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Just found out pigeons can tell the difference between a Picasso and a Monet, and now I'm second guessing my whole art degree
Honestly I was scrolling through a random article at like 1am and it said researchers in Tokyo trained pigeons to peck at one painter's work over another, and they got it right about 90% of the time. So a bird with a brain the size of a peanut can sort art styles better than half the people in my intro drawing class back in 2016. My take is that maybe art snobbery is way more made up than we want to admit, but tell me I'm wrong, does this change how you think about who gets to judge art?
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nancyj111mo ago
My cousin actually worked at a zoo for a few years and she told me they had to stop doing certain tests with the birds because the pigeons kept outsmarting the keepers. So this Tokyo thing does not even surprise me one bit. Here is the thing though, being able to sort pictures into two piles is not the same as understanding what makes a painting good or why it moves you. A pigeon can learn "peck this one for a snack" and still not know a thing about color or light or sadness. What it really tells me is that spotting patterns is cheap, and humans are pattern machines too, which is why so many people nod along at galleries without feeling anything. The part that matters is the slow work of looking and asking why something hits you, and that takes way more than a peanut brain and a treat. So no, it does not change who gets to judge art, it just shows that sorting is the easy part. Did the article say if they could still tell the difference when the colors got flipped?
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