signify the relationship's unique, everlasting bond. In many Western cultures, this same bond is represented by a diamond ring-which can also be unique and everlasting!

Symbolism makes the core ideas of your writing concrete.

Finally, notice how each of these examples are a concept represented by a concrete object. Symbolism makes the core ideas of your writing concrete, and also allows you to manipulate your ideas. If a rose represents love, what does a wilted rose or a rose on fire represent?

Symbolism Writing Exercise

Often, symbols are commonly understood images-but not always. You can invent your own symbols to capture the reader's imagination, too!

Try your hand at symbolism by writing a poem or story centered around a symbol. Choose a random object, and make that object represent something. For example, you could try to make a blanket represent the idea of loneliness.

When you've paired an object and a concept, write your piece with that symbol at the center:

The down blanket lay crumpled, unused, on the empty side of our bed.

The goal is to make it clear that you're associating the object with the concept. Make the reader feel the same way about your symbol as you do!

6. Personification

Personification, giving human attributes to nonhuman objects, is a powerful way to foster empathy in your readers.

Personification is exactly what it sounds like: giving human attributes to nonhuman objects. Also known as anthropomorphism, personification is a powerful way to foster empathy in your readers.

Think about personification as if it's a specific type of imagery. You can describe a nonhuman object through the five senses, and do so by giving it human descriptions. You can even impute thoughts and emotions-mental events-to a nonhuman or even nonliving thing. This time, we'll give human attributes to a car-see our personification examples below!

Personification (using sight): The car ran a marathon down the highway.

Personification (using sound): The car coughed, hacked, and spluttered.

Personification (using touch): The car was smooth as a baby's bottom.

Personification (using taste): The car tasted the bitter asphalt.

Personification (using smell): The car needed a cold shower.

Personification (using mental events): The car remembered its first owner fondly.

Notice how we don't directly say the car is like a human-we merely describe it using human behaviors. Personification exists at a unique intersection of imagery and metaphor, making it a powerful literary device that fosters empathy and generates unique descriptions.

Personification Writing Exercise

Try writing personification yourself! In the above example, we chose a random object and personified it through the five senses. It's your turn to do the same thing: find a concrete noun and describe it like it's a human.

Here are two examples:

The ancient, threadbare rug was clearly tired of being stepped on.

My phone issued notifications with the grimly efficient extroversion of a sorority chapter president.

Now start writing your own! Your descriptions can be active or passive, but the goal is to foster empathy in the reader's mind by giving the object human traits.

7. Hyperbole

You know that one friend who describes things very dramatically? They're probably speaking in hyperboles. Hyperbole is just a dramatic word for being over-dramatic-which sounds a little hyperbolic, don't you think?

Basically, hyperbole refers to any sort of exaggerated description or statement. We use hyperbole all the time in the English language, and you've probably heard someone say things like:

I've been waiting a billion years for this

I'm so hungry I could eat a horse

I feel like a million bucks

You are the king of the kitchen

None of these examples should be interpreted literally: there are no kings in the kitchen, and I doubt anyone can eat an entire horse in one sitting. This common literary device allows us to compare our emotions to something extreme, giving the reader a sense of how intensely we feel something in the moment.

This is what makes hyperbole so fun! Coming up with crazy, exaggerated statements that convey the intensity of the speaker's emotions can add a personable element to your writing. After all, we all feel our emotions to a certain intensity, and hyperbole allows us to experience that intensity to its fullest.

Hyperbole Writing Exercise

To master the art of the hyperbole, try expressing your own emotions as extremely as possible. For example, if you're feeling thirsty, don't just write that you're thirsty, write that you could drink the entire ocean. Or, if you're feeling homesick, don't write that you're yearning for home, write that your homeland feels as far as Jupiter.

As a specific exercise, you can try writing a poem or short piece about something mundane, using more and more hyperbolic language with each line or sentence. Here's an example:

It was a brutally hot 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The April spring sun boiled blood and sent birds exploding. I'm sorry that I'm mowing my lawn on THE SURFACE OF THE SUN. (...and so on!)

A well-written hyperbole helps focus the reader's attention on your emotions and allows you to play with new images, making it a fun, chaos-inducing literary device.

8. Irony

Is irony a literary device? Yes-but it's often used incorrectly. People often describe something as being ironic, when really it's just a moment of dark humor. So, the colloquial use of the word irony is a bit off from its official definition as a literary device.

Irony is when the writer describes something by using opposite language. As a real-life example, if someone is having a bad day, they might say they're doing " greaaaaaat ", clearly implying that they're actually doing quite un-greatly. Or a story's narrator might write:

Like most bureaucrats, she felt a boundless love for her job, and was eager to share that good feeling with others.

In other words, irony highlights the difference between "what seems to be" and "what is." In literature, irony can describe dialogue, but it also describes ironic situations: situations that proceed in ways that are elaborately contrary to what one would expect. A clear example of this is in The Wizard of Oz. All of the characters already have what they are looking for, so when they go to the wizard and discover that they all have brains, hearts, etc., their petition-making a long, dangerous journey to beg for what they already have-is deeply ironic.

Irony Writing Exercise

For verbal irony, try writing a sentence that gives something the exact opposite qualities that it actually has:

The triple bacon cheeseburger glistened with health and good choices.

For situational irony, try writing an imagined plot for a sitcom, starting with "Ben lost his car keys and can't find them anywhere." What would be the most ironic way for that situation to be resolved? (Are they sitting in plain view on Ben's desk... at the detective agency he runs?) Have fun with it!

9. Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition refers to the placement of contrasting ideas next to each other, often to produce an ironic or thought-provoking effect. Writers use juxtaposition in both poetry and prose, though this common literary device looks slightly different within each realm of literature.

In poetry, juxtaposition is used to build tension or highlight an important contrast. Consider the poem " A Juxtaposition " by Kenneth Burke, which juxtaposes nation & individual, treble & bass, and loudness & silence. The result is a poem that, although short, condemns the paradox of a citizen trapped in their own nation.

Just a note: these juxtapositions are also examples of antithesis, which is when the writer juxtaposes two completely opposite ideas. Juxtaposition doesn't have to be completely contrarian, but in this poem, it is.

Juxtaposition accomplishes something similar in prose. A famous example comes from the opening A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of time." Dickens opens his novel by situating his characters into a world of contrasts, which is apt for the extreme wealth disparities pre-French Revolution.

Juxtaposition Writing Exercise

One great thing about juxtaposition is that it can dismantle something that appears to be a binary. For example, black and white are often assumed to be polar opposites, but when you put them next to each other, you'll probably get some gray in the middle.

To really master the art of juxtaposition, try finding two things that you think are polar opposites. They can be concepts, such as good & evil, or they can be people, places, objects, etc. Juxtapose your two selected items by starting your writing with both of them-for example:

Across the town from her wedding, the bank robbers were tying up the hostages.

I put the box of chocolates on the coffee table, next to the gas mask.

Then write a poem or short story that explores a "gray area," relationship, commonality, or resonance between these two objects or events-without stating as much directly. If you can accomplish what Dickens or Burke accomplishes with their juxtapositions, then you, too, are a master!

10. Paradox

A paradox is a juxtaposition of contrasting ideas that, while seemingly impossible, actually reveals a deeper truth. One of the trickier literary devices, paradoxes are powerful tools for deconstructing binaries and challenging the reader's beliefs.

A simple paradox example comes to us from Ancient Rome.

Catullus 85 ( translated from Latin)

I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask.
I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.

Often, "hate" and "love" are assumed to be opposing forces. How is it possible for the speaker to both hate and love the object of his affection? The poem doesn't answer this, merely telling us that the speaker is "tortured," but the fact that these binary forces coexist in the speaker is a powerful paradox. Catullus 85 asks the reader to consider the absoluteness of feelings like hate and love, since both seem to torment the speaker equally.

Another paradox example comes from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

"To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up."

Here, "natural" and "pose" are conflicting ideas. Someone who poses assumes an unnatural state of being, whereas a natural poise seems effortless and innate. Despite these contrasting ideas, Wilde is exposing a deeper truth: to seem natural is often to keep up appearances, and seeming natural often requires the same work as assuming any other pose.

Note: paradox should not be confused with oxymoron. An oxymoron is also a statement with contrasting ideas, but a paradox is assumed to be true, whereas an oxymoron is merely a play on words (like the phrase "same difference").

Paradox Writing Exercise

Paradox operates very similarly to literary devices like juxtaposition and irony. To write a paradox, juxtapose two binary ideas. Try to think outside of the box here: "hate and love" are an easy binary to conjure, so think about something more situational. Wilde's paradox "natural and pose" is a great one; another idea could be the binaries "awkward and graceful" or "red-handed and innocent."

Now, situate those binaries into a certain situation, and make it so that they can coexist. Imagine a scenario in which both elements of your binary are true at the same time. How can this be, and what can we learn from this surprising juxtaposition?

11. Allusion

If you haven't noticed, literary devices are often just fancy words for simple concepts. A metaphor is literally a comparison and hyperbole is just an over-exaggeration. In this same style, allusion is just a fancy word for a literary reference; when a writer alludes to something, they are either directly or indirectly referring to another, commonly-known piece of art or literature.

The most frequently-alluded to work is probably the Bible. Many colloquial phrases and ideas stem from it, since many themes and images from the Bible present themselves in popular works, as well as throughout Western culture. Any of the following ideas, for example, are Biblical allusions:

Referring to a kind stranger as a Good Samaritan

Describing an ideal place as Edenic, or the Garden of Eden

Saying someone "turned the other cheek" when they were passive in the face of adversity

When something is described as lasting "40 days and 40 nights," in reference to the flood of Noah's Ark

Of course, allusion literary devices aren't just Biblical. You might describe a woman as being as beautiful as the Mona Lisa, or you might call a man as stoic as Hemingway.

Why write allusions? Allusions appeal to common experiences: they are metaphors in their own right, as we understand what it means to describe an ideal place as Edenic.

Like the other common literary devices, allusions are often metaphors, images, and/or hyperboles. And, like other literary devices, allusions also have their own sub-categories.

Allusion Writing Exercise

See how densely you can allude to other works and experiences in writing about something simple. Go completely outside of good taste and name-drop like crazy:

Allusions (way too much version): I wanted Nikes, not Adidas, because I want to be like Mike. But still, "a rose by any other name"-they're just shoes, and "if the shoe fits, wear it."

From this frenetic style of writing, trim back to something more tasteful:

Allusions (more tasteful version): I had wanted Nikes, not Adidas-but "if the shoe fits, wear it."

12. Allegory

An allegory is a story whose sole purpose is to represent an abstract concept or idea. As such, allegories are sometimes extended allusions, but the two common literary devices have their differences.

For example, George Orwell's Animal Farm is an allegory for the deterioration of Communism during the early establishment of the U.S.S.R. The farm was founded on a shared goal of overthrowing the farming elite and establishing an equitable society, but this society soon declines. Animal Farm mirrors the Bolshevik Revolution, the overthrow of the Russian aristocracy, Lenin's death, Stalin's execution of Trotsky, and the nation's dissolution into an amoral, authoritarian police state. Thus, Animal Farm is an allegory/allusion to the U.S.S.R.:

Allusion (excerpt from Animal Farm):

"There were times when it seemed to the animals that they worked longer hours and fed no better than they had done in [Farmer] Jones's day."

However, allegories are not always allusions. Consider Plato's " Allegory of the Cave," which represents the idea of enlightenment. By representing a complex idea, this allegory could actually be closer to an extended symbol rather than an extended allusion.

Allegory Writing Exercise

Pick a major trend going on in the world. In this example, let's pick the growing reach of social media as our "major trend."

Next, what are the primary properties of that major trend? Try to list them out:

More connectedness

A loss of privacy

People carefully massaging their image and sharing that image widely

Next, is there something happening at-or that could happen at-a much smaller scale that has some or all of those primary properties? This is where your creativity comes into play.

Well... what if elementary school children not only started sharing their private diaries, but were now expected to share their diaries? Let's try writing from inside that reality:

I know Jennifer McMahon made up her diary entry about how much she misses her grandma. The tear smudges were way too neat and perfect. Anyway, everyone loved it. They photocopied it all over the bulletin boards and they even read it over the PA, and Jennifer got two extra brownies at lunch.

Try your own! You may find that you've just written your own Black Mirror episode.

13. Ekphrasis

Ekphrasis refers to a poem or story that is directly inspired by another piece of art. Ekphrastic literature often describes another piece of art, such as the classic " Ode on a Grecian Urn ":

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Ekphrasis can be considered a direct allusion because it borrows language and images from other artwork. For a great example of ekphrasis-as well as a submission opportunity for writers!-check out the monthly ekphrastic challenge that Rattle Poetry runs.

Ekphrasis writing exercise

Try your hand at ekphrasis by picking a piece of art you really enjoy and writing a poem or story based off of it. For example, you could write a story about Mona Lisa having a really bad day, or you could write a black-out poem created from the lyrics of your favorite song.

Or, try Rattle's monthly ekphrastic challenge! All art inspires other art, and by letting ekphrasis guide your next poem or story, you're directly participating in a greater artistic and literary conversation.

14. Onomatopoeia

Flash! Bang! Wham! An onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like the noise it describes. Conveying both a playfulness of language and a serious representation of everyday sounds, onomatopoeias draw the reader into the sensations of the story itself.

Onomatopoeia words are most often used in poetry and in comic books, though they certainly show up in works of prose as well. Some onomatopoeias can be found in the dictionary, such as "murmur," "gargle," and "rumble," "click," and "vroom." However, writers make up onomatopoeia words all the time, so while the word "ptoo" definitely sounds like a person spitting, you won't find it in Merriam Webster's.

Here's an onomatopoeia example, from the poem "Honky Tonk in Cleveland, Ohio" by Carl Sandburg.

It's a jazz affair, drum crashes and cornet razzes.
The trombone pony neighs and the tuba jackass snorts.
The banjo tickles and titters too awful.
The chippies talk about the funnies in the papers.
The cartoonists weep in their beer.

The onomatopoeias have been highlighted in bold. These common literary devices help make your writing fresh, interesting, and vivid, creating a sonic setting that the reader can fall into.
Learn more about onomatopoeias here!
Onomatopoeia Writing Exercise

Onomatopoeias are fun literary devices to use in your work, so have fun experimenting with them. In this exercise, take a moment to listen to the noises around you. Pay close attention to the whir of electronics, the fzzzzzzz of the heater, the rumbling of cars on the street, or the tintintintintin of rain on the roof.

Whatever you hear, convert those sounds into onomatopoeias. Make a list of those sounds. Try to use a mix of real words and made up ones: the way you represent noise in language can have a huge impact on your writing style.

Do this for 5 to 10 minutes, and when you have a comprehensive list of the sounds you hear, write a poem or short story that uses every single word you've written down.

15. Pun

If you built your political campaign off of wordplay, would you be punning for president?

A pun is a literary device that plays with the sounds and meanings of words to produce new, often humorous ideas. For example, let's say you used too much butter in your recipe, and it ruined the dish. You might joke that you were "outside the margarine of error," which is a play on the words "margin of error."

Puns have a rich literary history, and famous writers like Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, as well as famous texts like The Bible, have used puns to add depth and gravity to their words.

Pun Writing Exercise

Jot down a word or phrase that you commonly use. If you're not sure of what to write down, take a look at this list of English idioms. For example, I might borrow the phrase "blow off steam," which means to let out your anger.

Take any saying, and play around with the sounds and meanings of the words in that saying. Then, incorporate the new phrase you've created into a sentence that allows for the double meaning of the phrase. Here's two examples:

If I play with the sound of the words, I might come up with "blowing off stream." Then, I would put that into a sentence that plays with the original meaning of the phrase. Like: "Did you hear about the river boat that got angry and went off course? It was blowing off stream."

Or, I might play with the meanings of words. For example, I might take the word "blowing" literally, and write the following: "someone who cools down their tea when they're angry is blowing off steam."

Searching for ways to add double meanings and challenge the sounds of language will help you build fresh, exciting puns. Learn more about these common literary devices in our article on puns in literature.

16-27. Common Literary Devices in Poetry

The following 12 devices apply to both poetry and prose writers, but they appear most often in verse. Learn more about:

12 Literary Devices in Poetry: Identifying Poetic Devices

28-37. Common Literary Devices in Prose

The following 10 devices show up in verse, but are far more prevalent in prose. Learn more about:

10 Important Literary Devices in Prose: Examples & Analysis

38-48. Repetition Literary Devices

Though they have uncommon names, these common literary devices are all forms of repetition.

Repetition Definition: Types of Repetition in Poetry and Prose

49-57. Dialogue Literary Devices

While these literary elements pertain primarily to dialogue, writers use euphemisms, idioms, and neologisms all the time in their work.

How to Write Dialogue in a Story

58-67. Word Play Literary Devices

The following literary devices push language to the limits. Have fun with these!

Word Play: Examples of a Play on Words

68-72. Parallelism Literary Devices

Parallelism is a stylistic device where a sentence is composed of equally weighted items. In essence, parallel structure allows form to echo content. Learn all about this essential stylistic literary device below.

1. Grammatical parallelism

2. Rhetorical parallelism

3. Synthetic parallelism

4. Antithetical parallelism

5. Synonymous parallelism

Parallelism Definition: Writing With Parallel Structure

73-112. Rhetorical Devices

Rhetorical devices are literary devices intended to persuade the reader of something. You might have heard of ethos, pathos, and logos, but do you know your aposiopesis from your hyperbaton?

Many literary devices can also be considered rhetorical devices. After all, a metaphor can convince you of something just as well as a syllogism. Nonetheless, the following 40 rhetorical/literary devices will sharpen your style, argumentation, and writing abilities.

Common Rhetorical Devices List: The Art of Argument

Master These Common Literary Devices With Writers.com!

The instructors at Writers.com are masters of literary devices. Through masterful instruction and personal expertise, our instructors can help you add, refine, and improve your literary devices, helping you craft great works of literature. Check out our upcoming courses, and join our writing community on Facebook!

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112 Common Literary Devices: Definitions & Examples | Writers.com

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Learning the common literary devices is essential to improving your reading and writing skills. Start with these examples and exercises.

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To learn how to write a poem step-by-step, let's start where all poets start: the basics.

This article is an in-depth introduction to how to write a poem. We first answer the question, "What is poetry?" We then discuss the literary elements of poetry, and showcase some different approaches to the writing process-including our own seven-step process on how to write a poem step by step.

So, how do you write a poem? Let's start with what poetry is.

What Poetry Is

It's important to know what poetry is-and isn't-before we discuss how to write a poem. The following quote defines poetry nicely:

"Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful."
-Former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove

Poetry Conveys Feeling

People sometimes imagine poetry as stuffy, abstract, and difficult to understand. Some poetry may be this way, but in reality poetry isn't about being obscure or confusing. Poetry is a lyrical, emotive method of self-expression, using the elements of poetry to highlight feelings and ideas.

A poem should make the reader feel something.

In other words, a poem should make the reader feel something-not by telling them what to feel, but by evoking feeling directly.

Here's a contemporary poem that, despite its simplicity (or perhaps because of its simplicity), conveys heartfelt emotion.

Poem
by Langston HughesI loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There's nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began-
I loved my friend.

Poetry is Language at its Richest and Most Condensed

Unlike longer prose writing (such as a short story, memoir, or novel), poetry needs to impact the reader in the richest and most condensed way possible. Here's a famous quote that enforces that distinction:

"Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best order."
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

So poetry isn't the place to be filling in long backstories or doing leisurely scene-setting. In poetry, every single word carries maximum impact.

Poetry Uses Unique Elements

Poetry is not like other kinds of writing: it has its own unique forms, tools, and principles. Together, these elements of poetry help it to powerfully impact the reader in only a few words.

The elements of poetry help it to powerfully impact the reader in only a few words.

Most poetry is written in verse, rather than prose. This means that it uses line breaks, alongside rhythm or meter, to convey something to the reader. Rather than letting the text break at the end of the page (as prose does), verse emphasizes language through line breaks.

Poetry further accentuates its use of language through rhyme and meter. Poetry has a heightened emphasis on the musicality of language itself: its sounds and rhythms, and the feelings they carry.

These devices-rhyme, meter, and line breaks-are just a few of the essential elements of poetry, which we'll explore in more depth now.

Understanding the Elements of Poetry

As we explore how to write a poem step by step, these three major literary elements of poetry should sit in the back of your mind:

1. Rhythm (Sound, Rhyme, and Meter)

2. Form

3. Literary Devices

1. Elements of Poetry: Rhythm

"Rhythm" refers to the lyrical, sonic qualities of the poem. How does the poem move and breathe; how does it feel on the tongue?

Traditionally, poets relied on rhyme and meter to accomplish a rhythmically sound poem. Free verse poems-which are poems that don't require a specific length, rhyme scheme, or meter-only became popular in the West in the 20th century, so while rhyme and meter aren't requirements of modern poetry, they are required of certain poetry forms.

Sound

Poetry is capable of evoking certain emotions based solely on the sounds it uses. Words can sound sinister, percussive, fluid, cheerful, dour, or any other noise/emotion in the complex tapestry of human feeling.

Take, for example, this excerpt from the poem "Beat! Beat! Drums!" by Walt Whitman:

Red - "b" sounds

Blue - "th" sounds

Green - "w" and "ew" sounds

Purple - "s" sounds

Orange - "d" and "t" sounds

This poem has a lot of percussive, disruptive sounds that reinforce the beating of the drums. The "b," "d," "w," and "t" sounds resemble these drum beats, while the "th" and "s" sounds are sneakier, penetrating a deeper part of the ear. The cacophony of this excerpt might not sound "lyrical," but it does manage to command your attention, much like drums beating through a city might sound.

To learn more about consonance and assonance, euphony and cacophony, and the other uses of sound, take a look at our article "12 Literary Devices in Poetry."
https://writers.com/literary-devices-in-poetry
Rhyme

It would be a crime if you weren't primed on the ins and outs of rhymes. "Rhyme" refers to words that have similar pronunciations, like this set of words: sound, hound, browned, pound, found, around.

Many poets assume that their poetry has to rhyme, and it's true that some poems require a complex rhyme scheme. However, rhyme isn't nearly as important to poetry as it used to be. Most traditional poetry forms-sonnets, villanelles, rimes royal, etc.-rely on rhyme, but contemporary poetry has largely strayed from the strict rhyme schemes of yesterday.

There are three types of rhymes:

Homophony: Homophones are words that are spelled differently but sound the same, like "tail" and "tale." Homophones often lead to commonly misspelled words.

Perfect Rhyme: Perfect rhymes are word pairs that are identical in sound except for one minor difference. Examples include "slant and pant," "great and fate," and "shower and power."

Slant Rhyme: Slant rhymes are word pairs that use the same sounds, but their final vowels have different pronunciations. For example, "abut" and "about" are nearly-identical in sound, but are pronounced differently enough that they don't completely rhyme. This is also known as an oblique rhyme or imperfect rhyme.

Meter

Meter refers to the stress patterns of words. Certain poetry forms require that the words in the poem follow a certain stress pattern, meaning some syllables are stressed and others are unstressed.

What is "stressed" and "unstressed"? A stressed syllable is the sound that you emphasize in a word. The bolded syllables in the following words are stressed, and the unbolded syllables are unstressed:

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables is important to traditional poetry forms. This chart, copied from our article on form in poetry, summarizes the different stress patterns of poetry.

2. Elements of Poetry: Form

"Form" refers to the structure of the poem. Is the poem a sonnet, a villanelle, a free verse piece, a slam poem, a contrapuntal, a ghazal, a blackout poem, or something new and experimental?

Form also refers to the line breaks and stanza breaks in a poem. Unlike prose, where the end of the page decides the line breaks, poets have control over when one line ends and a new one begins. The words that begin and end each line will emphasize the sounds, images, and ideas that are important to the poet.

To learn more about rhyme, meter, and poetry forms, read our full article on the topic:
https://writers.com/what-is-form-in-poetry
3. Elements of Poetry: Literary Devices

"Poetry: the best words in the best order." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

How does poetry express complex ideas in concise, lyrical language? Literary devices-like metaphor, symbolism, juxtaposition, irony, and hyperbole-help make poetry possible. Learn how to write and master these devices here:
https://writers.com/common-literary-devices
How to Write a Poem, in 7 Steps

To condense the elements of poetry into an actual poem, we're going to follow a seven-step approach. However, it's important to know that every poet's process is different. While the steps presented here are a logical path to get from idea to finished poem, they're not the only tried-and-true method of poetry writing. Poets can-and should!-modify these steps and generate their own writing process.

Nonetheless, if you're new to writing poetry or want to explore a different writing process, try your hand at our approach. Here's how to write a poem step by step!

1. Devise a Topic

The easiest way to start writing a poem is to begin with a topic.

However, devising a topic is often the hardest part. What should your poem be about? And where can you find ideas?

Here are a few places to search for inspiration:

Other Works of Literature: Poetry doesn't exist in a vacuum-it's part of a larger literary tapestry, and can absolutely be influenced by other works. For example, read "The Golden Shovel" by Terrance Hayes, a poem that was inspired by Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool."

Real-World Events: Poetry, especially contemporary poetry, has the power to convey new and transformative ideas about the world. Take the poem "A Cigarette" by Ilya Kaminsky, which finds community in a warzone like the eye of a hurricane.

Your Life: What would poetry be if not a form of memoir? Many contemporary poets have documented their lives in verse. Take Sylvia Plath's poem "Full Fathom Five"-a daring poem for its time, as few writers so boldly criticized their family as Plath did.

The Everyday and Mundane: Poetry isn't just about big, earth-shattering events: much can be said about mundane events, too. Take "Ode to Shea Butter" by Angel Nafis, a poem that celebrates the beautiful "everydayness" of moisturizing.

Nature: The Earth has always been a source of inspiration for poets, both today and in antiquity. Take "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver, which finds meaning in nature's quiet rituals.

Writing Exercises: Prompts and exercises can help spark your creativity, even if the poem you write has nothing to do with the prompt! Here's 24 writing exercises to get you started.

2. Journal

At this point, you've got a topic for your poem. Maybe it's a topic you're passionate about, and the words pour from your pen and align themselves into a perfect sonnet! It's not impossible-most poets have a couple of poems that seemed to write themselves.

However, it's far more likely you're searching for the words to talk about this topic. This is where journaling comes in.

Sit in front of a blank piece of paper, with nothing but the topic written on the top. Set a timer for 15-30 minutes and put down all of your thoughts related to the topic. Don't stop and think for too long, and try not to obsess over finding the right words: what matters here is emotion, the way your subconscious grapples with the topic.

At the end of this journaling session, go back through everything you wrote, and highlight whatever seems important to you: well-written phrases, poignant moments of emotion, even specific words that you want to use in your poem.

Journaling is a low-risk way of exploring your topic without feeling pressured to make it sound poetic. "Sounding poetic" will only leave you with empty language: your journal allows you to speak from the heart. Everything you need for your poem is already inside of you, the journaling process just helps bring it out!

3. Think About Form

As one of the elements of poetry, form plays a crucial role in how the poem is both written and read. Have you ever wanted to write a sestina? How about a contrapuntal, or a double cinquain, or a series of tanka? Your poem can take a multitude of forms, including the beautifully unstructured free verse form; while form can be decided in the editing process, it doesn't hurt to think about it now.

4. Write the First Line

After a productive journaling session, you'll be much more acquainted with the state of your heart. You might have a line in your journal that you really want to begin with, or you might want to start fresh and refer back to your journal when you need to! Either way, it's time to begin.

What should the first line of your poem be? There's no strict rule here-you don't have to start your poem with a certain image or literary device. However, here's a few ways that poets often begin their work:

Set the Scene: Poetry can tell stories just like prose does. Anne Carson does just this in her poem "Lines," situating the scene in a conversation with the speaker's mother.

Start at the Conflict: Right away, tell the reader where it hurts most. Margaret Atwood does this in "Ghost Cat," a poem about aging.

Start With a Contradiction: Juxtaposition and contrast are two powerful tools in the poet's toolkit. Joan Larkin's poem "Want" begins and ends with these devices. Carlos Gimenez Smith also begins his poem "Entanglement" with a juxtaposition.

Start With Your Title: Some poets will use the title as their first line, like Ron Padgett's poem "Ladies and Gentlemen in Outer Space."

There are many other ways to begin poems, so play around with different literary devices, and when you're stuck, turn to other poetry for inspiration.

5. Develop Ideas and Devices

You might not know where your poem is going until you finish writing it. In the meantime, stick to your literary devices. Avoid using too many abstract nouns, develop striking images, use metaphors and similes to strike interesting comparisons, and above all, speak from the heart.

6. Write the Closing Line

Some poems end "full circle," meaning that the images the poet used in the beginning are reintroduced at the end. Gwendolyn Brooks does this in her poem "my dreams, my work, must wait till after hell."

Yet, many poets don't realize what their poems are about until they write the ending line. Poetry is a search for truth, especially the hard truths that aren't easily explained in casual speech. Your poem, too, might not be finished until it comes across a necessary truth, so write until you strike the heart of what you feel, and the poem will come to its own conclusion.

7. Edit, Edit, Edit!

Do you have a working first draft of your poem? Congratulations! Getting your feelings onto the page is a feat in itself.

Yet, no guide on how to write a poem is complete without a note on editing. If you plan on sharing or publishing your work, or if you simply want to edit your poem to near-perfection, keep these tips in mind.

Adjectives and Adverbs: Use these parts of speech sparingly. Most imagery shouldn't rely on adjectives and adverbs, because the image should be striking and vivid on its own, without too much help from excess language.

Concrete Line Breaks: Line breaks help emphasize important words, making certain images and ideas clearer to the reader. As a general rule, most of your lines should start and end with concrete words-nouns and verbs especially.

Stanza Breaks: Stanzas are like paragraphs to poetry. A stanza can develop a new idea, contrast an existing idea, or signal a transition in the poem's tone. Make sure each stanza clearly stands for something as a unit of the poem.

Mixed Metaphors: A mixed metaphor is when two metaphors occupy the same idea, making the poem unnecessarily difficult to understand. Here's an example of a mixed metaphor: "a watched clock never boils." The meaning can be discerned, but the image remains unclear. Be wary of mixed metaphors-though some poets (like Shakespeare) make them work, they're tricky and often disruptive.

Abstractions: Above all, avoid using excessively abstract language. It's fine to use the word "love" 2 or 3 times in a poem, but don't use it twice in every stanza. Let the imagery in your poem express your feelings and ideas, and only use abstractions as brief connective tissue in otherwise-concrete writing.

Lastly, don't feel pressured to "do something" with your poem. Not all poems need to be shared and edited. Poetry doesn't have to be "good," either-it can simply be a statement of emotions by the poet, for the poet. Publishing is an admirable goal, but also, give yourself permission to write bad poems, unedited poems, abstract poems, and poems with an audience of one. Write for yourself-editing is for the other readers.

How to Write a Poem: Different Approaches and Philosophies

Poetry is the oldest literary form, pre-dating prose, theater, and the written word itself. As such, there are many different schools of thought when it comes to writing poetry. You might be wondering how to write a poem through different methods and approaches: here's four philosophies to get you started.

How to Write a Poem: Poetry as Emotion

If you asked a Romantic Poet "what is poetry?", they would tell you that poetry is the spontaneous emotion of the soul.

The Romantic Era viewed poetry as an extension of human emotion-a way of perceiving the world through unbridled creativity, centered around the human soul. While many Romantic poets used traditional forms in their poetry, the Romantics weren't afraid to break from tradition, either.

To write like a Romantic, feel-and feel intensely. The words will follow the emotions, as long as a blank page sits in front of you.

How to Write a Poem: Poetry as Stream of Consciousness

If you asked a Modernist poet, "What is poetry?" they would tell you that poetry is the search for complex truths.

Modernist Poets were keen on the use of poetry as a window into the mind. A common technique of the time was "Stream of Consciousness," which is unfiltered writing that flows directly from the poet's inner dialogue. By tapping into one's subconscious, the poet might uncover deeper truths and emotions they were initially unaware of.

Depending on who you are as a writer, Stream of Consciousness can be tricky to master, but this guide covers the basics of how to write using this technique.

How to Write a Poem: Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a practice of documenting the mind, rather than trying to control or edit what it produces. This practice was popularized by the Beat Poets, who in turn were inspired by Eastern philosophies and Buddhist teachings. If you asked a Beat Poet "what is poetry?", they would tell you that poetry is the human consciousness, unadulterated.

To learn more about the art of leaving your mind alone, take a look at our guide on Mindfulness, from instructor Marc Olmsted.
https://writers.com/mindful-writing
How to Write a Poem: Poem as Camera Lens

Many contemporary poets use poetry as a camera lens, documenting global events and commenting on both politics and injustice. If you find yourself itching to write poetry about the modern day, press your thumb against the pulse of the world and write what you feel.

Additionally, check out these two essays by Electric Literature on the politics of poetry:

Okay, I Know How to Write a Good Poem. What Next?

Poetry, like all art forms, takes practice and dedication. You might write a poem you enjoy now, and think it's awfully written 3 years from now; you might also write some of your best work after reading this guide. Poetry is fickle, but the pen lasts forever, so write poems as long as you can!

Once you understand how to write a poem, and after you've drafted some pieces that you're proud of and ready to share, here are some next steps you can take.

Publish in Literary Journals

Want to see your name in print? These literary journals house some of the best poetry being published today.
https://writers.com/best-places-submit-poetry-online
Assemble and Publish a Manuscript

A poem can tell a story. So can a collection of poems. If you're interested in publishing a poetry book, learn how to compose and format one here:
https://writers.com/poetry-manuscript-format
Join a Writing Community

writers.com is an online community of writers, and we'd love it if you shared your poetry with us! Join us on Facebook and check out our upcoming poetry courses.

Poetry doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists to educate and uplift society. The world is waiting for your voice, so find a group and share your work!

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How to Write a Poem, Step-by-Step: Examples and Analysis | Writers.com

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What is poetry? This article covers everything you need to write a poem step by step, including the elements of poetry and writing methods.

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This weekend, around 25,000 people took to the streets of London to demand equal rights for trans people in the UK. The Trans+ Pride 2023 event - which is the fifth of its kind to take place in the capital - saw marchers rally through Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly, before eventually culminating in Hyde Park Corner. Speakers included performance artist Travis Alabanza, actress Yasmin Finney and model Munroe Bergdorf, with the latter reminding the gathered crowds that the event was, primarily, a protest - a day about both "love and rage". Most of her (and everyone's) anger was targeted at the Tories, whose polarising (and often needlessly cruel) policies have led to an increase in transphobic harassment. "We are in a particularly sinister moment in history," Bergdorf said, "[where trans rights are] are being weaponised by the media and government in a senseless culture war that benefits no one but the ruling class".

And, despite the grim context and drizzly skies, the mood was defiant and uplifting, according to photographer Dani d'Ingeo. "The rain made it all the more challenging but then the sun came out and shone on such a beautiful and special day," they say. See their inspiring images from the day in the gallery above, or check out their Instagram.

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'Love and rage': Portraits from London's biggest ever Trans+ Pride

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Photographer Dani d'Ingeo heads to Hyde Park to capture the thousands who turned up for the capital's 2023 Trans+ Pride march

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Our past shapes our present and helps us identify who we are and where we are headed. So, it's natural to use our past experiences as a point of reference for our current situation. The choices we make for ourselves today are often influenced by our past. If we are using healthy judgment to guide our choices, then past regrets, mistakes, and pain are used as markers for what we do not want in our lives. However for some, the past is not seen as a place of reflection but as a destination. For those who struggle with letting go of past pain or regret, they can feel trapped by their situation and unable to move forward in their lives. Feeling unable to let go of the past can lead to clinical depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), or even suicide.

Pain has a way of making us feel stuck. In times of emotional pain, we may find ourselves thinking back to when we felt happier which can help motivate us in the present. For example, if in the past we were proud of an accomplishment we achieved, thinking of our past success can help motivate us in achieving new successes now. Referencing our past positive experiences can be a healthy option for setting goals or in building optimal habits as we focus on our future. While a little reflection can be healthy and foster creativity, too much reflection or ruminating on past negative experiences can drift into obsession and lead to feeling stuck.

Pain, Regret, and PTSD

Our past experiences can affect our current mindset and our choices in how we interpret our lives. If pain or trauma has been experienced in our past, it can impact how we view our current circumstances or even prevent us from living in the present. Existing research suggests how past-negative experiences are often associated with increased incidences of trait anxiety, depression, impulsivity, low self-esteem and poor choices. For example, if we have suffered betrayal from a loved one in a romantic or familial relationship, we may re-live the traumatic experience as it replays in our mind. Certain smells, foods, places or songs may "trigger" re-experiencing the pain, which often results in trying to push away the intrusive thoughts and feelings. This can lead to other symptoms including social isolation, distrust in others, self-sabotaging behavior and an inability to move ahead in our lives (i.e., living in the past).
Warning Signs of Living in the Past:

Conversations seem to revert back to certain times, certain people, or certain situations.

You are attracted to, or attract, the same type of people that cause you pain.

Disagreements often surround past arguments.

Easily bored or frustrated.

Comparing your current situation to previous ones.

Prior trauma or painful events replay in your mind.

Self-sabotaging behavior.

Emotional triggers that cause you to think about people or situations from the past.

Relationships are used to fill a void or to prevent being alone with your thoughts.

"Waiting for the other shoe to drop" - expecting something bad to happen.

Feeling anxious or acting impulsively.

Experiencing regret over impulsive choices.

All or nothing thinking about new people or new experiences.

Avoidance of new people or new experiences.

Self-Sabotaging Behavior

Many times, the hallmark of living in the past is a pattern of self-sabotaging behavior that reinforces reliving past traumatic events. What makes behavior self-sabotaging is how it negatively affects the person in its aftermath. Self-sabotaging behavior usually starts out as a way to reduce or avoid unpleasant feelings, such as when re-experiencing something painful. In an attempt to push away intrusive thoughts or vulnerable emotions, things like self-medicating, escape/avoidant behaviors, or other unhealthy patterns can start. For example, a history of being abandoned earlier in life can play out in abandoning partners or friends, or lashing out at them if feeling emotionally vulnerable. This pattern can lead to a history of unhealthy relationships and a toxic cycle that perpetuates trying to avoid emotional triggers through self-sabotaging behavior.

How to Heal From the Past

Healing from past pain or traumatic experiences is not something that happens overnight. It is a process that requires patience, dedication and a commitment to change. Humans are wired for wanting to feel good and to minimize feeling bad, which often triggers self-sabotaging behavior in an attempt to avoid pain. When we experience a painful event such as betrayal or other traumatic experiences, it can rewire us for self-preservation. We may live in "fight or flight" mode, constantly anticipating more pain in our lives which can be unconsciously welcomed through our actions.

Tips for learning to live in the present:

1. Establish boundaries. This can mean something different for everyone, but the main point is to give yourself time to heal and to move ahead at your own pace. For many, establishing boundaries may include being more selective on who we welcome into our lives and who we dismiss. With boundaries, consistency is key in helping let go of the past and living in the present.

2. Acceptance. The past is a done-deal. We can't change it. And being stuck in the past is only hurting our potential in the present. By accepting that the past is over, it allows us to grieve and to release the pain that we may have been carrying with us. Be honest with yourself in your acceptance and take the time you need to grieve.

3. Practice Mindfulness. The practice of mindfulness is about teaching ourselves how to stay in the present and to calm our mind when experiencing emotional triggers. Research supports the use of mindfulness as part of a comprehensive program in healing from trauma, depression or PTSD.

4. Have a Reset Button. We are human, and that means we are perfectly imperfect. As with any new skill, they take time to develop and master. Be kind with yourself if you slip up or find yourself reliving the past or reverting back to old behavior patterns. Use the reset button to help you gauge where you are in your personal development.

5. Disconnect. Balance is key when working on self-improvement. Being okay with disconnecting from social media or from friends or family for a while as you work on healing is about self-care. When we are alone, we are able to get to know ourselves and give ourselves the attention and love we need to stop living in the past.

References

Donald, J., et al. (2016). Daily stress and the benefits of mindfulness. Journal of Research in Personality, 23 ( 1), 30-37.

Gacs, B., et al. (2020). Time perspectives and pain: Negative time perspective profile predicts elevated vulnerability to pain. Personality and Individual Differences, 153 , 1-6.

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Healing from the Past and Living in Your Present

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Our past shapes our present and helps us identify who we are and where we are headed. So, it's natural to us

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Charles Turner | A Witch Sailing to Aleppo in a Sieve | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Act 1, Scene 3: Popup Note Index Item: "in a sieve"

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An explanation of the folklore reference "in a sieve" in Act 1, Scene 3 of myShakespeare's Macbeth.

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Restlessness of the mind can be a symptom of ADHD, just like restlessness of the body.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been stereotyped to depict erratic and over-the-top behaviors. In reality, ADHD is a complex condition that can also be quiet and subtle - or anywhere in between.

Restlessness, a recognized component of hyperactivity in ADHD, is often seen as fidgeting, inability to remain still for long periods of time, and task hopping.

Restlessness, however, can also come in the form of racing thoughts. For some, this can make focusing on a single task or trying to fall asleep a challenge.

ADHD is defined as a neurodevelopmental disorder, and the wiring of the ADHD brain can make self-regulation challenging.

For many people, this is often experienced as emotional reactivity, emotional impulsivity, and emotional instability.

Self-regulation challenges can cause other ADHD traits, too, including fast-moving thoughts.

According to Billy Roberts, a licensed independent social worker from Columbus, Ohio, "This means that the frontal lobe of the brain struggles to regulate many aspects of the neurological system."

He says that this might look like excessive motor activity (difficulty regulating the body) or a hyperactive mind (difficulty regulating thoughts). Those living with a hyperactive mind, therefore, may regularly experience racing thoughts.

Racing thoughts at night

As many as of people living with ADHD experience sleep challenges, according to a 2018 review of 39 studies on ADHD and sleep.

Difficulty falling asleep is common when you live with ADHD. Racing thoughts often don't go away because you're tired. Instead, they can feel like an endless cascade of ideas, notions, memories, questions, and imagination.

Falling asleep with racing thoughts can be like trying to fall asleep watching unlimited 15-second video clips on your favorite topics.

If it seems your ADHD racing thoughts are worse at bedtime, it may be because all the distractions of the day are winding down, and you have nothing to redirect your energy to while you lay in bed.

When it's your brain wiring working against you, it can be difficult-but not impossible-to stop racing thoughts in ADHD.

Some management strategies that may help include:

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of accepting thoughts in the moment and letting them pass without clinging or spiraling with them.

"An active mind is like a snow globe that has been shaken," explains Dr. Cristina Louk, a humanistic psychotherapist and ADHD specialist from Monroe, Washington.

"Thoughts and snow swirl around, and you can't make out the image in the middle. Mindfulness activities help the snow to rest at the bottom of the snow globe and allow us to settle our thoughts."

One way to practice mindfulness when racing thoughts ADHD has you off-center, is to take a deep breath, ask yourself what your focus should be in that moment (ex: going to sleep), actively release any tension in your body, and take another deep breath.

Psychoeducation

When you live with ADHD, you know you experience racing thoughts, but recognizing that as a symptom can make them feel less intimidating or frustrating.

Dr. Francyne Zeltser, a licensed psychologist from Manhattan, explains that learning about ADHD can increase symptom awareness, which can help people living with ADHD feel more focused and intentional with their thoughts.

"Additionally, psychoeducation sheds light on resilient factors, which allow individuals to feel more in control of their symptoms, which in turn improves their daily functioning and overall emotional well-being," she says.

Re-framing

Louk also recommends re-framing how you view your "racing thoughts."

"Instead of viewing them as "racing thoughts," a better way to conceptualize this phenomenon is that people with ADHD have a more active mind or experience increased activity of mind beyond the norm."

Viewing your thoughts as a benefit and not a problem may help relieve some of the negative emotions that come from racing thoughts, such as anxiety.

For instance, you may notice that while you're trying to relax or sleep, your mind is trying to solve problems. It can help to remind yourself that not all of these problems need to be solved or can't be solved right then.

You can say to yourself, "thank you mind" for doing its job and welcome your brain back to winding down by focusing on the breath or relaxing a body part.

Deep breathing exercises

Deep breathing can help re-direct your focus from your thoughts any time of day or night.

While there are many breathing exercises you can utilize, a simple one is:

breathe in slowly, while counting to 5

hold your breath for several seconds

breathe out slowly, while counting to five

repeat as necessary

Journaling before bed

Sometimes racing thoughts in ADHD aren't random; there might be something on your mind creating anxiety or preventing you from relaxing.

Journaling before bed can help you put your thoughts down, getting them out of your head where you can assess them from a distance.

If journaling isn't your preferred relaxation method, you may benefit from other exercises, such as:

ADHD racing thoughts and hypomania racing thoughts share similarities but aren't the same.

Hypomania, an episodic state of elevated mood and thought associated with bipolar disorder (BD), can present with the same highway of unending thought traffic as in ADHD.

In fact, the mental restlessness of these conditions is extremely challenging to differentiate in research, making misdiagnosis a possibility.

The difference between racing thought ADHD and racing thought BD may not be in the nature of the thoughts themselves, but rather in their consistent presence.

Someone living with ADHD, for example, may experience racing regularly, while racing thoughts in BD may resolve with the episode of hypomania.

"Hypomania may last for a few days," notes Louk. "An ADHD active mind may last for an hour or a day or a couple of days. It's more transient than what is seen in hypomania."

How thoughts present outwardly may also be different.

"People who experience hypomania may have extreme emotions or energy levels that are noticeably different than the person's baseline," she explains. "A person with ADHD experiencing an active mind may or may not experience any changes in emotionality or energy levels."

Racing thoughts in ADHD can be a mental manifestation of restlessness, a result of your brain's unique self-regulation processes.

While sometimes confused with racing thoughts in bipolar disorder, an ADHD active mind may last for an hour, a day, or a couple of days. It's shorter-lasting and more routine than what is seen in hypomania.

Relaxation methods, mindfulness, and self-education about ADHD may all help prevent racing thoughts from impairing your daily life. However, if you are struggling to manage your racing thoughts, you may want to consider speaking with a mental health professional about treatment options.

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ADHD and Racing Thoughts: What's The Link?

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ADHD can lead to a hyperactive mind, including racing thoughts.

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Agitation is a sense of inner tension and restlessness. When it happens, you may get annoyed easily or feel like you need to move around. It's a normal emotion. But it's more likely to show up when you're under a lot of stress. It can also happen if you use drugs or withdraw from alcohol.

But sometimes, a medical condition can cause agitation. It's pretty common to feel unsettled if you have hormone problems or a psychological condition like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or dementia. Rarely, it may be caused by a brain tumor. That's why it's important to talk to your doctor if you get agitated, especially if you feel like it's for no reason.

Common symptoms of agitation include:

An uneasy feeling

An urge to move, maybe with no purpose

Crankiness

Little patience

Nervousness

Stubborn behavior (often toward caregivers)

Too much excitement

You may act angry or violent at the same time. But agitation isn't the same as aggression. It's also different than akathisia. That's a movement disorder often caused by antipsychotic medication.

This is also called manic-depressive disorder. It can cause strong swings in your emotions and energy levels. Your mood can cycle between good and bad feelings. Or you can have both at the same time.

If bipolar disorder causes your agitation, you might also have:

Manic episodes. During these "up" periods, you may have:

A lot of energy

Inflated sense of what you can do

Little need for sleep

Really fast thoughts

Depressive episodes. During these "down" periods, you could have:

With both mania and depression, these things are possible:

Treatment for your agitation may include:

Medication

Other mood stabilizers

Psychotherapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

Like with schizophrenia, you may need to go to the hospital if your agitation is really bad. And you'll need ongoing treatment to control your symptoms.

You may get upset if you have trouble communicating. That can happen if you have autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It's a sensory and behavior disorder that shows up when you're young. It can make social situations hard. You may feel like you need to repeat certain behaviors to calm down. But that might not always work.

Other symptoms of autism include:

Sensitivity to lights, noise, or crowds

Speech problems

Trouble making eye contact

You may need a personal approach for your symptoms. Your doctor could give you:

Hormone changes before your period can make you feel tense. But you may get really overwhelmed and agitated if you have premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). That's a more serious form of premenstrual syndrome ( PMS).

Some other symptoms of PMDD include:

Treatment for symptoms of PMDD may include:

It's important to talk to your doctor if you have these symptoms every month. It may be a sign that your menstrual cycle is actually making another mood disorder worse.

If you feel agitated a lot and you don't know why, talk to your doctor. They can give you tests to find out what's going on.

And if you or a loved one is thinking about suicide or hurting yourself, tell someone right away. You can reach out to a friend, family member, or a health care professional. You can also go to the emergency room or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (800-273-8255) any time, day or night.

Life can be hard. And it's normal to feel agitated if you're stressed out. It may happen because of problems at home, work, or at school. Too much stress can make other health problems worse, like high blood pressure and diabetes.

Other common symptoms of mental stress include

Treatment to ease your stress will probably lift your mood. You may want to:

It may be hard to control your stress on your own. That's when you should talk to your doctor. They may want you to try medication or therapy. And go to the hospital if you have chest pains or a hard time breathing. That may be a sign of something serious, like a heart attack.

Agitation may be a sign of hypothyroidism. That's when you don't make enough thyroid hormone. Without this chemical, your brain and body don't work very fast. It can happen if you get radiation treatment, have surgery on your thyroid, or you have an autoimmune condition, like Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

Other symptoms of hypothyroidism include:

Attention or memory problems

Constipation

Depression or anxiety

Tiredness

Trouble staying warm

Treatment for your hypothyroidism should ease your agitation. Your doctor will give you medicine to bring your hormone levels back to normal.

That's a decline in your ability to think, behave, or recall things. You may get frustrated and not be able to control your feelings. It's more common in older people. But it's not a typical part of aging.

One of the main symptoms of dementia is memory loss. But you could also have trouble finding the right words or paying attention. You may not be able to do things for yourself, like eat or get dressed.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia in older people. And if you're caring for someone with Alzheimer's, they probably have a reason for feeling agitated. You should find out if they also have:

A bad interaction with medicine

A feeling of loneliness or depression

Constipation

Sensitivity to sounds or crowds

Trouble with any kind of change

If you or a loved one has Alzheimer's or dementia, treatment for agitation may include:

Antipsychotics are not approved to treat dementia-related agitation. These drugs raise the odds of death in older people.

In some cases, dementia-like symptoms can be reversed. That can happen if you have a brain infection, take certain medicines, or have other health problems. That's why it's important to talk to your doctor about any new memory or mood problems.

It's normal to get worried if you or a loved one is agitated a lot. But your doctor can help you find and treat the cause. That's the best way to feel better.

Here are some of the most common causes of agitation:

You may not be able to control your emotions or actions. Schizophrenia can also make it hard to tell what's real. That can make you feel troubled. You may or may not be able to manage your agitation. That's why it's important to talk to your doctor when you feel uneasy.

Other symptoms of schizophrenia include:

Difficulty finishing things

Memory or speech problems

Thoughts that don't make sense

To treat your agitation, your doctor may give you:

Antipsychotics

Benzodiazepines (also called "benzos")

Talk therapy

If nothing else works, physical restraint may be needed

You'll need ongoing treatment for your schizophrenia. You may need a mix of:

Educational support

Family involvement

Help from your employer

Medication

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Find out which medical conditions experts say can sometimes cause agitation - from stress, bipolar disorder, to dementia and more here.

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HERO DAILIES: Essential culture, curated daily
THE SATURDAY AUTEUR: Exploring the life and work of revered directors

"Well, the first thing is that I love monsters, I identify with monsters."

Guillermo Del Toro first saw Frankenstein (1931) as a boy. As he watched the creature return to life and stand in static black and white, to him it was like seeing a statue of a martyr. "He is not going to last," he thought (via Hollywood Reporter). "Such purity cannot last in the world of men." So moved was the young Del Toro by the plight he witnessed, his films have consistently tried to redeem Frankenstein's rejected creation.

Del Toro's love for monsters drove him to launch a career in movie make-up and special effects. He stayed in this role throughout the 80s, co-founding his own company, before moving into directing - first for TV, and eventually writing and directing his first feature film, Cronos. In the work, Del Toro treats his central vampire with pathos and understanding - his debut began exploring the nature of monsters in society that would drive his creativity for decades.

"You only find yourself when you disobey. Disobedience is the beginning of responsibility."

The critical success of Chronos brought the freshman filmmaker to Hollywood. He wound up helming Mimic, a $30 million sci-fi horror for Miramax. The experience was hell to Del Toro. He dealt with constant interference from the Weinstein Company, and wound up losing the final cut. Incredibly, at the same time as this, Del Toro's father was kidnapped and held for ransom. Del Toro has described his experience with the Weinsteins as "more illogical than the kidnapping - which at least has rules."

Heartbroken by the Hollywood machine, Del Toro found solace in a passion project he'd written years earlier. The Devil's Backbone is a ghost story set at an orphanage in the midst of the Spanish Civil War. In the centre of the orphanage looms an unexploded bomb. Here the ghost is not the threat, but the victim. The ghost in the story is a gothic figure that haunts the children, but throughout, his benign intentions become clear. The opening of the film defines a ghost as "a tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again... an insect trapped in amber." Perhaps like an unexploded bomb - or a civil war that previewed Europe's fascist conflicts to come.

"Leave behind one or two things that wouldn't have happened without you."

Del Toro was able to make his film due to the aid of Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar. It proved a critical success and allowed him to put one foot back in Hollywood, on his own terms. First with a sequel to Blade, and then with his comic book adaptation Hellboy.

In Hellboy, and especially in its sequel The Golden Army, Del Toro is emboldened to infuse the source material with his own pathos for the outsider. Those that are cast out of society are the heroes of the tale, and must find brotherhood and connection with each other. In the first film, the all-American audience proxy that enters the joyfully strange world of our heroes does not save the day, or get the girl, or even truly learn the lesson of the film. All of this is given by Del Toro to his creatures: they are the human core. Just like Frankenstein, they are never truly accepted by the world, but they are able to find their own space and to lift each other up.

Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo Del Toro, 2006

Pan's Labyrinth is a dark fable set once again in the years around the Spanish Civil War. It tells the story of Ofelia as she accompanies her heavily pregnant mother into the hills to the remote military outpost where Ofelia's fascist stepfather is waiting. Still grieving the loss of her father, the neglected girl is visited by a fairy and beckoned into a tumbling labyrinth that stands on the grounds. There she meets the ancient fawn who tells her, in a creaking voice, that she is the lost princess of an underground kingdom and must complete three tasks in order to be reunited with her family. Ofelia embarks on these tasks as the world around her crumbles.

The film is beautiful and cruel. The entire piece is washed in a green hue making even normality seem otherworldly. Torn between the strange cruelty of a baby eating creature with eyes in its palms, and stepfather who will cave in the face of a rabbit poacher before searching his bag, Ofelia follows the rabbit hole unhesitantly. The horrors of war have infiltrated the young Ofelia's imagination. Her fairytale is not the stuff of Disney - it's hard, dirty and dangerous.

Pan's Labyrinth was a critical and commercial success and cemented Del Toro as a Hollywood darling. It gave him the power and respect to make his films the way he wanted - he would never again have to fight for the final cut.

The Shape of Water by Guillermo Del Toro, 2017

Every frame of The Shape of Water is packed with meaning. It began with Del Toro's pity for the Creature from the Black Lagoon as it was gunned down by white saviours for - as Del Toro saw it - love. Here the complex themes that Del Toro explores with his monsters is boiled down to it's sharpest point; it's about understanding.

The film is surprisingly tender, while it never shies away from the strangeness of the creature (we advise keeping small pets away) the wordless romance between our fish-man and the mute government facility cleaner Eliza is truthful and heartwarming. It is made so much more so by the extended cast of allies, all of whom are outsiders in their own way.

The real 'monster' of the film is Eliza's boss, the security supervisor Strickland (Michael Shannon). This all-American is the one responsible for the creature's capture. He would have been the hero of the 1950's monster film - yet here he is nothing but cruel and prejudiced. The Gaston of this Beauty and the Beast tale - but in this version the beast needn't transform.

Roger Ebert once said 'films are machines that create empathy' and, in The Shape of Water, Del Toro never strays from this cause. The film is successful because it never fails to take the emotions of the characters seriously. It is simultaneously a love letter to the canon of films that Del Toro was raised on, and a searing indictment of the values held in them. It is fitting too, that his most personal of films should be so accepted by the industry that had mistreated him at the beginning of his career - this aquatic romance is an Academy Award Best Picture winner.

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Guillermo Del Toro: humanising monsters as a mirror to society - HERO

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Explore a hand-picked collection of Pins about EPP Visuals on Pinterest.

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"If I was lying on my deathbed and I had kept this secret and never ever did anything about it, I would be lying there saying, 'You just blew your entire life. You never dealt with yourself,' and I don't want that to happen." - Caitlyn Jenner, Vanity Fair

We've all heard the expression, "live your truth." It means knowing and being yourself without the need for external validation. You're honest, you don't make excuses for yourself and you're not looking for something outside of yourself to complete you. You set healthy boundaries, care for yourself, and live your principles. You are yourself fully and respectfully, and you don't "turn it off" just to suit others' needs or desires.

"Being authentic means coming from a real place within," writes Diane Mottl, MSW. "It is when our actions and words are congruent with our beliefs and values. It is being ourselves, not an imitation of what we think we should be or have been told we should be. There is no 'should' in authentic."

I like to imagine we all work toward authenticity, partly because it feels so bad not to.

Jenner told Vanity Fair's contributing editor Buzz Bissinger that Bruce was "always telling lies," but Caitlyn "doesn't have any lies." She recalled public appearances she made after winning the gold medal in the 1976 Summer Olympics, while "underneath my suit I have a bra and panty hose and this and that and thinking to myself, They know nothing about me... Little did they know I was totally empty inside."

A recent study published in Psychological Science found that hiding own's authentic self produces feelings of immorality and impurity. Throughout the course of five experiments, participants reported that being inauthentic made them feel immoral and "increased desire among participants to cleanse themselves." On the other hand, when participants recalled a time when they behaved authentically it made them feel positively about themselves.

"Our results establish that authenticity is a moral state - that being true to thine own self is experienced as a form of virtue," researchers concluded.

Feeling better about ourselves and living our truth should affect our relationships in a positive way. On the other hand, some people may distance themselves but it's not exactly a loss. It's called living your truth because it's not for everyone.

"I have high hopes that Caitlyn is a better person than Bruce," said Jenner's son Burt Jenner. "I'm very much looking forward to that."

On some scale, we can all think of a time we weren't being ourselves. We may have kept our mouths shut when a teenage friend was doing something illegal. We've squirmed listening to someone who has authority over us talk about something we don't agree with at all.

We also commit ourselves to things we don't enjoy or that don't align with our personal beliefs. We bite our tongue. We won't leave jobs we despise. We won't travel or move away. We get stuck, frustrated and maybe even forget the errand leaving ourselves in existential flux.

"We don't stumble accidentally into an amazing life. It takes a conscious commitment to figuring out what we stand for - finding our truth," writes author and entrepreneur Kamal Ravikant. "It begins by looking inside ourselves, because when it rises from within, we have no choice but to express it, to live it. That is when magic happens: fulfillment, happiness, relationships and success."

When we deny our truth, we hurt ourselves deeply. We communicate to ourselves that we won't meet our needs. It communicates shame, fosters guilt and creates angst. I've felt it time and again.

I can get so wrapped up in what other people think, sometimes I find myself feeling a clamor of anxiety and discontent. For a moment I don't even know why. I'm a million miles from my former mood, waylaid on an island of worry and I don't know how I got there. "Oh, it's because I was so wrapped up in what others would say."

Living your truth is daunting and yet empowering, unimaginable but possible, raw and fulfilling. It may be the greatest gift we can give ourselves, but it can be completely overwhelming. As several celebrities recently spoke openly about their sexual orientation and gender identity, they become an example of what is possible, ushering in an era of being oneself completely.

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Authenticity: The Deep Hurt of Hiding Your True Self

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"If I was lying on my deathbed and I had kept this secret and never ever did anything about it, I would be l

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What does it mean to be authentic?

In his popular interview with Joe Rogan, the bestselling author David Goggins revealed his biggest fear.

Goggins had a terrible childhood, grew up to be morbidly obese, and experienced a lot of hardship in his early adult life. Then he became a Navy SEAL, ultra-marathon runner, and renowned motivational speaker.

Goggins stated that his biggest fear was dying and God (or whoever God assigns this task to) shows him a board with a list of accomplishments: physically fit, Navy SEAL, pull-up record holder, inspirational speaker who helps others, etc. Goggins imagines saying "that's not me." And God responds, "that's who you were supposed to be."

What Is Authenticity?

The renowned psychologist Roy Baumeister has written a fascinating academic paper about the "true self" and authenticity. He suggests that the feeling of authenticity comes from whether we are acting in line with the reputation we want.

In other words, people feel most in line with their true selves when they achieve their desired social image. Failure at achieving it, or losing it, will feel less authentic.

When caught doing something they're ashamed of, people say things like, "That's not who I am" or "That wasn't really me."

They're implying that reputation-damaging acts are not reflective of their true self. This doesn't mean they are lying. Most people really believe their shameful acts are not reflective of who they are deep down.

Baumeister writes, "If the main purpose of the self is to integrate the animal body into the social system (so it can survive and reproduce), then cultivating a good reputation is a paramount concern, and when one succeeds, even momentarily, there will be a welcome feeling of 'that's me!'"

He means whatever action we take that maintains or enhances our reputation will give us a little boost of happiness. We then associate this feeling with authenticity.

As evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller has noted, behaviors do not arise just because they happen to feel good. Feeling good evolved to motivate the behavior, which likely has some evolutionary payoff. The good feeling is there to get us to do more of that beneficial behavior.

Baumeister writes, "One of the most irksome findings for authenticity researchers was that American research participants, including introverts, generally reported feeling more authentic when acting extraverted than introverted. America is an extraverted society, but still, it is disturbing that even introverts felt more authentic when acting extraverted."

Indeed, research shows people report feeling greater authenticity when they behaved in an extraverted, conscientious, emotionally stable, and intellectual manner. Regardless of their actual personality traits.

Put differently, people tend to feel more authentic when they are doing things society values, rather than following their own innermost desires.

Intriguingly, other studies suggest that feelings of authenticity and well-being are higher when people go along with external influences rather than resisting them. Going along with others was also associated with having more energy and higher self-esteem.

You might think that the true self would be most apparent when people are defying social influences. But people feel more true to themselves when they go along with social influences.

So is our true self just a sheep that goes along with whatever people around us are doing?

The "True Self" Does Not Exist

Baumeister suggests that the true self isn't a real thing. It's an idea and an ideal.

The true self is how we fondly imagine we could be. When we act in accordance with that ideal, then we think "that's who I am." When we stray from it, we think "that's not me."

A related idea has been discussed by the psychologist and relationship researcher Eli Finkel. He talks about the Michelangelo phenomenon. "In Michelangelo's mind," Finkel writes, "the David existed within the rock before sculpting began."

The idea is that in healthy marriages, each person identifies their partner's best self, and they help one another become that best self.

But Baumeister's idea is that we have our own vision of our best self (which we believe is our true self) and feel more authentic when we act closer to that ideal.

What people think of as their true self is the version of themselves that holds a good reputation. The idealized self that makes a positive impression on peers they respect. When they inch closer to that ideal, they will feel good. And report feeling authentic.

Near the end of the article, Baumeister writes, "people report feeling authentic mainly when acting in socially desirable, good ways, as opposed to, say, being consistent with their actual nature, warts and all."

This idea helps to resolve another puzzle in social life.

In a paper titled "Sacrificing status for social harmony: Concealing high-status identities from one's peers," researchers found that individuals often hide their impressive achievements from others in order to get along with the group.

The researchers write, "while concealing high-status identity sacrifices both status and authenticity, individuals deem concealment worthwhile because it minimizes threats to the self, others, and belonging."

People will often share similarities they have with others. But will withhold information that reveals they hold especially high status.

The researchers suggest people do this to minimize interpersonal threat. To smooth social relations with others.

Which is odd. You might think that people would want to:

1. Disclose status-enhancing details about themselves

2. Be authentic by sharing honest information

But another way to look at their withholding of information is that people prioritize getting along with others. People are guided by their ideal self. The self that is well-liked by others. So they try not to brag too much about their accomplishments.

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Research suggests reputational concerns determine whether we feel authentic.

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Nothing makes the challenging task of writing a novel feel more attainable than adopting a story structure to help you plot your narrative.

While using a pre-existing blueprint might make you worry about ending up with a formulaic, predictable story, you can probably analyze most of your favorite books using various narrative structures that writers have been using for decades (if not centuries)!

This post will reveal seven distinct story structures that any writer can use to build a compelling narrative. But first...

What is story structure?

Story structure is the order in which plot events are told to the reader or audience. While stories can be told in a wide variety of ways, most Western story structures commonly share certain elements: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

A tightly controlled structure will answer a reader's questions, provide a climax followed by resolution and information at the end of the story, further the characters' development, and unravel any central conflicts. In other words, it's responsible for a satisfying narrative experience that accomplishes the author's aims.

Writing is an art, but if there's one part of the craft that's closer to science, this would be it. Become a master of story structure, and you will have the world at your feet.

Classic story structure

When people discuss different story structures, they often talk about the different frameworks used to analyze stories. When you boil them all down, all stories have certain shared elements.
Elements of classic story structure:

Exposition. This first part establishes a protagonist's normal life and greater desires, and usually culminates in the inciting incident.

Rising action. The protagonist pursues their new goal and is tested along the way.

Climax. Our hero achieves their goal - or so they think!

Falling action. The hero now must deal with the consequences of achieving their goal.

Resolution. The conclusion tying together the plot, character arcs, and themes.

These are all common ' beats ' to most stories. It can be easier to see these moments in genres with higher stakes (such as a military thriller), but you'll find them in almost any type of story.

Even in something as seemingly mild as a rural romance, there will be rising action as our heroes tentatively fall in love and an all-is-lost moment where it seems like they will never get together (before they inevitably do). Without these steps, there is no conflict and no story - merely a series of events that will struggle to keep a reader interested.

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Seven Story Structures Every Writer Should Know

Now that we've established the most essential components of story, let's look at seven of the most popular story structures used by writers - and how they deploy these components.

1. Freytag's Pyramid

Named after a 19th-century German novelist and playwright, Freytag's Pyramid is a five-point dramatic structure that's based on the classical Greek tragedies of Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripedes.

Structure

Introduction. The status quo is established; an inciting incident occurs.

Rise, or rising action. The protagonist actively pursues their goal. The stakes heighten.

Climax. A point of no return, from which the protagonist can no longer go back to the status quo.

Return, or fall. In the aftermath of the climax, tension builds, and the story heads inevitably towards...

Catastrophe. The protagonist is brought to their lowest point. Their greatest fears have come true.

This structural model is less frequently used in modern storytelling, partly due to readers' limited appetite for tragic narratives (although you can still spot a few tragic heroes in popular literature today). By and large, commercial fiction, films, and television will see a protagonist overcome their obstacles to find some small measure of success. That said, it's still useful to understand the Pyramid as a foundational structure in Western literature - and you will still see it occasionally in the most depressing contemporary tales.

To learn more, read our full guide on Freytag's Pyramid.

If you struggle to structure a novel, sign up for our How to Write a Novel course to finish a novel in just 3 months.

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2. The Hero's Journey

Inspired by Joseph Campbell's concept of the monomyth - a storytelling pattern that recurs in mythology all over the world - The Hero's Journey is today's best-known story structure. Some attribute its popularity to George Lucas, whose Star Wars was heavily influenced by Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

Luke Skywalker, a hero with a thousand faces. (Image: Lucasfilm)

Campbell's original structure uses terminology that lends itself well to epic tales of bravery and triumph - with plot points like "Belly of the Whale," "Woman as the Temptress," and "The Magic Flight." To make The Hero's Journey more accessible, Disney executive Christopher Vogler created a simplified version that has become popular amongst mainstream storytellers.

Here, we'll look at Vogler's streamlined, 12-step version of The Hero's Journey.

Structure

1. The Ordinary World. The hero's everyday life is established.

2. The Call of Adventure. Otherwise known as the inciting incident.

3. Refusal of the Call. For a moment, the hero is reluctant to take on the challenge.

4. Meeting the Mentor. Our hero meets someone who prepares them for what lies ahead - perhaps a parental figure, a teacher, a wizard, or a wise hermit.

5. Crossing the First Threshold. The hero steps out of their comfort zone and enters a 'new world.'

6. Tests, Allies, Enemies. Our protagonist faces new challenges - and maybe picks up some new friends. Think of Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road.

7. Approach to the Inmost Cave. The hero gets close to their goal. Luke Skywalker reaches the Death Star.

8. The Ordeal. The hero meets (and overcomes) their greatest challenge yet.

9. Reward (Seizing the Sword). The hero obtains something important they were after, and victory is in sight.

10. The Road Back. The hero realizes that achieving their goal is not the final hurdle. In fact, 'seizing the sword' may have made things worse for them.

11. Resurrection. The hero faces their final challenge - a climactic test that hinges on everything they've learned over their journey.

12. Return with the Elixir. Having triumphed, our protagonist returns to their old life. Dorothy returns to Kansas; Iron Man holds a press conference to blow his own trumpet.

While Vogler's simplified steps still retain some of Campbell's mythological language with its references to swords and elixirs, the framework can be applied to almost any genre of fiction. To see how a 'realistic' story can adhere to this structure, check out our guide to the hero's journey in which we analyze Rocky through this very lens.

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3. Three Act Structure

Following the old adage that "every story has a beginning, middle, and end," this popular structure splits a story's components into three distinct acts: Setup, Confrontation, and Resolution. In many ways, the three-act structure reworks The Hero's Journey, with slightly less exciting labels.

Structure
Act 1: Setup

Exposition. The status quo or 'ordinary world' is established.

Inciting Incident. An event that sets the story in motion.

Plot Point One. The protagonist decides to tackle the challenge head-on. She 'crosses the threshold,' and the story is now truly moving.

Act 2: Confrontation

Rising Action. The story's true stakes become clear; our hero grows familiar with her 'new world' and has her first encounters with some enemies and allies. (see Tests, Allies, Enemies)

Midpoint. An event that upends the protagonist's mission. (Similar to the climax in Freytag's pyramid)

Plot Point Two. In the wake of the disorienting midpoint, the protagonist is tested - and fails. Her ability to succeed is now in doubt.

Act 3: Resolution

Pre Climax. The night is darkest before dawn. The protagonist must pull herself together and choose between decisive action and failure.

Climax. She faces off against her antagonist one last time. Will she prevail?

Denouement. All loose ends are tied up. The reader discovers the consequences of the climax. A new status quo is established.

When we speak about a confrontation with an antagonist, this doesn't always mean a fight to the death. In some cases, the antagonist might be a love rival, a business competitor, or merely an internal or environmental conflict that our protagonist has been struggling with the entire story.

If you're interested in using this model to plot your own story, read our guide to the three-act structure, and be sure to sign up to our free course on the subject.

4. Dan Harmon's Story Circle

Another variation on Campbell's monomyth structure, the Story Circle is an approach developed by Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon. Again, heavily inspired by the Hero's Journey, the benefit of Harmon's approach is its focus on the protagonist's character arc. Instead of referring to abstract concepts like 'story midpoint' and 'denouement', each beat in the story circle forces the writer to think about the character's wants and needs.

Structure

1. A character is in a zone of comfort... This is the establishment of the status quo.

2. But they want something... This 'want' could be something long-standing and brought to the fore by an inciting incident.

3. They enter an unfamiliar situation... The protagonist must do something new in their pursuit of the thing they want.

4. Adapt to it... Faced with some challenges, they struggle then begin to succeed.

5. Get what they wanted... Usually a false victory.

6. Pay a heavy price for it... They realize that what they 'wanted' wasn't what they 'needed'.

7. Then return to their familiar situation... armed with a new truth.

8. Having changed... For better or worse.

Created by a writer whose chosen medium is the 30-minute sitcom, this structure is worded in a waythat sidesteps the need for a protagonist to undergo life-changing transformations with each story. After all, for a comedy to continue for six seasons (and a movie) its characters can't completely transform at the end of each episode. They can, however, learn small truths about themselves and the world around them - which, like all humans, they can quickly forget about if next week's episode calls for it.

To learn more and see this structure applied to an episode of Rick and Morty, check out our full post on Dan Harmon's Story Circle.

Side note: for this kind of character-driven plot (and, indeed, for all of these structures), you're going to want to know you're protagonist inside and out. Why not check out some of our character development exercises for help fleshing your characters out, like the profile template below.

5. Fichtean Curve

Fleshed out in John Gardner's The Art of Fiction, the Fichtean Curve is a narrative structure that puts our main characters through a series of many obstacles on their way to achieving their overarching goals. Resembling Freytag's Pyramid, it encourages authors to write narratives packed with tension and mini-crises that keep readers eager to reach the climax.

Bypassing the "ordinary world" setup of many other structures, the Fichtean Curve starts with the inciting incident and goes straight into the rising action. Multiple crises occur, each of which contributes to the readers' overall understanding of the narrative - replacing the need for the initial exposition.

Structure

To discuss this unusual structure, it's perhaps best to see it in use. We'll use Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You as an example. Needless to say, spoilers ahead.

Inciting incident. The novel begins with the line: "Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet." Within the first three paragraphs, Marilyn realizes that her daughter Lydia is missing. Thus, readers are thrown straight into rising action as Marilyn anxiously searches all the usual places Lydia might be found.

First crisis. Lydia's family is informed her body was found in a nearby lake. From this first crisis's climax, the narrative flashes back to provide exposition and details of the family's history.

Second crisis. In flashbacks, we discover that, 11 years prior, Marilyn abandoned her family to resume her undergraduate studies. In her absence, the family begins to fall apart. Marilyn learns she is pregnant and is forced to return home. Having lost her opportunity for further education, she places the pressure of academic success on her children.

Third crisis. Back in the present, Lydia's father, James, is cheating on Marilyn. The police decide to close the investigation, ruling Lydia's death a suicide. This results in a massive argument between her parents, and James leaves to stay with the "other woman."

Fourth crisis. Flashback to the day Lydia died. From her perspective, we see that she's misunderstood by her parents. She mourns her brother's impending departure for college, leaving her as the sole focus of her parents' pressure. Isolated, she tries to seduce a friend - who rejects her advances and explains he's in love with her brother.

Rising Action

Lydia takes a boat into the lake in the middle of the night - determined to overcome her fear of water and reclaim control of her life. Lydia jumps off the boat, into the water, and out of this life. As in a classical tragedy, this moment is both devastating and inevitable.
Climax

Some level of resolution is achieved, and readers get to at least glimpse the "new norm" for the characters. Lydia's family lean on one another in their grief. While they may never be able to make their amends with Lydia, they can learn from her death. Not all of the loose ends are tied off, but readers infer the family is on the long road to recovery.
Falling Action

Note: In the rising action stage, all of the crises should build tension towards - and correspond with - the story's major climax. Like the three-act narrative structure, the Fichtean Curve's climax typically occurs two-thirds through the book.

While this structure lends itself well to flashback-heavy novels such as Everything I Never Told You, it is also incredibly common in theatre. In stage plays like The Cherry Orchard and A Doll's House, the action takes place in a fixed time and place, but backstory and character development are revealed through moments of high drama that occur before the audience's eyes.

For a deeper look at this structure, head to our full post on the Fichtean Curve.

6. Save the Cat Beat Sheet

Another variation of the three-act structure, this framework created by Hollywood screenwriter Blake Snyder, has been widely championed by storytellers across many media forms.

Fun fact: Save the Cat is named for a moment in the set up of a story (usually a film) where our hero does something to endear himself to the audience.

While many structures are reluctant to prescribe exactly when in a story the various beats should take place, Snyder and Save the Cat have no such qualms. The number in the square brackets below refers to the page that the beat should take place - assuming you're writing a 110-page screenplay.

Structure

1. Opening Image [1]. The first shot of the film. If you're starting a novel, this would be an opening paragraph or scene that sucks readers into the world of your story.

2. Set-up [1-10]. Establishing the 'ordinary world' of your protagonist. What does he want? What is he missing out on?

3. Theme Stated [5]. During the setup, hint at what your story is really about - the truth that your protagonist will discover by the end.

4. Catalyst [12]. The inciting incident!

5. Debate [12-25]. The hero refuses the call to adventure. He tries to avoid the conflict before they are forced into action.

6. Break into Two [25]. The protagonist makes an active choice and the journey begins in earnest.

7. B Story [30]. A subplot kicks in. Often romantic in nature, the protagonist's subplot should serve to highlight the theme.

8. The Promise of the Premise [30-55]. Often called the 'fun and games' stage, this is usually a highly entertaining section where the writer delivers the goods. If you promised an exciting detective story, we'd see the detective in action. If you promised a goofy story of people falling in love, let's go on some charmingly awkward dates.

9. Midpoint [55]. A plot twist occurs that ups the stakes and makes the hero's goal harder to achieve - or makes them focus on a new, more important goal.

10. Bad Guys Close In [55-75]. The tension ratchets up. The hero's obstacles become greater, his plan falls apart, and he is on the back foot.

11. All is Lost [75]. The hero hits rock bottom. He loses everything he's gained so far, and things are looking bleak. The hero is overpowered by the villain; a mentor dies; our lovebirds have an argument and break up.

12. Dark Night of the Soul [75-85-ish]. Having just lost everything, the hero shambles around the city in a minor-key musical montage before discovering some "new information" that reveals exactly what he needs to do if he wants to take another crack at success. (This new information is often delivered through the B-Story)

13. Break into Three [85]. Armed with this new information, our protagonist decides to try once more!

14. Finale [85-110]. The hero confronts the antagonist or whatever the source of the primary conflict is. The truth that eluded him at the start of the story (established in step three and accentuated by the B Story) is now clear, allowing him to resolve their story.

15. Final Image [110]. A final moment or scene that crystallizes how the character has changed. It's a reflection, in some way, of the opening image.

Some writers may find this structure too prescriptive, but it's incredible to see how many mainstream stories seem to adhere to it - either by design or coincidence. Over on the Save the Cat website, there are countless examples of films and novels analyzed with Snyder's 15 beats. You'll be surprised how accurate some of the timings are for each of the beats.

For a deeper dive into this framework, and to watch this video where Reedsy's Shaelin plots out a Middle-Grade fantasy novel using Snyder's method - head to our full post on the Save the Cat Beat Sheet.

7. Seven-Point Story Structure

A slightly less detailed adaptation of The Hero's Journey, the Seven-Point Story Structure focuses specifically on the highs and lows of a narrative arc.

According to author Dan Wells, who developed the Seven-Point Story Structure, writers are encouraged to start at the end, with the resolution, and work their way back to the starting point: the hook. With the ending in mind, they can have their protagonist and plot begin in a state that best contrasts the finale - since this structure is all about dramatic changes from beginning to end.

Structure

1. The Hook. Draw readers in by explaining the protagonist's current situation. Their state of being at the beginning of the novel should be in direct contrast to what it will be at the end of the novel.

2. Plot Point 1. Whether it's a person, an idea, an inciting incident, or something else - there should be a "Call to Adventure" of sorts that sets the narrative and character development in motion.

3. Pinch Point 1. Things can't be all sunshine and roses for your protagonist. Something should go wrong here that applies pressure to the main character, forcing them to step up and solve the problem.

4. Midpoint. A "Turning Point" wherein the main character changes from a passive force to an active force in the story. Whatever the narrative's main conflict is, the protagonist decides to start meeting it head-on.

5. Pinch Point 2. The second pinch point involves another blow to the protagonist - things go even more awry than they did during the first pinch point. This might involve the passing of a mentor, the failure of a plan, the reveal of a traitor, etc.

6. Plot Point 2. After the calamity of Pinch Point 2, the protagonist learns that they've actually had the key to solving the conflict the whole time.

7. Resolution. The story's primary conflict is resolved - and the character goes through the final bit of development necessary to transform them from who they were at the start of the novel.

For a deeper look into Wells's approach - including the key to using it - check out our full post on the seven-point story structure.

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: story structures aren't an exact science, and you should feel welcome to stray from the path they present. They're simply there to help you find your narrative's footing - a blueprint for the world you're about to start building.

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Story Structure: 7 Types All Writers Should Know

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Discover 7 of the most popular story structure models used by writers today. Suitable for authors, playwrights, and screenwriters.

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El proceso de creación de la mano del cineasta, Guillermo del Toro para la UOC.

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Consider what colours

Showcase relationship between the character and my personality

Play of 3

Difference between emotional responses and how they are translated through texture, materials etc

Write a play that you may direct and act out.

How can you deliver all the information in different formats and how this may communicate the evolution of something?

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Mastering the Film Color Palette: Guillermo del Toro

Vivid associative colors

For a man who has primarily dabbled in horror, del Toro is not afraid of bright, intense colors. He's particularly fond of primary colors, and very few of Guillermo del Toro movies can be found without his signature reds, blues, and yellows.

But for del Toro, it's not merely a matter of making a beautiful image, but telling a story. Colors are almost always associative in Guillermo del Toro movies.

They can represent places. the titular Crimson Peak.

They can represent character. In Hellboy: The Golden Army, you can see Hellboy's influence any time bright red appears on the screen.

They can also stand in for themes. Yellow often stands in for light and hope in Guillermo del Toro movies, while blues often (but not always) represent danger or death.

Most of the time, they do double or even triple duty. Take this image from Blade II.

The Pacific Rim director cut his teeth on Blade II. Get it?

Blade is often associated with the color black, although that's also a side effect of the Blade trilogy being made in the post-Matrix era of big leather coats. However, the Pan's Labyrinth director chose to saturate his world with blue.

Blue filters abound in Blade night scenes, even indoors. It's a deadly, cold world that Blade has chosen to commit himself too. He could walk in the day. Turn away from all the death that follows him.

It's his choice to stay here. To isolate and compartmentalize the human part of him, and these blues reflect that.

MASTERING THE FILM COLOR PALETTE: GUILLERMO DEL TORO

Balanced complementary colors

Guillermo del Toro movies are often about the clash of worlds. He can say a lot with a single color, but it's when colors collide that he really starts to tell the story.

His complimentary colors represent the balanced, yet competing worlds.

The day and the night in Blade. The mundane and the fantastical in Pan's Labyrinth.

Or this example from Hellboy: The Golden Army.

The weirdest meet-cute in all of Guillermo del Toro's movies. At least for now.

A major subplot in Hellboy: The Golden Army is the romance between the elven Princess Nuala and the telepathic merman Abe Sapien, and this is their initial meeting. Their "meet-cute".

To be clear, this is a different merman romance from Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of the Water.

Throughout the series, but especially in the second film, Abe is heavily associated with the color blue. Aside from being blue himself, his walkie-talkie code name is "Blue", and the tank he spends most of his time is a deep blue.

Nuala, on the other hand, is associated with yellow, particularly golden yellow.

The Pacific Rim director layers all scenes in the Fae world with rich golden yellows. These colors are meant to evoke the looming threat of the Golden Army. An unstoppable superweapon so terrible her people choose their own destruction rather than unleash it.

It's no coincidence that this scene consists of almost nothing but blues and yellows. Nuala is even wearing a blue dress under her golden shawl, while Abe has yellow-gold accents on his breathing apparatus.

Watch a little further, and you'll notice the only other colors the Pan's Labyrinth director slipped into the scene are the neutral blacks of Abe's bodysuit and a tiny flash of red on his belt that stands in for Hellboy and the BPRD.

This may be Hellboy's movie, but this scene is about Princess Nuala and Abe meeting. About their worlds' colliding.

MASTERING THE FILM COLOR PALETTE: GUILLERMO DEL TORO

Fantastic triadic colors

Above all else, Guillermo del Toro movies are known and beloved for their fantastical worlds. This is, after all, a man who's most grounded films are Pan's Labyrinth and Crimson Peak.

Guillermo del Toro movies utilize a rarely used color scheme known as " Triadic" to create these impossible worlds.

You probably best know it from the Richard Donner Superman. That balance of red, blue, and yellow in Superman's suit alone notifies you that this is a comic book movie.

Del Toro's genius lies in how he balances these colors so that they never seem overwhelming and always keep one foot in reality.

Take Pacific Rim as an example.

Pacific Rim, ostentatiously, takes place in our near future. Things haven't changed too much. People still generally dress the same. Countries and jobs feel familiar.

Except, of course, the fact that this is a world where giant fighting robots regularly slug it out with giant kaiju monsters in hand-to-hand combat.

Guillermo del Toro movies also frequently feature Ron Perlman.

Pacific Rim is known for its massive, jaw-dropping fights. This is a relatively sedate scene between Dr. Newton Gieszler and Hannibal Chau.

But look at the insane world of color the Pan's Labyrinth has painted for us. Not just Chau's ridiculous outfit, but the neon yellows and reds of the signs outside.

The intense reds of the decor inside. The bright flashing purple lights.

It's never overwhelming or distracting. It doesn't have the flat 4-color feel of older comic book movies. But these colors let you know that this is not our world.

It's a carefully crafted fantasy del Toro has made for us.

up next

How to Use Color in Film: 50+ Examples of Movie Color Palettes

As a filmmaker, del Toro is many things. But above all else, he is a world builder.

Guillermo del Toro movies take us to other worlds. To worlds that lie just beneath the surface of our own.

Like the comics, gothic novels, and horror movies that inspired the Pacific Rim director, these are worlds where every color has meaning. Mastering del Toro's color palette means mastering how colors tell stories.

Interested in learning more about how to use color in film? Check out our free ebook, and watch our Mastering the Film Color Palette series!

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How Guillermo del Toro Uses Color to Set Tone

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Guillermo del Toro movies take us to fantastical worlds through the use of vivid colors. Learn how you can master Guillermo del Toro's film color palette!

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While personality shows what you are outside or what you are to the world, character reveals what you are inside. As these are directly related to a person's attitude and behaviour, most people get confused between these two easily.

We all are same in many ways like we all have got the same human body, nature, feelings, mind and so on. But if you observe deeply you will find that every human being has certain different traits and habits that make him/her unique. It is a fact that two persons can never be exactly identical to each other, even if you talk about twins, they also differ more or less in their perception, hobbies, mood, nature, etc.

Take a read of this article in which we've simplied the difference between personality and character.

Content: Personality Vs Character

Comparison Chart

Definition of Personality

Personality can be defined as a combination of mental behaviour and traits or qualities like thinking pattern, feeling and acting. It is a range of enduring tendencies of an individual to think, feel and behave in a specific manner in diverse situations. It refers to the systematic arrangement of all your dispositions like attitude, thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc.

Definition of Character

By the term character, we mean an enduring and distinguishing mental and moral characteristics in an individual. It is the only factor which determines our reaction or response to the given event or situation. It defines a person's behaviour pattern, thinking style, controls feelings. It is based on the environment that surrounds us, mental ability, moral principles and similar other factors. It is the most precious thing possessed by a person, evidenced by the limits he/she never crossed.

Key Differences Between Personality and Character

The significant differences between personality and character are discussed in the following points:

1. Personality refers to the combination of qualities, attitude and behaviour, that makes a person distinct from others. Character refers to a set of moral and mental qualities and beliefs, that makes a person different from others.

2. Personality implies Who we seem to be? On the other hand, the character represents Who we actually are?

3. Personality is a set of personal qualities whereas character is a collection of mental and moral characteristics of an individual.

4. The personality is the mask or the identity of a person. Conversely, the character is the learned behaviour.

5. Personality is subjective, but the character is objective.

6. Personality is the outer appearance and behaviour of a person. At the same time, character indicates the traits of a person which are hidden from sight.

7. The personality of an individual may change with time. However, the character lasts longer.

8. Character requires validation and support of society. In contrast, the personality, does not need validation and support of the society.

Conclusion

After reviewing the above points, it is clear that personality is different from a character in a sense that personality reflects the outer shell, whereas the character, shows the inner self. If you combine your personality and your character, the result will be who you are in reality.

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Difference Between Personality and Character (with Comparison Chart) - Key Differences

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The basic difference between personality and character of a human being is that personality reflects the outer shell, whereas the character, shows the inner self. If you combine your personality and your character, the result will be who you are in reality.

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Introduction

Across millennia, humans have expressed themselves through the medium of art. Art is often considered to be a society's collective memory, preserving what fact-based historical records may not be able to-how it felt to exist in a particular time and in a particular space. More recently, the function of art to communicate and soothe, and to bring people together has been emphatically highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it is people singing to each other from their balconies1, musicians performing orchestral works over Zoom2, or artists tapping into their creativity to explain public health guidelines3, art has given hope and provided much-needed human connection, across geographic, racial, and cultural boundaries. In a world facing increasing societal stresses due to racism, political polarisation, xenophobia, and other geostrategic fractures, art proves its ability to bring people together.

In the words of Danish-Icelandic contemporary artist Olafur Eliasson, art "... helps us identify with one another and expands our notion of we-from the local to the global"4. Engagement with art is not always a solitary event. Instead, it represents one of the few areas in society where people can come together to share experiences even when they have radically different beliefs or worldviews. But to what extent can art really bind us together, and can it transcend boundaries of culture or country? Do we share much more than what divides us? Or do our in-group biases and preferences persist when watching dance performances or viewing paintings?

The degree to which aesthetic preferences are universal or shared across cultures, as opposed to being highly individual in nature and moderated by our in-group biases is an important question in empirical aesthetics. To date, however, little insight has been gained into the universality of psychological underpinnings of aesthetic appreciation, as most research has exclusively examined perceptions and preferences among Western European and North American populations5. Moreover, influence of the visual properties of the artwork (such as its content), as well as observers' attributes (such as their culture or art expertise) on aesthetic preferences have been extensively studied for the fine arts (including paintings, drawings and sculpture), while our knowledge of such attributes for other artforms remains limited (e.g.,). This is somewhat surprising, given the ubiquity and importance of a range of artforms beyond the fine arts, including music, theatre, poetry, and dance, across many cultures. The current work attempts to begin to bridge several of these considerable gaps in knowledge regarding the human aesthetic experience by one, evaluating whether universal primitives underpin people's appreciation in fine and performing arts; and two, examining the extent to which cultural background shapes these preferences. To accomplish this, we have combined paintings and dance choreography under a common analytical framework, with exemplars from "western" (Anglo-European) and "eastern" (Indian) artistic practices. Addressing the universality of aesthetic preference, and its modulation by expertise and culture in paintings and dance should lead to a better understanding and a fresh and culturally inclusive reconceptualization of long-debated issues in empirical aesthetics such as the nature of aesthetic judgements and evaluations, and how a beholder's attributes shape their aesthetic experience.

Theoretical accounts of aesthetic processing have proposed the influence of cultural contexts, as well as the differing meaning of beauty across cultures (e.g.,9). There is also some evidence to suggest cross-species universal aesthetic appreciation and perception of visual patterns such as symmetry10, and the universality of musical aesthetic processing (e.g.,11). However, our focus in the current empirical work is on cross-cultural differences (or similarities) in the visual (fine and performing) arts, specifically paintings and dance, and therefore we focus the following review of extant literature primarily on empirical cross-cultural investigations of paintings and dance.

The universality of the preference for representational art and its modulation by expertise

The creation and appreciation of art finds a place in all cultures, serving different social, religious, economic, and political functions12,13. If engagement with art is indeed universal, as has been argued, then it seems plausible that the processes underpinning aesthetic appreciation are also shared across cultures. Indeed, evidence suggests that people from different cultures base their aesthetic appreciation on a common set of features such as symmetry, contrast, colour, brightness, complexity, and proportion (for a review, see5). Nevertheless, on face value, nothing seems more subjective than the human appreciation of art. People differ in their aesthetic preferences-some may like contemporary art, while others have intense negative feelings toward it14. Previous work also demonstrates how individual differences such as art expertise, understanding, and knowledge, as well as personality traits influence aesthetic evaluations15,16,17,18.

Aesthetic judgements and ratings of visual art have also been found to be highly idiosyncratic depending on the content depicted in the art6,19, or the contextual framing with which artworks are introduced20. Across a range of studies, a number of research teams report that paintings and images with representational content, i.e. those depicting landscapes, people, still life scenes, and so on, are preferred and assigned higher ratings of aesthetic qualities such as beauty and liking, compared to paintings or images with abstract content that do not represent anything concrete or figurative6,8,17,21,22,23. Preferences for representational content are also more reliable and consistent compared to abstract content. For example, Schepman and colleagues show greater agreement across people for representational compared to abstract paintings and images, and the semantic associations generated by viewers for these artworks are also more convergent across individuals for representational art compared to abstract art6,23. One proposed explanation for this preference and agreement across viewers for representational content focuses on the meaningfulness of the depiction: people may prefer art that they find meaningful, and semantic associations may be better shared for meaningful stimuli compared to abstract ones21.

The meaning drawn from the content of an artwork also depends on the observer's experience, expertise, and knowledge of the artworks. Indeed, previous evidence has shown increased aesthetic ratings for abstract artworks among those with expertise and knowledge of art. Therefore, although a general preference for representational artworks compared to abstract artworks seems to exist, evidence also suggests that art expertise modulates this preference such that the preference for representational (compared to abstract) artworks among art experts is more attenuated than that reported among art-naïve participants. However, the universality of this preference for visual art can be contested on the grounds that all previous research in this domain has focused exclusively on static paintings or images, and the evaluations of participants from western cultures (primarily Western Europe and North America).

It is important to note that representational and abstract artworks are not restricted to the fine arts. Dance forms across many cultures also have both representational and abstract content, such as dance that involves movements, tropes, or symbols to depict certain social or cultural themes and characters (representational dance), and dance that is purely for an aesthetic but non-symbolic, non-representative purpose (abstract dance; ). Characteristics of a dance piece, such as its complexity, acceleration, predictability, uniformity, difficulty or reproducibility, movement amplitude, and evocativeness have been evidenced to predict the aesthetic ratings of dance. A growing body of research has focused on the characteristics of the observer or spectator such as their visual and motor expertise with dance, and familiarity and competency with the dance movement vocabulary and how this affects aesthetic ratings33,34,35,36,37. Similar to paintings, the aesthetic ratings for dance are also higher for dance experts, and are modulated by similar features such as evocativeness, familiarity, and complexity. Yet, the representativeness of the content of dance and its modulation by dance expertise has to date received little attention in dance, even though, like paintings, dance can be representative or abstract30.

Therefore, in the current study, to address our first research question, we use mixed effects models to test whether preferences for representational art shows evidence for cultural as well as artform universality, and is modulated in a similar manner by expertise across participants from Indian and Western cultures across the domains of paintings and dance. If a universal preference for representational visual art generalises across art forms (paintings and dance), we would expect to find a preference for representational paintings and dance over abstract paintings and dance, modulated by art/dance expertise such that this preference is attenuated among painting/dance experts compared to painting/dance naïve participants. In addition, a universal preference for representational art should also emerge across cultures, and be modulated by expertise in a similar way across participants belonging to different cultures.

It is possible that a preference for representational art may be because of the familiarity or complexity of a representational artwork compared with an abstract artwork, as opposed to the abstractness of the content itself. To isolate the abstractness of the content of the paintings, we also investigated whether the universal preference for representational art and its modulation by expertise would further persist above and beyond subjective ratings of complexity, familiarity, evocativeness, reproducibility, and technical competency that have been demonstrated to influence aesthetic ratings and preferences for paintings and dance.

The universality of the ingroup bias for visual arts and its modulation by expertise

Art across the world can differ in its subject matter, production methods, the role(s) played by the artist and the spectator, and its categorisation into different art forms and styles. Cultural differences can perhaps also explain why some artworks are thought to be beautiful to some spectators and not to others. Artists from diverse cultures often report distinct aesthetic experiences when looking at the same visual art displays, and use varied geometric and metaphorical perspectives to represent the visual world in their artworks, employing specific ways to depict spatial and temporal information. For instance, Western representational paintings can be very precise reproductions of the world at that time point, whereas in Indian and Chinese paintings, several periods of time can appear on the artwork at the same time7. Similarly, popular forms of Indian classical dance feature religious symbolism and depictions with a strong spiritual connection, whereas well-known western classical dance forms, such as ballet, do not40.

Previous studies investigating cultural differences in aesthetic appreciation of visual art have mainly focused on the visual processing of scenes and objects, and cultural similarities and differences in the processing of formal features such as colour perception and curvature39,41,42,43. In the domain of dance, research on cultural differences in dance appreciation is extremely sparse. One study to date has reported that Indian participants who had more visual experience or visual familiarity with Indian dance (Bharatanatyam) showed enhanced cortico-spinal excitability when viewing Bharatanatyam videos compared to Western dance (ballet) videos, whereas Western participants who have more visual experience with ballet showed higher cortico-spinal excitability when viewing ballet videos, suggesting enhanced motor resonance when watching a movement style that is more familiar44. However, the extent to which and how aesthetic preferences for dance might differ across cultures remains unstudied.

The few studies that have looked at the influence of cultural differences on aesthetic evaluations of artwork suggest that individuals show a preference for artworks that belong to their own culture, or correspond to their cultural traditions, compared to artworks that belong to another culture7,43. Specifically, Yang et al.43 found that Western participants showed higher valence values when viewing Western paintings, but Chinese participants did not show this effect. Bao et al.7 showed a double dissociation such that Chinese participants rated Chinese paintings higher on beauty compared to Western paintings, and Western participants rated Western paintings higher on beauty ratings compared to Chinese paintings. One explanation put forth for this double dissociation is a simple in-group bias45. Group biases (typically in-group favouritism and out-group dislike) are prevalent in day-to-day interactions wherein individuals show in-group favouritism for members of their own race, culture, ethnicity, and sex (e.g.,46,47,48,49,50). In a similar manner, individuals looking at artworks from their own culture may feel a sense of cultural identity and belongingness, and therefore rate it higher on aesthetic ratings compared to artworks from other cultures7. This preference can be implicit, i.e., when individuals are not explicitly aware that the painting belongs to their own cultural background. In contrast, the preference may only exist or be heightened when individuals have explicit knowledge of cultural closeness and can identify the painting as belonging to their own cultures.

The feeling of cultural identity, however, may not be uniform across participants with different levels of art experience, sensitivity, expertise, or knowledge. While previous research has not directly investigated the modulation of ingroup bias by the expertise of the spectator, some evidence suggests that people who are interested in art agree on their aesthetic judgements irrespective of their individual cultural backgrounds51,52. These studies, however, systematically manipulate only either the cultural background of the participants or artworks belonging to different cultures, but not both in the same experiment. Therefore, an intriguing open question remains whether a sense of cultural identity is higher in art naïve participants who may show a higher ingroup bias compared to experts who may show an attenuated ingroup bias compared to non-experts.

Therefore, to address our second research question, we use mixed effects models to test the extent to which an ingroup bias exists for both cultures such that Western participants prefer Western paintings and dance, and Indian participants prefer Indian paintings and Indian dance, compared to paintings and dance belonging to the other culture. We predict that art/dance expertise should modulate this ingroup bias similarly for both Indian and Western participants, such that experts should show no (or a reduced) preference compared to non-experts for paintings or dance belonging to their own culture compared to another culture. This ingroup bias and its modulation by expertise should further persist above and beyond the subjective ratings of complexity, familiarity, evocativeness, reproducibility, and technical competency that have been known to have an influence on aesthetic ratings and preferences of paintings and dance.

Methods

Open science statement

Across all experiments, we report how the sample size was determined, all data exclusions, and all measures used in the study53,54. For both experiments, data pre-processing, statistical analyses, and data visualisations were performed using R (R Core Team, 2018), unless otherwise specified. Following open science initiatives55, all raw data are available online for other researchers to pursue alternative questions of interest, along with analysis scripts and stimuli used ( https://osf.io/vtw54/). Data analyses for both experiments were preregistered on AsPredicted.org (Experiment 1: https://aspredicted.org/65Y_W6X, Experiment 2: https://aspredicted.org/VBB_T2F). The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available in the Open Science Framework (OSF) repository [ https://osf.io/vtw54/].

For both Experiments 1 and 2, mixed effects model analyses were executed using the ordinal package (v.2019.12-10) in R v.1.3.1093. (R Core Team). Post-hoc tests were executed using the emmeans package (v.1.5.1). We used an alpha of 0.05 to make inferences, and controlled for multiple comparisons using Tukey-HSD in post-hoc tests. Model fit was compared using the anova() function (Chi-square test).

Experiment 1-Paintings

Sample size justification

We determined the sample size based on a simulation-based power analysis approach using the simr R package56. First, we used pilot data (N = 22, 14 females, 10 art experts, Mean age = 29.71, SD age = 9.86) for beta weight estimation for the following linear mixed effects model: beauty ~ category*expertise + (1|subject) + (1|item). Second, we simulated data by extending along the sample size, i.e., as a function of different sample sizes. Our main focus was the interaction between the category of the painting and the art expertise of participants, and the power analysis suggested that we required a sample size of 50 participants (25 experts and 25 non-experts) with 35 items to have > 80% power to detect a significant category*expertise interaction (more details on the power analyses and the code can be found on OSF and in the supplementary material, see Figure S1). We therefore aimed to stop data collection when over 100 participants finished the entire survey, with an aim to recruit approximately 50 Indian participants and 50 Western participants with 25 experts and 25 non-experts within each culture.

Participants

Participants were recruited using the online data collection tool PsyToolkit57,58. Participants were primarily recruited from India and UK/Europe and classified into either Indian or Western culture participants (see Supplementary Table 2 for a geographic distribution of the sample) by advertisement on social media. All participants provided informed consent, and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Glasgow ethics review board (300190209), and all experiments were performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Participants were reimbursed with an Amazon gift card of either 6 GBP or Rs. 550 INR.

A total of 145 participants started the online experiment, with 113 participants completing the full experiment. Participants were excluded if they did not pass our attention check questions (see section " Tasks and Procedures"; N = 19), or did not provide required demographic information (age, gender, and culture; N = 2). The final sample consisted of 92 participants (17 males, 75 females; Mean age = 25.52, SD age = 3.96) which included 45 Indian participants (21 experts, 24 non-experts) and 47 Western participants (21 experts, 26 non-experts). All participants provided informed consent, and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision (a geographic distribution of the participant sample is provided in Table S2).

Stimuli

An independent sample of art naïve participants (N = 21, 13 females, Mean age = 29.14, SD age = 6.73) rated the first pool of images for abstract and representational paintings on familiarity, complexity, and evocativeness, and categorized them into 'abstract' or 'representational'. A total of 120 paintings were selected and resized to 500 × 500 pixels: 60 by Indian painters, 60 by Western painters, out of which 30 each were abstract and representational paintings. Paintings were categorized by the experimenters as either 'abstract' or 'representational' depending on the content of the painting. That is, paintings depicting representational or figurative content (such as still life or landscapes) were categorized as 'representational' and paintings depicting content that was abstract (or not representative of anything concrete or figurative) were classified as 'abstract.' Participants also categorized the paintings into whether they thought the painting was abstract or representational. The final stimulus set consisted of paintings with ratings most similar to each other on the three variables of familiarity, complexity, and evocativeness. These paintings were also accurately classified as either 'abstract' or 'representational' i.e. the categorization by the participants matched the categorization made by the experimenters (more details along with the analysis code can be found here: https://osf.io/vtw54/). The final stimulus set consisted of 35 paintings-10 Indian abstract, 8 Western abstract, 8 Indian representational, and 9 Western representational paintings (see Fig. 1; note that the number of stimuli is unbalanced across categories because of the type of analysis we used to balance paintings on the variables of familiarity, complexity, and evocativeness. See the Supplementary material for more information). The paintings were resized to 500 × 500 pixels, and matched for mean luminance using the SHINE toolbox in MATLAB59. Therefore, the final stimulus set was closely matched across all four categories of paintings (Indian Abstract, Indian Representational, Western Abstract, Western Representational) on variables of luminance, familiarity, complexity, and evocativeness (for mean ratings for each painting category, please refer to Table S1).

Categories of paintings and dance (abstract/representational) across different sources of painting or dance style (Indian/Western). Note: All images used in Figs. 1 and 2 are in the public domain, and/or we have informed consent from individuals for publication of their image in an online open access publication. Images used to depict abstract and representational paintings and dance in Figure 1 are not images of the actual stimuli used. Stimuli used in the current study are available online on the OSF.

Tasks and procedure

Participants completed two tasks-a rating task and a categorization task (see Fig. 2). In the rating task, participants saw a painting on the screen, and were asked to rate it on a 5-point likert scale from low (1) to high (5) with '1' corresponding to 'not at all', '2' corresponding to 'slightly', '3' corresponding to 'moderately', '4' corresponding to 'very', and '5' corresponding to 'extremely' on the following variables:

1. 1.
Familiarity (how familiar is the painting?)

2. 2.
Complexity (how complex is the painting?)

3. 3.
Evocativeness (how evocative or emotional is the painting?)

4. 4.
Abstractness (how abstract is the painting?)

5. 5.
Technical competency (how technically competent is the painting or the painter who made the painting?)

6. 6.
Beauty (how beautiful do you find the painting?)

7. 7.
Liking (how much do you like the painting?)

The order in which these questions were presented was randomized for each item, and the order in which the items (35 paintings) were presented was also randomized across participants. Two additional questions appeared randomly during the rating task which served as attention check questions: "how attentive are you while doing this experiment?" and "how honest are you while doing this experiment?" The 5-point likert scale remained the same as for the other variables. Participants who responded < 4 on the 5-point likert scale were excluded from the analyses.

In the categorisation task, participants categorized the same 35 paintings they saw during the rating task into either 'Indian' or 'Western' depending on whether they thought the painting was produced by a painter of Indian origin or a painter of Western origin. The order of the items (35 paintings) was randomized across participants. Participants also completed two questionnaires-the Art Experience Questionnaire60 to gauge their art expertise, and (unrelated to the current study) the Vienna Art Interest and Art Knowledge (VAIAK) questionnaire61. They were also asked if they were art professionals or not-participants were categorized as 'non-experts' if they were art naïve or had no experience or qualifications related to the arts, and participants were categorized as art 'experts' if they worked as art professionals or had completed their Masters in an arts-related field (fine arts, or arts history; detailed data of arts expertise in participants based on academic and professional qualifications, as well as their scores on the Art Experience Questionnaire, can be found on OSF). The experiment started with some demographic questions, the Art Experience Questionnaire, and then participants completed the rating task, the categorisation task, and the VAIAK questionnaire. The order of tasks and questionnaires remained constant across participants, and the tasks were self-paced. The entire experiment did not last for more than 60 min for most participants (Mean timetaken = 50.86 min, SD timetaken  = 39.25). The script used for online experiment presentation in Psytoolkit is provided on the OSF.

Data analysis

We recorded ratings for each item for each participant on all variables for the rating task. For the categorisation task, we recorded which items were classified as either Indian or Western by participants (source of painting as rated by participants). We also calculated accuracy by calculating the percentage of items that were correctly categorized as Indian or Western i.e. when the actual source of the painting matched the participant's response.

RQ1: Do expertise and culture influence aesthetic judgements of representational and abstract art (preregistered and confirmatory)?

Beauty and liking ratings were analysed separately. The current analyses differ from our pre-registered analyses in three ways:

1. 1.
Our study was powered to detect a category*expertise interaction with N = 50. We aimed to collect N = 50 for both cultures, and include the category*expertise*culture interaction as a fixed effect in the current model. We were able to collect N = 45 Indian and N = 47 Western participants i.e. a total N of 92 participants. Therefore, while we are powered to detect the category*expertise interaction in the total sample, we are not sufficiently powered to detect the three-way interaction of culture*expertise*category. Therefore, any findings we report are suggestive and exploratory, and not confirmatory.

2. 2.
We pre-registered a linear mixed effects analysis using the 'lme4' package in R62. However, because the data were ordinal in nature, we decided to analyse the ordinal data using cumulative link mixed models by using the 'ordinal' package in R63. Analysing the data using 'lme4' yielded similar results.

3. 3.
In the preregistered analyses, we included category (abstract, representational) and art expertise (expert, nonexpert) as categorical fixed effects of interest, and the by-subject and by-item intercept as a random factor for the model. However, given recommendations for the "keep it maximal" approach to multilevel modeling64, we further included the maximal number of random effects that the design permitted.

The categorical variables were coded using a deviation coding style where factors sum to zero and the intercept can then be interpreted as the grand mean and the main effects can be interpreted similarly to a conventional ANOVA65. As such, the categorical variables of category, expertise, culture, and source of painting were coded as 0.5 (representational/expert/Indian/Indian) and − 0.5 (abstract/nonexpert/Western/Western). An ordinal logistic regression was employed in the form of a cumulative-link mixed model (ordinal package, "clmm" function; 63) using logit (log-odds) as link, and flexible thresholds between the ordinal scores. We chose this approach because the dependent or outcome variables 'beauty' and 'liking' ratings were ordinal in nature (ratings on a Likert scale 1-5). The model thus measures the probability of specific ratings being above certain thresholds without the assumption that the thresholds are symmetric or equidistant from each other. In order to address our first question of interest i.e. whether representational and abstract art judgements are modulated by art expertise, and whether this is similar for both cultures, we included the three way interaction of category (abstract, representational), expertise (expert, nonexpert), and culture (Indian, Western) as a fixed effect in the model. For random effects, we included the maximal number of random effects that the design permitted. The complexity of the random structure was reduced if the results showed failure in model convergence or a singular fit. The final model used was -

$${\text{clmm(beauty}}/{\text{liking}} \sim 1 + {\text{category}}*{\text{expertise}}*{\text{culture}} + (1 + {\text{category}}|{\text{subject}}) + (1 + {\text{ culture}}*{\text{expertise}}|{\text{item}}),{\mathrm{link}} = {\text{``}}{\mathrm{logit}}{\text{''}},{\text{threshold}} = {\text{``}}{\mathrm{flexible}}{\text{''}})$$

To test whether category, expertise, and culture modulated beauty and liking ratings above and beyond the subjective factors that participants rated the paintings on (familiarity, complexity, evocativeness, technical competency), we further added the subjective variables as fixed effects to the model.

$${\text{clmm}}({\text{beauty}}/{\text{liking}} \sim {\text{category}}*{\text{expertise}}*{\text{culture}} + {\text{familiarity}} + {\text{evocativeness}} + {\text{complexity}} + {\text{technical competency}} + (1 + {\text{category}}|{\text{subject}}) + (1 + {\text{culture}}*{\text{expertise}}|{\text{item}}),{\text{link}} = {\text{``}}{\mathrm{logit}}{\text{''}},{\text{threshold}} = {\text{``}}{\mathrm{flexible}}{\text{''}})$$

RQ2: Does expertise shape the ingroup bias for aesthetic judgements (preregistered but exploratory)?

We preregistered the hypotheses for our second research question, but we note that the present study was not powered to detect a three-way interaction of culture, source of painting, and expertise. Therefore, any conclusions we draw from these analyses are exploratory and suggestive, and not confirmatory.

In order to investigate the ingroup bias in aesthetic judgements, we tested for an interaction between culture of participants and the source of painting, and how this was modulated by expertise. Beauty and liking ratings were analysed separately. The categorical variables were coded using a deviation coding style. As such, expertise, culture, and source of painting were coded as 0.5 (Indian/expert/Indian) and − 0.5 (Western/nonexpert/Western). In order to address our second question of interest i.e. whether the ingroup bias exists, and is modulated by art expertise, we included the three way interaction of source of painting (Indian, Western), expertise (expert, nonexpert), and culture (Indian, Western) as a fixed effect in the model. For random effects, we included the maximal number of random effects that the design permitted. The complexity of the random structure was reduced if the results showed failure in model convergence or a singular fit. The final model used was -

$${\text{clmm}}({\text{beauty}}/{\text{liking}} \sim {\text{source}}\_{\mathrm{of}}\_{\mathrm{painting}}*{\text{culture}}*{\text{expertise}} + (1 + {\text{source}}\_{\mathrm{of}}\_{\mathrm{painting}}|{\text{subject}}) + (1 + {\text{culture}}*{\text{expertise}}|{\text{item}}),{\text{link}} = {\text{``}}{\mathrm{logit}}{\text{''}},{\text{threshold}} = {\text{``}}{\mathrm{flexible}}{\text{''}})$$

To test whether source of painting, expertise, and culture modulated beauty and liking ratings above and beyond the subjective factors that participants rated the paintings on (familiarity, complexity, evocativeness, technical competency), we further added the subjective variables as fixed effects to the model.

$${\text{clmm(beauty}}/{\text{liking}} \sim {\text{source}}\_{\mathrm{of}}\_{\mathrm{painting}}*{\text{culture}}*{\text{expertise}} + {\text{familiarity}} + {\text{evocativeness}} + {\text{complexity}} + {\text{technical competency}} + (1 + {\text{source}}\_{\mathrm{of}}\_{\mathrm{painting}}|{\text{subject}}) + (1 + {\text{culture}}*{\text{expertise}}|{\text{item}}),{\text{link}} = {\text{``}}{\mathrm{logit}}{\text{''}},{\text{threshold}} = {\text{``}}{\mathrm{flexible}}{\text{''}}{)}$$

In the analyses above, the factor 'source of painting' was coded according to whether a painting was actually painted by an 'Indian' artist or a 'Western' artist. However, participants were not explicitly made aware while doing the rating task that the paintings were Indian or Western. If an ingroup bias does exist in this case, the preference for paintings from their own cultural background might be reported irrespective of whether participants can accurately identify the painting as Indian or Western in an explicit sense. In contrast, preferences for artworks from one's own culture may only arise or may be heightened when participants themselves classify the painting as 'Indian' or 'Western' and have an explicit knowledge of cultural closeness, irrespective of whether or not the paintings were actually made by an 'Indian' painter or 'Western' painter. In order to test this, we repeated the mixed effects model analyses with the factor 'source of painting-ppt' coded as 'Indian' or 'Western' as categorized by the participants in the categorisation task.

Experiment 2-Dance

Sample size justification

We determined the sample size based on a simulation-based power analysis approach using the simr R package56. First, we used pilot data (N = 21, 17 females, 12 dance experts, Mean age = 29.71, SD age = 9.86) for beta weight estimation for the following model: beauty ~ category*expertise + (1|subject) + (1|item). Second, we simulated data by extending along the sample size and plotted statistical power as a function of different sample sizes (see Figure S9; more details on the power analyses and the code can be found here: https://osf.io/vtw54/). Our main focus was the interaction between the category of the dance and the dance expertise of participants, and the power analysis suggested that we required a sample size of 50 participants (25 experts and 25 non-experts) with 38 items to have 80% power to detect a significant category*expertise interaction. We therefore aimed to recruit 50 Indian participants and 50 Western participants with approximately 25 experts and 25 non-experts in each culture.

Participants

Participants completed the experiment on Qualtrics. Participants were primarily recruited from India and UK/Europe and classified as either from Indian or Western culture (see the supplementary table S10 for a geographic distribution of the sample). All participants provided informed consent, and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Glasgow ethics review board (300190209), and all experiments were performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Participants were reimbursed with an Amazon gift card of either 6 GBP or Rs. 550 INR.

A total of 161 participants started the online experiment, with 110 participants completing the full experiment. Participants were excluded if they did not pass our attention check questions (see "section Tasks and procedure"; N = 16), and did not provide required demographic information (age, gender, and culture; N = 2). Two participants were further excluded as they did not fit in either the 'Indian' or 'Western' culture group of participants (a geographic description of our participant sample is provided in the Table S10). The final sample consisted of 90 participants (79 females, 8 males, 3 non-binary; Mean age = 25.94, SD age  = 7.51) which included 48 Indian participants (23 experts, 25 non-experts) and 42 Western participants (22 experts, 20 non-experts). All participants provided informed consent, and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.

Stimuli

We invited a professional dancer trained in classical ballet and Bharatanatyam, Sophia Salingaros66, to record Bharatanatyam and ballet dance videos. We recorded both ballet and Bharatanatyam dance videos featuring movement sequences that either were intended to represent something in the external world (e.g. humans, animals, birds, nature, etc.) or not represent anything in particular (pure dance, referred to as nrtta in Bharatanatyam, or non-representational abstract dance). The videos were edited in iMovie into 10-12 s clips, and the first 0.5 s of the video faded in, and the last 0.5 s faded out to a black screen. An independent sample of participants (all non-dancers, N = 13, 8 females, Mean age = 28.85, SD age = 8.93) rated the first pool of stimuli of abstract and representational dance videos on familiarity, complexity, and evocativeness. Out of a total of 91 videos (46 Bharatanatyam/Indian dance videos, out of which 18 were abstract, and 45 ballet/Western dance videos, out of which 25 were abstract), the final stimulus set was selected by selecting dance videos with ratings most similar to each other on the three variables of familiarity, complexity, and evocativeness (more details along with the analysis code can be found on the OSF). The final stimuli consisted of 38 dance videos-11 Indian abstract, 8 Western abstract, 11 Indian representational, and 8 Western representational dances, matched on the variables of familiarity, complexity, and evocativeness (see Supplementary Material for more details). Mean ratings for each video as rated in the pilot study are reported in Table S9, and all videos are available on the OSF.

Tasks and procedure

Participants completed two tasks-a Rating task and a Categorization task (see Fig. 2). In the rating task, participants saw a dance video on the screen, and were asked to rate it on a 5 point likert scale similar to Experiment 1 from low (1) to high (5) on the following variables:

1. 1.
Familiarity (how familiar is the dance?)

2. 2.
Complexity (how complex is the dance?)

3. 3.
Evocativeness (how evocative or emotional is the dance?)

4. 4.
Abstractness (how abstract is the dance?)

5. 5.
Technical competency (how technically competent is the dance?)

6. 6.
Reproducibility (how reproducible is the dance?)

7. 7.
Beauty (how beautiful do you find the dance?)

8. 8.
Liking (how much do you like the dance?)

9. 9.
Enjoyability (how much did you enjoy the dance?)

The order in which these questions were presented was randomized for each item, and the order in which the items (38 dance videos) were presented was also randomized across participants. Two additional attention check questions were also presented randomly during the task (same as Experiment 1) and participants who responded < 4 on the likert scale on these questions were excluded from the analyses.

In the categorisation task, participants categorized the same 38 dance videos they saw during the rating task into either 'Bharatanatyam' or 'Ballet' depending on whether they thought the dance was of Indian origin or Western origin (the instructions given to the participants were whether they thought the dance was ballet i.e., western classical dance/ of Western origin, or Bharatanatyam i.e., Indian classical dance/ of Indian origin). The order of the items (38 dance videos) was randomized across participants. Participants also completed a dance experience questionnaire similar to the Art Experience Questionnaire (60, see the supplementary material for the exact set of questions used to measure dance experience). Participants were asked if they were dance professionals or not-participants were categorized as 'non-experts' if they were dance naïve or had no experience with or qualifications related to dance, and participants were categorized as dance 'experts' if they worked as dance professionals or had more than 8 years of training in either ballet or Bharatanatyam (a detailed distribution of dance expertise in participants and their scores on the dance experience questionnaire can be found in the supplementary material). The experiment started with some demographic questions, followed by the rating task and the categorisation task. The tasks and questionnaires were self-paced, and the order remained constant across participants. The experiment was self-paced but lasted ~ 120 min for most participants (Mean time = 120.19 min, SD time  = 242.40). Results were similar when participants who were 3SD away from the mean time taken by participants to finish the experiment were excluded from the analyses.

Data analysis

The data analysis pipeline was the same as Experiment 1 with the following changes: 1) instead of categorizing paintings as Indian and Western, participants categorized dance as either Ballet or Bharatanatyam (labelled as 'dance style' instead of 'source of painting'; 2) we added two additional variables: enjoyability as a dependent variable, and reproducibility as a subjective variable. Therefore, the model with subjective variables for Experiment 2 includes reproducibility along with other variables (the same as Experiment 1), and analyses are performed separately for beauty, liking, and enjoyability dependent/outcome variables.

Results

Experiment 1-Paintings

Rating task

Mean ratings for familiarity, complexity, evocativeness, technical competency, beauty, liking, and abstractness across abstract and representational art for experts and non-experts of Indian and Western cultures and Indian and Western art are provided in Table S3 and in Figures S2- S8. To check whether participants perceived abstract and representational paintings as more abstract and less abstract respectively, participants were also asked to rate paintings on abstractness. Overall, a paired samples t-test suggested that participants rated abstract paintings (Mean = 4.08, SD = 0.52) higher on abstractness compared to representational paintings (mean = 1.94; SD = 0.55; t(91)  = 29.44, p < 0.001, 95% CI [2.01, ∞]; see Fig. 3).

Categorisation task

Accuracy on the categorisation task across category, source of painting, expertise, and culture are provided in Table S17. One sample t-tests suggested that for both Indian and Western paintings, participants could accurately categorise paintings as "Indian" or "Western" greater than chance (Indian paintings: Mean = 0.55, SD = 0.20, t(91) = 4.18, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.53, ∞]; Western paintings: Mean = 0.70, SD = 0.24, t(91) = 14.06, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.68, ∞]; see Fig. 4A). Accuracy for Western paintings was higher than Indian paintings (t (91) = 7.35, p  < 0.001, 95% CI [0.19, 0.11]).

RQ1: Do expertise and culture shape aesthetic judgements of representational and abstract art (preregistered and confirmatory)?

The results of a cumulative link mixed effects model for beauty and liking ratings showed that category (beauty: β = 1.32, p < 0.001; liking: β = 1.01, p < 0.001), culture (beauty: β = 1.09, p < 0.001; liking: β = 0.91, p < 0.001) the interaction between category and expertise (beauty: β = 1.12, p < 0.001; liking: β = 1.14, p < 0.001), the interaction between culture and category (liking: β = 0.60, p = 0.04) and the three-way interaction between category, expertise, and culture (beauty: β = 1.41, p < 0.001; liking: β = 1.26, p = 0.04) had an effect on the ratings of beauty and liking (Table S4). Post-hoc tests revealed that all participants (except Western experts) showed higher ratings of beauty and liking for representational paintings compared with abstract paintings, and overall ratings by Indian participants were higher than Western participants (see Table S8). Specifically, to test our hypothesis whether the difference in beauty and liking ratings of abstract and representational paintings would be higher in non-experts compared to experts, we computed an interaction contrast for both Indian and Western culture participants separately. The contrast revealed that the difference between beauty and liking ratings for abstract and representational paintings was higher in non-experts than experts, but only for Western participants (beauty: M = 1.83, SE = 0.42, p < 0.001; liking: M = 1.77, SE = 0.44, p < 0.001) and not for Indian participants (beauty: M = 0.42, SE = 0.43, p = 0.33, Fig. 5A; liking: M = 0.51, SE = 0.43, p = 0.24, Fig. 5 B).

As our study was powered to detect a two-way interaction between category and expertise, we additionally ran a model to test for this interaction for Indian and Western culture participants separately:

$${\text{clmm(beauty}}/{\text{liking}} \sim {\text{category}}*{\text{expertise}} + (1 + {\text{category}}|{\text{subject}}) + (1 + {\text{expertise}}|{\text{item}}),{\text{link}} = {\text{``}}{\mathrm{logit}}{\text{''}},{\text{threshold}} = {\text{``}}{\mathrm{flexible}}{\text{''}})$$

Similar to the above findings, we found that beauty and liking ratings were modulated by an interaction between category and expertise only for Western participants (beauty: β = 1.76, p < 0.001; liking: β = 1.66, p < 0.001), and not for Indian participants (β = 0.44, p = 0.32; liking: β = 0.53, p = 0.25; see Table S7).

Additionally, we added the subjective variables of familiarity, evocativeness, complexity, and technical competency as fixed effects to our main model to investigate whether the three-way interaction modulated beauty and liking ratings irrespective of the contribution of the subjective variables. As expected, all subjective variables predicted ratings of beauty and liking, with higher familiarity, complexity, evocativeness, and technical competency predicting higher ratings of beauty and liking. Adding the subjective variables significantly improved our main models (beauty: AIC main = 8492.53, AIC subj = 7035.66, p < 0.001; liking: AIC main = 8893.61, AIC subj = 7391.98, p < 0.001) and the three-way interaction of category, expertise, and culture influenced ratings of beauty even when accounting for possible contributions of subjective variables. For liking ratings, the three-way interaction estimate confidence intervals partially overlapped with zero but still influenced ratings of liking even when accounting for possible contributions of subjective variables (see Table S4; Fig. 6 A,B).

RQ2: Does expertise influence the ingroup bias for aesthetic judgements (preregistered but exploratory)?

The results of a cumulative link mixed effects model for beauty and liking ratings showed that source of painting (beauty: β = 1.05, p < 0.001; liking: β = 1.01, p < 0.001) and culture (beauty: β = 1.05, p < 0.001; liking: β = 0.91, p < 0.001) had an effect on the ratings of beauty and liking (Table S5). Specifically Indian paintings were liked more and rated as more beautiful than Western paintings by all participants. Indian participants (beauty: M = 0.43, SE = 0.23, 95% CI [− 0.03, 0.88]) showed higher ratings of beauty and liking for all paintings compared to Western participants (beauty: M = − 0.62, SE = 0.24, 95% CI [− 1.08, − 0.16]; p < 0.001). There was no evidence of an ingroup bias or its modulation by art expertise: there were no other significant main effects or two-way or three-way interactions (see Table S5, Fig. 7 A,B).

Similar to RQ1, we ran an additional model adding the subjective variables of familiarity, evocativeness, complexity, and technical competency as fixed effects. As expected, all subjective variables influenced the ratings of beauty and liking. Adding the subjective variables significantly improved our main models (beauty: AIC main = 8636.42, AIC subj = 7087.03, p < 0.001; liking: AIC main = 8893.61, AIC subj = 7391.98, p < 0.001). The main effects of culture (although marginally significant) and source of painting still influenced beauty and liking ratings even when accounting for the possible contributions of the subjective variables (see Table S5, Fig. 8 A,B).

Results were similar when the factor 'source of painting' was coded as either 'Indian' or 'Western' as categorized by the individual participants in the Categorization task (see Table S6, Figs. 9 and 10). That is, source of painting and culture influenced beauty and liking ratings, but no other two-way or three-way interactions were found. However, a visual inspection of the data suggests that although a three-way interaction did not pass our statistical threshold (i.e. p < 0.05), a trend for a three way interaction can be observed such that Western experts no longer showed higher ratings of beauty and liking for Indian paintings when paintings were categorized by the participants (see Figs. 7A,B, 9 A,B).

Experiment 2-Dance

Rating task

Mean ratings for familiarity, complexity, evocativeness, technical competency, reproducibility, and abstractness across abstract and representational dance for experts and non-experts of Indian and Western cultures for Bharatanatyam and ballet dance styles are provided in Table S11 and in Figures S10- S17. To check whether participants perceived abstract and representational dance as more abstract and less abstract respectively, participants were also asked to rate the dance videos on abstractness. Overall, a paired-samples t-test suggested that participants rated abstract dance videos (Mean = 3.16, SD = 0.76) higher on abstractness compared to representational dance (mean = 2.59; SD = 0.79; t(89) = 4.81, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.37, ∞]; see Fig. 3 B).

Categorisation task

Accuracy across dance style, category, expertise, and culture are provided in Table S18. One sample t-tests suggested that for both Indian and Western dance styles, participants could accurately categorise dance videos as "Bharatanatyam" or "ballet" greater than chance (Bharatanatyam: Mean = 0.93, SD = 0.14, t(89) = 43.08, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.91, ∞]; ballet: Mean = 0.91, SD = 0.16, t(89) = 35.24, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.89, ∞]; see Fig. 4B). There was no difference in accuracy for Bharatanatyam or ballet dance styles (t (89) = 1.13, p  = 0.26, 95% CI [− 0.01, 0.05]).

RQ1: Do expertise and culture shape aesthetic judgements of representational and abstract dance (preregistered and confirmatory)?

The results of a cumulative link mixed effects model for beauty, liking, and enjoyability ratings showed that culture (beauty: β = 0.75, p = 0.004; liking: β = 0.46, p = 0.07; enjoyability: β = 0.50, p = 0.06), category (beauty: β = 0.41, p = 0.06; liking: β = 0.51, p = 0.01; enjoyability: β = 0.43, p = 0.03) and dance expertise (beauty: β = 0.42, p = 0.09; liking: β = 0.62, p = 0.01; enjoyability: β = 0.63, p = 0.01) had an impact on the ratings of beauty, liking, and enjoyability. Ratings by Indian participants (beauty: M = 1.22, SE = 0.19, 95% CI [0.84, 1.59]; liking: M = 0.745, SE = 0.19, 95% CI [0.37, 1.10]; enjoyability: M = 0.75, SE = 0.20, 95% CI [0.36, 1.14]) were overall higher than ratings made by Western participants (beauty: M = 0.46, SE = 0.21, 95% CI [0.04, 0.88], p = 0.004; liking: M = 0.28, SE = 0.20, 95% CI [− 0.12, 0.68]; enjoyability: M = 0.25, SE = 0.21, 95% CI [− 0.16, 0.66]). Abstract dance videos (beauty: M = 1.04, SE = 1.87, 95% CI [0.68, 1.41]; liking: M = 0.76, SE = 0.18, 95% CI [0.41, 1.11]; enjoyability: M = 0.72, SE = 0.18, 95% CI [0.36, 1.08]) were rated as more beautiful, more enjoyable, and were liked more than representational dance videos (beauty: M = 0.63, SE = 0.19, 95% CI [0.26, 1.01], p = 0.06; liking: M = 0.25, SE = 0.18, 95% CI [− 0.10, 0.61]; enjoyability: M = 0.28, SE = 0.19, 95% CI [− 0.08, 0.65]). Dance experts (beauty: M = 1.05, SE = 0.19, 95% CI [0.68, 1.43]; liking: M = 0.82, SE = 0.19, 95% CI [0.45, 1.18]; enjoyability: M = 0.82, SE = 0.20, 95% CI [0.43, 1.20]) rated all dance videos higher on beauty, liking, and enjoyability than non-dancers (beauty: M = 0.63, SE = 0.21, 95% CI [0.22, 1.04], p = 0.09; liking: M = 0.20, SE = 0.20, 95% CI [− 0.20, 0.59]; enjoyability: M = 0.18, SE = 0.21, 95% CI [− 0.23, 0.59]). No other two-way or three-way interactions emerged for beauty and liking ratings (see Table S12 and Fig. 10A-C). A two-way interaction between category and culture influenced enjoyability ratings (enjoyability: β = 0.51, p = 0.05). Post hoc tests revealed that abstract dance videos (M = 0.59, SE = 0.23, 95% CI [0.13, 1.05]) were rated as more enjoyable compared to representational dance videos (M = − 0.09, SE = 0.24, 95% CI [− 0.57, 0.38], p  = 0.005) only by Western participants and not by Indian participants.

As our study was powered to detect a two-way interaction between category and expertise, we additionally ran a model to test for this interaction for Indian and Western culture participants separately:

$${\text{clmm}}({\text{beauty}}/{\text{liking}}/{\text{enjoyability}}\sim {\text{category}}*{\text{expertise}} + (1 + {\text{category}}|{\text{subject}}) + (1 + {\text{expertise}}|{\text{item}}),{\text{link}} = {\text{``}}{\mathrm{logit}}{\text{''}},{\text{threshold}} = {\text{``}}{\mathrm{flexible}}{\text{''}})$$

For Indian participants, dance expertise had a marginal effect on ratings of beauty, liking, and enjoyability, with expert dancers showing higher ratings than non-dancers (beauty: β = 0.59, p = 0.08; liking: β = 0.68, p = 0.04; enjoyability: β = 0.67, p = 0.07), and for Western participants, abstract dance videos were rated as more beautiful, were liked more, and were rated as more enjoyable than representational dance videos (beauty: β = 0.58, p = 0.04; liking: β = 1.01, p = 0.005; enjoyability: β = 0.69, p = 0.054; see Table S15). No two-way interaction between category and art expertise emerged.

Additionally, we added the subjective variables of familiarity, evocativeness, complexity, reproducibility, and technical competency as fixed effects to our full model to investigate whether the main effects of category, expertise, and culture modulated beauty, liking, and enjoyability ratings irrespective of the contribution of the subjective variables. As expected, all subjective variables predicted ratings of beauty, liking, and enjoyability with higher familiarity, complexity, evocativeness, reproducibility, and technical competency predicting higher ratings of beauty, liking, and enjoyability. Adding the subjective variables significantly improved our main models (beauty: AIC main = 8469.90, AIC subj = 7001.71, p < 0.001; liking: AIC main = 8862.6, AIC subj = 7307.13, p < 0.001; enjoyability: AIC main = 8889.0, AIC subj = 7366.1, p < 0.001). Dance expertise influenced beauty, liking and enjoyability ratings, and category influenced liking and enjoyability ratings, even when accounting for possible contributions of subjective variables. In this particular analysis, we did not find that culture particularly influenced beauty, liking, and enjoyability ratings suggesting that the effects of subjective variables could perhaps explain the effect of culture seen in the main models (see Table S12, Fig. 11 A-C).

RQ1: The effect of category, expertise, and culture. For the outcome variables of beauty ( A), liking ( B), and enjoyability ( C) beta estimates for the main model (in aqua blue) and the model with subjective variables (in purple) are plotted for each predictor variable (fixed effect) along with their corresponding uncertainties (95% confidence interval width for a normal distribution for each estimate). Distributions are rescaled to match the height of each distribution.

RQ2: Does expertise influence the ingroup bias for aesthetic judgements (preregistered but exploratory)?

The results of a cumulative link mixed effects model for beauty and liking ratings showed that culture (beauty: β = 0.70, p = 0.006; liking: β = 1.01, p = 0.09; enjoyability: β = 0.47, p = 0.07), dance expertise (liking: β = 0.58, p = 0.02; enjoyability: β = 0.60, p = 0.02) the two-way interactions of dance style and expertise (beauty: β = 0.65, p = 0.01; liking: β = 0.69, p = 0.02; enjoyability: β = 0.53, p = 0.06), and dance style and culture (beauty: β = 0.77, p = 0.006) and the three way interaction of dance style, expertise, and culture (beauty: β = 1.32, p = 0.01; liking: β = 1.30, p = 0.02; enjoyability: β = 1.36, p = 0.01) had an effect on the ratings of beauty, liking, and enjoyability (Table S13). Specifically, while the two-way culture by dance style interaction suggests that Western participants rated ballet as more beautiful than Bharatanatyam, and Indian participants rated Bharatanatyam as more beautiful than ballet, post hoc tests revealed than an ingroup bias was present such that only Western non-experts showed higher ratings of beauty, liking, and enjoyability for ballet (beauty: M = 1.01, SE = 0.34, 95% CI [0.34, 1.67]; liking: M = 0.46, SE = 0.35, 95% CI [− 0.24, 1.15] ; enjoyability: M = 0.27, SE = 0.34, 95% CI [− 0.39, 0.93]) compared to Bharatanatyam (beauty: M = − 0.18, SE = 0.35, 95% CI [− 0.86, 0.50], p < 0.001; liking: M = − 0.35, SE = 0.37, 95% CI [− 1.08, 0.38], p = 0.05; enjoyability: M = − 0.31, SE = 0.37, 95% CI [− 1.03, 0.42], p = 0.05; see Table S13, Fig. 12 A-C).

The effect of dance style (Bharatanatyam or ballet depicted in red and blue respectively), expertise (art experts or non-experts) and culture (Indian participants or Western participants) on the ratings of beauty ( A), liking ( B), and ( C) enjoyability.

Similar to RQ1, we ran an additional model adding the subjective variables of familiarity, evocativeness, complexity, reproducibility, and technical competency as fixed effects. As expected, all subjective variables influenced the ratings of beauty and liking such that higher ratings of familiarity, evocativeness, complexity, technical competency, and reproducibility predicted higher ratings of beauty and liking. Adding the subjective variables significantly improved our main models (beauty: AIC main = 8636.42, AIC subj = 6977.28, p < 0.001; liking: AIC main = 8743.3, AIC subj = 7241.4, p < 0.001; enjoyability: AIC main = 8814.7, AIC subj = 7307.7, p < 0.001). Importantly, the three-way interaction still influenced beauty, liking, and enjoyability ratings even when accounting for the possible contributions of the subjective variables (beauty: β = 0.84, p = 0.06; liking: β = 0.99, p = 0.05; enjoyability: β = 0.98, p = 0.05); see Table S13, Fig. 13 A-C).

RQ2: The effect of Expertise, Culture, and Dance Style. For the outcome variables of beauty ( A), liking ( B), and enjoyability ( C) beta estimates for the main model (in aqua blue) and the model with subjective variables (in purple) are plotted for each predictor variable along with their corresponding uncertainties (95% confidence interval width for a normal distribution for each estimate). Distributions are rescaled to match the height of each distribution.

Results were similar when the factor 'dance style' was coded as either 'Bharatanatyam' or 'ballet' as categorized by the individual participants in the Categorization task (see Table S14, Figures S19- 21).

Art expertise and art experience questionnaires

We also computed art/dance expertise scores using the Art Expertise Questionnaire for paintings (art expertise, Table S19) and dance (dance expertise, Table S20) between Indian and Western experts and non-experts for Experiments 1 and 2. Independent samples t-tests suggested that experts (Experiment 1: Mean = 31.43, SD = 9.66; Experiment 2: Mean = 14.44, SD = 5.13) scored higher than non-experts (Experiment 1: Mean = 14.02, SD = 5.94; Experiment 2: Mean = 8.95, SD = 4.79) on the art expertise questionnaires (Experiment 1: t(90) = 10.58, p < 0.001, 95% CI [14.14, 20.68]; Experiment 2: t(88) = 5.25, p < 0.001, 95% CI [3.41, 7.57]). Expertise scores for Indian experts (Experiment 1: Mean = 31.19, SD = 9.65; Experiment 2: Mean = 14.48, SD = 4.91) and Western experts (Experiment 1: Mean = 31.67, SD = 9.91; Experiment 2: Mean = 14.41, SD = 5.47) were not significantly different from each other (Experiment 1: t(40) =  − 0.16, p = 0.87, 95% CI [− 6.57, 5.62]; Experiment 2: t(43) = 0.04, p  = 0.96, 95% CI [− 3.05, 3.19]).

Demographic variables

For both Experiments 1 and 2, and RQ1 and RQ2, our findings were similar even when accounting for the demographic variables of age and education. That is, even when age and level of education were included in the models as control variables, our findings were similar to those reported above. We do not report these analyses in the main manuscript as they were not a part of our preregistered analyses but provide these data online for researchers to pursue related questions of interest.

Discussion

The aim of the current work was to evaluate the extent to which people show universal aesthetic preferences across fine and performing arts, and to examine the extent to which one's cultural background and experience with an art form shape these preferences. Across two experiments analysed using mixed effects models, we investigated whether the nature of aesthetic preference and the role of expertise in aesthetic judgements generalises across artforms (paintings and dance) and cultures (Indian, Western). As hypothesized, we found a preference for representational art (only for paintings) and an ingroup bias (only for dance), both modulated by painting/dance expertise. In both cases, however, the modulation by expertise emerged only among Western participants, and both the preference for representational art and an ingroup bias for aesthetic judgement did not manifest across artforms (paintings and dance) in a similar manner. In the following sections, we evaluate and position our findings within a broader context, and discuss implications for the field of empirical aesthetics in particular, and psychology more generally.

The preference for representational art and its modulation by expertise

In Experiment 1, we found that participants belonging to either Indian or Western cultures prefer representational paintings more than abstract paintings. Representational paintings were assigned higher ratings of beauty and liking compared to abstract paintings, consistent with previous research reporting a preference for representational compared to abstract images and paintings6,8,17,21,22,23. Furthermore, art expertise modulated beauty and liking ratings for representational and abstract paintings in the current study. As hypothesized, and in accordance with previous work, beauty and liking rating differences between representational and abstract art were smaller among art experts compared to non-experts17,24,25,26. This modulation, however, was present only among our Western participant sample. While both Indian experts and non-experts showed higher ratings of beauty and liking for representational paintings compared to abstract paintings, the difference between ratings for representational and abstract paintings did not differ across Indian experts compared to non-experts. In other words, the preference for representational paintings was more attenuated for Western experts compared to Western art naïve participants, but this attenuation did not emerge among the expert Indian participants.

While we expected a similar pattern of results across Indian and Western participants, to the best of our knowledge, all prior research investigating the modulation of art expertise on aesthetic ratings of abstract and representational art has solely examined participants from Northern America or Western Europe. The modulation of art expertise could represent a lower preference for representational art by experts compared to non-experts, a higher preference for abstract art by experts compared to non-experts, or a combination of both. Figure 5 suggests that the interaction between category of the painting (representational or abstract) and the expertise of the participants (experts or non-experts) in Western compared to Indian participants might be driven by lower ratings of beauty and liking for representational paintings by Western experts (or higher ratings for representational paintings by Indian participants).

One possible explanation for the three-way interaction between culture, category, and expertise could therefore be the familiarity and representativeness of the paintings for Indian and Western participants. It is possible that Indian participants are more familiar with the representative content of both Indian and Western paintings to a greater extent because of their exposure to Western culture in mainstream media7. Further, Western art forms a major part of the syllabus for art education in India, whereas exposure to Indian art and culture may be more limited in Western art education67. Indian participants may consequently report higher ratings for representational paintings from both Indian and Western painters compared to Western participants if we assume that higher familiarity with a painting leads to higher aesthetic ratings. While this explanation seems unlikely as the three-way interaction of culture, category, and expertise holds even when accounting for the contribution of the familiarity of the painting to the spectator, it remains possible that the meaningfulness of the representative content differs for Indian and Western art experts. Another possible explanation is that Indian experts do not show a preference for abstract art to the same degree as Western participants. Indeed, Fig. 5 suggests that the difference between Indian expert and non-expert ratings of abstract paintings is lower compared to Western participants. A key point of consideration here is the abstract-representational categorisation of paintings, which is not perceived similarly across cultures. In contrast to the Euro-American idea that abstraction is purely a formal phenomenon (related to the form and composition of a painting), abstraction in Indian art is considered more of a rupture in a narrative or a form of symbolism68. Therefore, it is possible that Indian experts might have perceived all abstract paintings differently than Western expert participants. An additional point of consideration here is the personality dimension of openness to experience. Previous evidence suggests an association between openness to experience and a preference for abstract art as well as novelty in art69. It is possible that some of our between-culture differences can be explained by this personality construct i.e., Indian art experts may score lower on the dimension of openness to experience, and therefore show a smaller preference for abstract art compared to western art experts who score higher on this dimension. However, previous research provides mixed evidence for cross-cultural differences in openness to experience70,71. Similarly, socioeconomic status and social class have been known to influence aesthetic preferences72. An important avenue for future research would be to explore the link between preferences for abstract art and their link to individual differences such as social class, socioeconomic status, and the personality dimension of openness to experience across different cultures.

In contrast to the findings from Experiment 1, we did not find a preference for representational dance in Experiment 2. Instead, participants from both Indian and Western cultures rated abstract Indian and Western dance videos higher on ratings of beauty and liking compared to representational Indian and Western dance videos. This preference for abstract dance was not modulated by expertise or culture, except for a modulation of enjoyability ratings by culture. Specifically, western participants enjoyed abstract ballet more than representational ballet (but Indian participants did not show this preference). Replicating previous findings that suggest experts show higher aesthetic ratings for artworks (e.g.,25,72), we also found a main effect of dance expertise such that dance experts belonging to either Indian or Western culture reported overall higher ratings for the dance videos than dance naïve participants (c.f.16). Indian participants showed higher overall ratings of beauty, liking, and enjoyability for all dance videos compared to Western participants.

While we preregistered an expectation for similar findings be across both paintings and dance, our results are perhaps not that surprising, given differences between the fine arts and performing arts. Researchers have argued that "all visual art must obey the laws of the visual system"73 implying common neurobiological underpinnings of perceiving paintings and dance74. However, painting is a static form whereas dance is dynamic, although both can convey cultural and social stories and contexts, and have the potential to evoke aesthetic responses75. Further, representativeness these two art forms is conveyed differently. Figure 3A,B suggest that both abstract and representational paintings and dance videos were rated as significantly different from each other on abstractness ratings. But representational paintings can be a realistic representation of the visual world, and dance may convey objects or characters in the outside world using symbols and gestures, making its abstractness or representativeness more ambiguous, especially for dance-naïve spectators. Indeed, in our study, the difference in abstractness ratings between abstract and representational art was higher in paintings than in dance, suggesting a more clear-cut categorisation between abstract and representational paintings compared to abstract and representational dance. At the centre of much debate, especially in the context of Western ballet and modern dance, has been the distinction between abstract and representational dance. While existing in theory, its mutual exclusiveness in actual practice (or performance) is more difficult for viewers to discern. In other words, even in the most narrative, dramatic, and expressive sequence, the structure of the choreography is driven both by formal, abstract features as well as its narrative content. In the same vein, any abstract dance will still involve some communication, representation, or expression, also because it involves a human body in motion (and the perception of the human body in motion by the spectators79).

The ingroup bias and its modulation by expertise

Contrary to previous research and our predictions, we found no evidence of an ingroup bias for paintings in Experiment 1. Participants did not assign higher ratings to paintings belonging to their own cultural background compared to those belonging to another cultural background. Instead, overall aesthetic ratings assigned by Indian participants were higher than those assigned by Western participants, and Indian paintings overall were rated higher on beauty and liking compared to Western paintings by both Indian and Western participants. Findings were similar when the source of painting was categorised by the participants themselves. However, Fig. 7 shows that while all participants rated Indian paintings higher on beauty and liking, the difference in ratings between Indian and Western paintings among Western participants reduced when participants themselves categorised the paintings as 'Indian' or 'Western.' This observation suggests an attenuation of the preference for Indian paintings among Western participants when cultural background is explicitly referenced (although it remains important to note that an interaction between culture and source of painting was not statistically significant). The current results overall point toward an absence of the ingroup bias when aesthetically evaluating paintings, both when participants were not explicitly aware that the paintings belonged to their cultural background, and when they identified the painting as belonging to their own cultures.

Our results contradict previous (albeit limited) research that suggests people prefer artworks belonging to their own culture or country. Indian paintings used in the current study were more contemporary than Western paintings. Therefore, it is possible that more recent paintings were perhaps more relatable and therefore showed higher ratings of beauty and liking. However, all paintings were matched on mean luminance, and the absence of ingroup bias persisted even when controlling for other subjective variables such as familiarity, evocativeness, complexity, and technical competency, and accounted for within-participant and within-item variance in our mixed effects models. While it is unlikely that an absence of an ingroup bias, and higher overall ratings for Indian paintings compared to Western paintings by both Indian and Western participants, were due to differences between Indian and Western paintings on luminance or subjective variables, it remains possible that other low-level features such as contrast, symmetry, and so on may explain differences between Indian and Western paintings.

We further speculate that Indian participants assigned overall higher ratings because they have more experience with both Indian and Western paintings (compared to Western participants for whom the content and style of the Indian paintings is relatively less familiar; 67). It is however also possible that overall higher ratings for Indian paintings by both Indian and Western participants can also be a result of more openness toward Indian culture by Western participants. Given the growing multicultural natures of western societies, it is plausible that Western cultures in general are more open or exposed to non-western cultures81. Another possible explanation is the "uncertainty-identity" hypothesis proposed by Mastandrea and colleagues80. In their recent study, Mastandrea and colleagues propose that national identity may be used to a greater extent as a heuristic to evaluate art when there is uncertainty about oneself. That is, when participants are less experienced or less familiar with art but still need to form an artistic opinion, they resort to group identification to resolve their uncertainty. In the current work, it is possible that participants in the first experiment (both experts and non-experts) were more familiar and experienced with art (and therefore had more information to form their evaluation) compared to participants in previous research that show an ingroup bias in art evaluation. Moreover, eastern artworks are also often considered more "exotic", a symbol of splendour and opulence, compared to their western counterparts82. This could in part explain the bias toward Indian paintings in general found in the current work. Overall, however, the absence of an ingroup bias in Experiment 1 suggests that individuals share aesthetic preferences and experiences when evaluating artworks belonging to different cultures, and are not reliably biased by ingroup favouritism when viewing paintings.

In contrast to findings from Experiment 1, but in line with our hypotheses, in Experiment 2, we found an ingroup bias such that Indian participants preferred Bharatanatyam more than classical ballet, while Western participants preferred ballet over Bharatanatyam. This ingroup bias was modulated by dance expertise. Consistent with our preregistered hypotheses, non-experts showed an ingroup bias in the predicted direction (ingroup favouritism), while this bias was absent among expert participants. This modulation by expertise, however, was only present among our Western participant sample, and did not emerge among the Indian participants. The modulation of expertise in Experiment 2 may be explained by the uncertainty-identity hypothesis where national or cultural identity may be used as a heuristic to evaluate art when one is uncertain about one's opinions due to a lack of experience or familiarity. Therefore, experts do not show an ingroup bias as they do not need to use an additional heuristic to base their evaluations on, whereas non-experts identify with a group and show ingroup favouritism to resolve their uncertainty80.

Similar to the first research question, while we expected the modulation of expertise to manifest similarly across cultures, we only found expertise modulation among our Western participant sample. In order words, both dance naïve and dance expert participants among our Indian participant sample preferred Bharatanatyam to ballet. No difference emerged in the ingroup bias between the two expertise groups. If we assume that non-experts identify with a group and show ingroup favouritism to resolve their identity, a lack of modulation by expertise in our Indian participants suggests that our Indian experts may continue to use an identity heuristic to evaluate artworks, and therefore prefer Bharatanatyam over ballet. Whether this is because of more experience in Bharatanatyam and/or lower experience with ballet is a question for future research. Another possible but less likely explanation for the discrepancy between cultures relates to the dancer featured in the stimuli we created for the current study. Our dancer (who is trained in both Bharatanatyam and ballet dance styles) wore Indian clothing (a kurta and leggings) but is of western origin. It is possible that even at this very subtle level, ingroup judgement by participants of Indian or Western origin might have been reinforced to different degrees. Future research should investigate this possibility with multiple dancers.

An important point of consideration is the multi-dimensional nature of aesthetic ratings. For instance, how "beauty" is defined may differ between cultures, and liking something because one feels a sense of national/cultural identity may be different to liking something that feels exotic. That is, even with similar Likert ratings for liking, the aesthetic experience of Indians when liking an Indian painting might be different to the aesthetic experience of Western participants when liking an Indian painting. A considerable but important challenge for future investigations into multicultural aesthetic experiences will be to tease apart different kinds of aesthetic experiences by using indicators that overcome limitations of the Likert-type scales used in the current work.

The modulation of the ingroup bias by dance expertise has important implications for the field of social psychology more generally. As we become increasingly more aware of ingroup biases and prejudices, attempts are being made to counter them. This is especially the case in professional settings and areas where such biases may lead to overt discrimination and poor outcomes in healthcare, law enforcement, education and additional contexts (see83 for a review). The modulation by dance expertise of an ingroup bias that we report here highlights the importance of knowledge-based and educational interventions, training, and exposure to different art styles (or cultures, languages, or practices) to help reduce biases against the less familiar. One exciting avenue for future research could be to investigate whether expertise in arts (or training in arts knowledge, or exposure to art) transfers to other domains and leads to a reduction of ingroup biases in non-art contexts. Given that the arts create a snapshot about a culture and society in a particular point in time, place, and context, multicultural art education holds great potential to reduce stigmatisation of other cultures, groups, positions and worldviews, a position advocated by researchers in previous work on art education (e.g.,84), and further supported by the current findings.

It is further important to note that no significant difference between Indian and Western participants emerged among the scores on the painting/dance experience questionnaires across both experiments. Thus, a lack of modulation by expertise in both Experiments 1 and 2 in the Indian context cannot be explained by a difference in expertise between the two cultures.

Conclusion

More than a decade ago, in a seminal paper titled "The Weirdest People in the World?", Heinrich and colleagues highlighted the variability in populations across the world in major domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of motivation, behaviour, and psychology85. Samples drawn from Northern America and Western Europe (which is the case for most previous research in empirical aesthetics) are hardly reflective of the entire population and cannot be used to justify that a behavioural phenomenon is universal. The current cross-cultural investigation thus begins to illuminate which features and aspects of aesthetic experience endure across culture (in this case, primarily Western European and Indian cultures). Across these two cultures, we found a preference for representational fine arts and abstract performing arts. We also found that ingroup biases emerged between cultures when evaluating the performing arts but not the fine arts. Both the preference for representational fine art and an ingroup bias for dance were modulated by prior relevant artistic expertise only for Western participants. Thus, the evidence reported here highlights that both cultural specifics and anthropological universals of human art creation and appreciation exist, and are aesthetically relevant across the fine and performing arts, as well as Indian and Western cultures. In an increasingly divided and fractured world where many seek to fortify boundaries based on culture, race, and country, our results point to the potential of art and art experience as a unique equaliser that can bind people together.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Social Robots team and the Social Brain in Action Lab for helpful discussions throughout this project and gratefully acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement number 677270 to E. S. C.), and the Leverhulme Trust (PLP-2018-152 to E. S. C). We also thank Bharatanatyam and ballet dancer Sophia Salingaros for help with stimuli creation for this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

1. Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

Kohinoor M. Darda & Emily S. Cross

2. Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

Kohinoor M. Darda & Emily S. Cross

3. Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Kohinoor M. Darda

4. MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia

Emily S. Cross

Contributions

K.D. and E.C.: Conceptualization, Methodology; K.D.: Data curation and analysis, Writing- Original draft preparation. K.D.: Visualization, Investigation. E.C.: Supervision. K.D. and E.C.: Writing- Reviewing and Editing.

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Correspondence to Kohinoor M. Darda or Emily S. Cross.

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Darda, K.M., Cross, E.S. The role of expertise and culture in visual art appreciation. Sci Rep 12, 10666 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-14128-7
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The role of expertise and culture in visual art appreciation - Scientific Reports

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Is art appreciation universal? Previous evidence suggests a general preference for representational art over abstract art, and a tendency to like art originating from one's own culture more than another culture (an ingroup bias), modulated by art expertise. However, claims about universality are difficult given that most research has focused on Western populations.

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A Helpful Way to Conceptualize and Understand Reenactments

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A Helpful Way to Conceptualize and Understand Reenactments

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Michael S. Levy, Ph.D.

Abstract

Attempts to understand the purpose and the etiology of reenactments can lead to confusion because reenactments can occur for a variety of reasons. At times, individuals actively reenact past traumas as a way to master them. However, in other cases, reenactments occur inadvertently and result from the psychological vulnerabilities and defensive strategies characteristic of trauma survivors. This article offers a means to conceptualize and understand the many ways in which reenactments can occur. Psychotherapeutic strategies are offered to help individuals integrate past traumas and decrease their chances of becoming involved in destructive reenactments.(The Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research 1998; 7:227-235)

Victims of trauma often experience a wide range of psychiatric symptoms, including intrusive recollections of the trauma, numbing and avoidance of stimuli associated with it, anxiety, hypervigilance, and other symptoms indicative of increased arousal.1⁻3 Many individuals re-create and repetitively relive the trauma in their present lives.1⁻6 These phenomena have been called reenactments.5 For example, it has been found that women who were sexually abused as children are more likely to be sexually or physically abused in their marriages.7 It has been noted that traumatized individuals seem to have an addiction to trauma.8 A number of researchers have observed that retraumatization and revictimization of people who have experienced trauma, especially trauma in childhood, are all too common phenomena.7,9,10

Several ideas have been suggested to explain the phenomenon of reenactments. Some conceive reenactments as spontaneous behavioral repetitions of past traumatic events that have never been verbalized or even remembered.11,12 Patients may express their internal states through physical action rather than with words.13,14 Freud15 noted that individuals who do not remember past traumatic events are "obliged to repeat the repressed material as a contemporary experience, instead of . . . remembering it as something belonging to the past" (p. 12). He further hypothesized that the obligatory repetition of painful situations from one's past may result from the death instinct or "an urge inherent in organic life to restore an earlier state of things" (p. 30). Indeed, it has been noted that the compulsion to repeat may have an almost biological urgency.11 Others suggest that reenactments result from the psychological vulnerabilities characteristic of trauma survivors.5,7,14,16 As a result of a range of ego deficits and poor coping strategies, trauma survivors can become easy prey for victimizers. Other writers understand reenactments as a means of achieving mastery: a traumatized individual reenacts a trauma in order to remember, assimilate, integrate, and heal from the traumatic experience.1,12,17,18

A definitive understanding of reenactments and the function they serve remains elusive. Herman5 has written that there is something uncanny about reenactments. While they often appear to be consciously chosen, they have a quality of involuntariness. In addition, although it has been theorized that reenacting a past trauma is a way an individual attempts to master it, lifelong reenactments and reexposure to trauma rarely result in resolution and mastery.8,17 Understanding and addressing the fact that traumatized people typically lead traumatizing lives remains a great challenge.6

Reenactments can arise from very different underlying dynamics and can result in vastly different outcomes. Thus, an understanding of the purpose of reenactments must be multidimensional. A conceptualization and understanding of the many different ways in which reenactments can occur will also help to shed light on why traumatized individuals often do not achieve mastery and will help to organize and focus clinical intervention.

In this article I have broken down reenactments into four general categories. In the first, reenacting as an attempt to achieve mastery, individuals more actively reenact a traumatic situation from their past. Some of these efforts are adaptive resolutions of earlier traumas; others, however, are reflective of a maladaptive process and can lead to continued revictimization and difficulties. In the other three types of reenactments, I suggest that reenactments occur in inadvertent and unintentional ways. In reenactments caused by rigidified defenses, defenses lead to reenactments and to the problems that the original defenses sought to avoid. With reenactments caused by affective dysregulation and cognitive reactions, these intense affective and cognitive reactions get responded to by other people, which can lead to a reenactment. Finally, with reenactments caused by ego deficits, trauma survivors' psychological vulnerabilities can lead to reenactments and revictimization. This classification admittedly is somewhat artificial, since elements from several categories often play a role in the manifestation of a particular reenactment. The categories are not all-inclusive, and there are other ways to conceptualize reenactments. However, this breakdown illustrates the various ways that reenactments can evolve.

Reenactments as an Attempt to Achieve Mastery

Individuals may actively reenact elements of a past traumatic experience as a way to cope with and master it. At times, the attempt is an adaptive process that facilitates the successful resolution and working through of the earlier trauma. In other cases, however, the effort to master the trauma is a maladaptive mechanism and the strategy results in continued distress and difficulties for the individual.

The distinction between adaptation and maladaptation can be difficult to make, since all coping mechanisms are inward struggles to adapt to life and to master its challenges.19 In addition, because trauma can affect many spheres of functioning, the individual may have adaptively mastered certain aspects of the trauma, but in other areas the resolution may be less than adequate. For example, Peck20 described an individual who was violently beaten as a child and who adaptively mastered this trauma by becoming a homicide detective and having a driven search for crime. However, despite his effective mastery in the vocational realm, his intimate relationships were marked by competitiveness, detachment, and underlying terror.

Notwithstanding this difficulty, adaptation can be distinguished from maladaptation in that adaptive responses are characterized by a more flexible coping style, they are motivated more by the present and future than by the past, and they make use of secondary process thinking.19,21 In addition, with adaptation, emotions stemming from the past are less overwhelming and destabilizing, and overgeneralized negative schemas about self and others have been altered.22,23 As Pine24 has noted, these adaptive changes enable the person "to respond to the present free of the categories of experiencing laid down in the past" (p. 175).

Reenacting Indicative of Adaptation

It has been suggested that actively reenacting a past trauma can provide an opportunity for an individual to integrate and work through the terror, helplessness, and other feelings and beliefs surrounding the original trauma.1,12,17,18 Freud posited that mastery could be achieved by actively repeating a past uncontrollable and unpleasurable experience.15 Control can slowly be reestablished by repeatedly experiencing what once had to be endured.21,25 For example, a woman who was sexually abused as a child and who, as a result, was terrified of physical contact involved herself in massage therapy training. Placing herself in a situation reminiscent of her past trauma and exploring her massage therapy experiences in psychotherapy enabled her to work through her overwhelming affect related to her past sexual abuse and diminished her fear of physical contact. We can also see this process in normal grief work: reexperiencing the feelings of grief, telling stories about a lost loved one, and repeatedly confronting every element of the loss until the intensity of the distress has remitted can enable the individual to assimilate the event and to work through the feelings surrounding the trauma.26

Psychotherapy can also help individuals to more fully work through and effectively master a previous trauma. With the adjunct of therapy and the benefit of insight, the detective mentioned earlier20 who adaptively coped with past physical abuse by becoming a detective and taking on highly risky situations began to exercise better judgment and no longer felt as strongly compelled to take on situations involving physical risk.

Reenacting Indicative of Maladaptation

In many cases, actively reenacting a past trauma can be more reflective of a maladaptive defensive posture than an adaptive process. For example, many childhood victims of sexual abuse become abusers of others.27,28 In these cases, reenacting past abuse by becoming an active abuser is a defensive stance that ensures that the terror and helplessness related to the old traumatic situation or relationship do not get reexperienced. In addition, the abusive act allows the individual to express and direct rage at others. This way of being in the world is an attempt to master the previous trauma, but it is a maladaptive one because it does not result in a reworking and integration of the individual's traumatic past and it victimizes others in the process.

Childhood sexual abuse has also been linked to prostitution in adulthood.29,30 Chu17 describes a woman who explained her prostitution as a way to control men through sex and as an attempt to have active control of a previously passively experienced victimization. Although this has explanatory value, it is a maladaptive resolution of the earlier sexual abuse. The woman is now controlling rather than being controlled, but the old drama of past object relations is still being played out in the present. An adaptive mastery of the earlier conflict has not been achieved; men are still feared, they still need to be controlled, and revictimization often continues to occur.

An individual may also seek out a person who is like a past abuser and reenact a past traumatic relationship out of a need to change the other person in order to feel better about herself. For example, a woman who was abused by her father and who blamed herself for this found herself in a relationship with an abusive man. The woman's unconscious attraction to this person was rooted in a desire to get him to treat her well, which, if successful, would have ameliorated her feelings of self-blame and badness. She never succeeded, however, and a reenactment occurred. Although her effort was an attempt to master an earlier conflict, it was a maladaptive one: she continued to be involved in a destructive relationship where her needs were never met.

Trauma survivors may also be drawn to establish relationships that are similar to past significant relationships because there is comfort in familiarity. For example, a man who was emotionally abused by his aloof, distant mother ends up in a relationship with a woman with similar traits. Another woman who was sexually abused by her father and brothers acts in sexually provocative ways with others. It has been found that when animals are hyperaroused, they tend to avoid novelty and perseverate in familiar behavior regardless of the outcome. However, in states of low arousal they seek novelty and are curious.31 For many victims of childhood abuse, dealing with other people on an intimate basis is a high-arousal state because past relationships have been marked by terror, anxiety, and fear. As a result, when establishing relationships, they avoid novelty and form relationships that, even if destructive, are similar to past ones. Maladaptive reenactments can also occur because a person seeks out and "chooses" a powerful, caretaking (and sometimes abusive) figure to solidify a shaky self-concept and a fragile sense of self.5,16,23 In addition, survivors of childhood abuse who suffer from self-hatred, an internal sense of badness, and a sense that they deserve mistreatment may gravitate to others who resonate with this negative self-concept, and past experience can then be recapitulated.17

Reenactments Caused by Rigid Defenses

As suggested above, individuals for various reasons often actively reenact elements of past traumatic relationships. However, even when there is no active reenactment of a past trauma, a person's defensive armor and rigid way of defending against the reexperiencing of traumatic affect can inadvertently lead to a reenactment. As Krystal32 has noted, "Among the direct effects of severe childhood trauma in adults is a lifelong dread of the return of the traumatic state and the expectation of it" (p. 147). People learn how to avoid their ultimate dread through rigid characterological changes,14 which are the mental "fingerprints" of who they are. Unfortunately, inflexible and rigid defenses can lead to the very problems that the original defenses attempted to avoid.

As an example, a man who was constantly preoccupied with abandonment because his mother abandoned him and his family when he was a young boy continued to be plagued by unresolved dependency concerns. To ensure that he was never again abandoned, he developed extremely possessive and clinging relationships with women. Since the man was so suffocating, women typically left him, and he reexperienced the pain of abandonment again and again. Through his own behavior, which was designed to prevent loss, abandonment, and terror, he inadvertently caused a reenactment to occur. Another woman who had a rejecting relationship with her father coped with her fear of again being rejected by establishing relationships with "losers" she did not really love. Although these "losers" did not meet her emotional needs, which was a reenactment of her past relationship with her father, she avoided her greatest fear, namely rejection by someone whom she truly loved. In these cases, reenactments occurred in paradoxical ways: through efforts to avoid an overwhelming, disintegrating state of trauma, these individuals made decisions and choices that backfired and led, after all, to reenactments.

Reenactments Caused by Affective Dysregulation and Cognitive Reactions

Trauma survivors who have not integrated past feelings surrounding the trauma can become flooded and overwhelmed by them.33 Intense anger, disappointment, and fear can be triggered in interpersonal relationships, and the present situation can be perceived and responded to in the same way as the old trauma.5,14 For example, a man who had not worked through his parents' neglect of him became flooded with rage, hurt, and disappointment when a friend failed to return a phone call. The man understood this omission as proof that he was not cared about, which was a reenactment of his earlier relationship with his parents. The man then withdrew from his friend, which further re-created his isolation and loneliness.

Reenactments may also occur when an individual reexperiences and expresses intense feelings from the past that are then reacted to by another. For example, a woman who was physically abused by her father when she was a child continued to feel rage and anger. Her father also used to criticize her, which made her feel worthless. As well as having a fragile self-esteem and extreme sensitivity to criticism, this woman often perceived harsh criticism even when it had not been expressed. In her current relationships with men, when she received any criticism she overreacted and reexperienced her rage, which she expressed in vicious and hostile ways. Not only did this frequently cause her relationships to end in fights, but often the verbal fights would turn physical and the woman would again be abused.

Understanding reenactments in this fashion should not be construed as imposing blame on trauma survivors for their victimization. There can be no justification for the abuse of others, and victimizers must always take responsibility for their actions. These examples are offered to demonstrate that in select situations, depending on who is encountered and what defenses are put into use, a reenactment can develop when unresolved feelings and beliefs resulting from past traumatization are reexperienced in the present.

Reenactments Caused by General Ego Deficits

Deep-seated disturbances in identity, self-concept, and security in the world can also render individuals vulnerable to being enticed by others who resonate with and counter these ego deficits. Because of early trauma, a person can feel helpless, fragile, and out of control. In turn, the person may be extremely susceptible to anyone who can take control, who can gratify dependency needs, and who can elegantly counter the individual's extreme sense of powerlessness, insecurity, and vulnerability.5 In this regard, Kluft16 has discussed incest survivors who became sexually victimized by their therapists.

Implications for Treatment

Ongoing reenactments are a reflection that a patient is continuing to act in stuck and rigidified ways. In addition, reenactments often lead to revictimization and related feelings of shame, helplessness, and hopelessness. Consequently, an important goal of treatment is facilitating an understanding and control of reenactments. Reenactments are caused in part by powerful unconscious forces that must eventually be verbalized and understood. Thus, in order to address reenactments and to break their repetitiveness, the therapist should help the individual to understand why they occur. However, before proceeding into this phase of treatment and exploring past traumatic relationships and experiences, the therapist must first have achieved a strong and solid therapeutic alliance with the patient.35 In addition, the patient's safety must be firmly established, and any acute problem areas, such as chemical abuse problems or ongoing self-destructive behavior, need to be stabilized.5 Once these issues have been resolved, exploratory therapy may begin.

As the patient becomes aware that a pattern of dysfunction is evident, the therapist can suggest that it might be useful to try to understand this. Using as a framework the categories of reenactments that have just been discussed, the therapist can explore which of them could be playing a role in a particular patient's reenactment. It will generally be more helpful to intimate that a pattern of destructive interaction appears to be occurring and to then explore how this takes place than to suggest that the patient is reenacting a trauma. Furthermore, even if the reenactment is due to a more active process, the patient is not truly reenacting a past trauma, but rather a traumatic relationship. Consequently, in such cases it will be more productive to suggest this latter process, which is closer to the patient's subjective experience.

An example is the therapy of a man who came for treatment because he had been feeling uncontrollably angry. He reported that he had been raised by an extremely physically abusive mother and a distant, removed father. He had been in therapy previously and felt that he had worked through many of his past issues, which indeed he had. As therapy progressed, it became evident that much of his rage was due to mistreatment and emotional abuse by his lover, which appeared to be a reenactment of his past relationship with his mother. When he recounted interactions when his lover had treated him "like dirt," he displayed little affect and often shrugged it off even when his friends made comments to him about his lover's mistreatment of him. As his nonchalance and his tendency to block off emotion were pointed out to him, he was able to see how he tended to brush off his feelings, and he recognized how he had learned to do this at an early age to tolerate his mother's abusive behavior toward him. This led to an exploration of his early childhood environment, and over time he became significantly more aware of his feelings. He learned to attend to them and to use his feelings as a guide for action. He eventually left his lover because he no longer wanted to be the recipient of the lover's abuse.

Patients will eventually come to see that whereas their feelings, beliefs, and ways to defend against overwhelming terror were appropriate and justified in the past, such intense feelings and defensive operations may no longer be as necessary. Through a painstakingly close examination of the individual's past and a process of allowing the patient to experience the intensity of the old traumatic feelings within the safety of the therapeutic relationship, the patient is given the opportunity to integrate the entire traumatic experience.36

Wolf37 has articulated this process in the following way: "A patient's self is strengthened by re-experiencing the archaic trauma, with its associated affects, in the here-and-now of a therapeutic situation that allows an integrating and self-enhancing restructuring of the self" (p.20103). Once the trauma has been integrated, the patient's feelings will be less intense and more manageable, and the person will be able to exercise better judgment as well as use less rigid defenses.

Although some patients may not have the ego strength or desire to explore early traumatization, therapy can still be of considerable benefit. Even without a full reworking of the individual's past traumatization, reenactments can be stopped by helping the patient to respond differently in the world through behavioral and cognitive change.

Throughout the course of therapy, the therapist's own countertransferential feelings should be examined and used to help understand patients' problems with reenactments. Boredom, anger, rage, or sexual feelings experienced throughout the course of therapy can be useful in understanding what patients engender in others that may play a role in the reenactments they experience. Without blaming patients for their reenactments, therapists can help them to better understand their vulnerabilities and how they may contribute to their own exploitation.

For example, a 32-year-old female patient with a long history of childhood sexual abuse noted to her therapist that she had been abused in many of her past relationships. In the early course of therapy, the therapist began to explore with her how it was that others took advantage of her, which did not prove to be particularly productive. As the therapy progressed, however, the therapist became aware of his own wish to take control of the patient's life, to rescue her, and to tell her what to do. When he examined these feelings, he became more cognizant of how timid and frail the patient's presentation was, and he decided that it would helpful to explore this. He began by inquiring how the patient imagined others viewed her. With specific questions about whether she thought others viewed her as powerful or powerless, the patient eventually began to better understand how she presented to others, which, in turn, played a role in her victimization. The therapist's awareness of his own feelings when working with the patient was the catalyst for this line of questioning that enabled the therapy to progress.

Whatever tools are used, the healing that needs to occur is not a short-term process. Successful clinical work can take years because the goals are to help patients work through overwhelming affect, modify their internal object relationships and cognitive structures, and change their basic ways of being in the world. Such work is necessary, however, if we are going to diminish their vulnerabilities and decrease their chances of getting involved in destructive reenactments.

Summary

In this article I have proposed a useful way to codify and conceptualize reenactments and offered strategies for addressing them in the therapeutic process. Although trauma survivors may actively reenact elements of past traumas, reenactments can also occur in inadvertent ways that result from psychological vulnerabilities and defensive strategies. In addition, although an active reenacting of a past traumatic situation may reflect an adaptive process, in other cases it may be a maladaptive defensive strategy that can cause the individual repeated difficulties. Understanding the many different ways in which reenactments can arise will help to focus and sharpen clinical intervention.

References

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2. Kardiner A: The Traumatic Neuroses of War. New York, P Hoeber, 1941

5. Herman JL: Trauma and Recovery. New York, Basic Books, 1992

6. van der Kolk BA, McFarlane AC: The black hole of trauma, in Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society, edited by van der Kolk BA, McFarlane AC, Weisaeth L. New York, Guilford, 1996, 3-23

7. Russell DEH: The Secret Trauma: Incest in the Lives of Girls and Women. New York, Basic Books, 1986

8. van der Kolk BA, Greenberg MS: The psychobiology of the trauma response: hyperarousal, constriction, and addiction to traumatic reexposure, in Psychological Trauma, edited by van der Kolk BA. Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Press, 1987, 63-87

10. Briere J, Runtz M: Post sexual abuse trauma, in Lasting Effects of Child Sexual Abuse, edited by Wyatt GE, Powell GJ. Newbury Park, CA, Sage, 1988, 85-100

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12. Miller A: Thou Shalt Not Be Aware, translated by Hannum HH. New York, Meridian, 1984

13. van der Kolk BA: The complexity of adaptation to trauma: Self-regulation, stimulus discrimination, and characterological development, in Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society, edited by van der Kolk BA, McFarlane AC, Weisaeth L. New York, Guilford, 1996, 182-213

14. Terr L: Too Scared To Cry. New York, Harper and Row, 1990

15. Freud S: Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), translated and edited by Strachey J. New York, WW Norton, 1961

16. Kluft RP: Incest and subsequent revictimization: the case of therapist-patient exploitation, with a description of the sitting duck syndrome, in Incest-Related Syndromes of Adult Psychopathology, edited by Kluft RP. Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Press, 1990, 263-287

18. Janet P: Psychological Healing, vol 1 (1919), translated and edited by Paul E, Paul C. New York, Macmillan, 1925

19. Vaillant GE: Adaptation to Life. Boston, Little, Brown, 1977

20. Peck EC: The traits of true invulnerability and posttraumatic stress in psychoanalyzed men of action, in The Invulnerable Child, edited by Anthony EJ. New York, Guilford, 1987, 315-360

21. Anthony EJ: Risk, vulnerability, and resilience: an overview, in The Invulnerable Child, edited by Anthony EJ. New York, Guilford, 1987, 3-48

22. van der Kolk BA, McFarlane AC, der Hart O: A general approach to treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder, in Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society, edited by van der Kolk BA, McFarlane AC, Weisaeth L. New York, Guilford, 1996, 417-440

23. McCann IL, Pearlman LA: Psychological Trauma and the Adult Survivor. New York, Brunner/Mazel, 1990

24. Pine F: Developmental Theory and Clinical Process. New Haven, CT, and London, Yale University Press, 1985

25. Fenichel O: The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. New York, WW Norton, 1945

26. Parkes CM, Weiss RS: Recovery from Bereavement. New York, Basic Books, 1983

27. Goodwin J, McCarthy T, DiVasto P: Physical and sexual abuse of the children of adult incest victims, in Sexual Abuse: Incest Victims and Their Families, edited by Goodwin J. Boston, Wright/PSG, 1982, 139-153

28. Kaufman J, Zigler E: The intergenerational transmission of child abuse, in Child Maltreatment: Theory and Research on the Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect, edited by Cicchetti D, Carlson V. Cambridge, UK, and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1989, 129-150

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Articles from The Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research are provided here courtesy of American Psychiatric Publishing

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A Helpful Way to Conceptualize and Understand Reenactments

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Attempts to understand the purpose and the etiology of reenactments can lead to confusion because reenactments can occur for a variety of reasons. At times, individuals actively reenact past traumas as a way to master them. However, in other cases, reenactments ...

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Cover image via

A look into the thematic filmmaking techniques used (and mastered) by Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro.

I distinctly remember the first time I saw a Guillermo del Toro movie. I was in high school and hadn't been exposed to much "cinema" beyond summer blockbusters and what you might catch on basic cable television. Needless to say, watching Pan's Labyrinth for the first time was quite a revelation into what movies could offer in terms of masterful storytelling, beautiful cinematography, and yes, even nightmarish trauma.

Del Toro is one of the most unique, successful filmmakers in modern cinema. His accolades include ( but are certainly not limited to) Oscars, BAFTAs, Ariels, and a spot in the Fangoria Horror Hall of Fame. He's found both critical and commercial success with original projects like Pan's Labyrinth, Pacific Rim, and The Shape of Water, and he's a go-to shepherd for global IPs like (2004), and .

At the heart of each of del Toro's projects, many of the same filmmaking motifs exist. Del Toro puts a lot of himself into his films and often uses many similar thematic techniques from one project to the next. By going through some beautifully crafted video essays, let's explore how the great Guillermo del Toro uses color, objects, and trauma in his films.

Guillermo del Toro's Color Palette

Starting off, we're going to look at how Guillermo del Toro uses color in his films. Like many directors, del Toro certainly has his preferences; many of his films employ the same dark, muted, earth-toned looks for his characters, creatures, costumes, and designs.

However, despite adding a bit of normalcy to his fantastical creations, he still follows many of the rules of color theory by combining an array of associative colors, complementary colors, and triadic colors in his films and compositions.

These different color techniques are used for a wide variety of reasons-developing character, reflecting the inner spirit, and conveying emotion. He even develops themes of balance as these colors play off each other in every shot. If you'd like to learn more about how to use color in your projects, then these resources are for you:

The Use of Violence in Film

While it's not really accurate to say that del Toro makes "violent" films, violence certainly plays a part in del Toro's approach to storytelling, especially as a means to demonstrate power and evil. In the well-presented Screened video essay above, you'll see examples and explanations of the many different types of violence found in del Toro's work.

There's a lot to say about violence in cinema, pro and con. Regardless, if you use violence in your own projects, look to del Toro as an example of how to do it with sophistication and in service of story.

Monsters and Character Design

Del Toro's films are legendary for their iconic creatures, fantastic monsters, and uncanny characters, from the Judas breed in to the faun in Pan's Labyrinth to the Amphibian Man in The Shape of Water. But, it takes more than eye-catching concept art to bring these creatures to life.

Del Toro puts it best in the above video essay from kaptainkristian: "If a monster stays the same throughout the film, there's no sense of drama in the image." And while production elements like wardrobe, color, and lighting "all exist to give oxygen" to a character's design, these fantastic creatures only work because of how they're woven into the story and themes of the film.

Using Objects to Tell a Story

As the YouTube channel Little White Lies points out, Guillermo del Toro's fetish for symbolic talismans is an ever-present element of his storytelling. When these items are on screen, meaning abounds.

Whatever the object-be it a key, a suitcase, or, frequently, a clock-any item carried by a del Toro character is a vital glimpse into how that character operates both internally and externally. More accurately, it's the character's connection to the item, not the item itself, that symbolizes their best and worst qualities as they move toward liberation or doom.

Movies, by nature, are meant to be both fantastical and dreamlike. Del Toro is truly a master at understanding this and subverting our expectations when we sit down for one of his films. One of his greatest tricks is deceiving audiences into believing certain objects are more important than they appear.

As a filmmaker, in writing, direction, and editing, this is a solid case study into how we should build up and give power to different objects, characters, etc. within our own films. Del Toro seldom lets even the tiniest on-screen detail go by without developing its backstory and inertia in order to contribute to the greater narrative and theme.

Trauma and Other Themes

Many of the themes del Toro explores in his films are indeed at the heart of his own personal thoughts and feelings. In particular, del Toro has devoted a number of his films to exploring the repressed trauma from different wars, often focusing on the Spanish Civil War, in particular.

It's impossible to say exactly how del Toro views himself as a filmmaker and how he might choose to develop his stories. But, it's likely that-both consciously and subconsciously-his films are a way for him to work through his own personal trauma while exploring the collective ones we all share.

For more director profiles and general filmmaking advice, check out these articles:
Cover image via Netflix.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Guillermo del Toro Uses Color, Objects, and Trauma in His Films

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A look into the thematic filmmaking techniques used (and mastered) by Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro.

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How Guillermo Del Toro Uses Violence | Video Essay

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How Guillermo Del Toro Uses Violence | Video Essay

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How Guillermo Del Toro Uses Violence | Video Essay

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How Guillermo del Toro Deals With Trauma

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Guillermo del Toro el discurso en el cine academia cinemedia

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Vende tu historia a Hollywood masterclass Guillermo del Toro

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RECURSOS NARRATIVOS - Cómo CONTAR UNA HISTORIA interesante ✅

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The Craft of the Director: Guillermo del Toro

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Guillermo del Toro is the master of dark fantasy

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Guillermo del Toro is the master of dark fantasy

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Guillermo del Toro is the master of dark fantasy

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R.E.M. - Losing My Religion (Official Music Video)

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Aqua - Barbie Girl (Official Music Video)

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Los Del Rio - Macarena (Bayside Boys Remix)