1979
A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art
J. J. Gibson, Cornell University
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I argue (but Gombrich does not recognize) that there can be at least three distinct kinds of artifacts:
1. The modification or construction of a surface so as to alter its affordance for human life. Its utility or function. (Manufacture, shaping, crafts reshaping).
2. The modification of a surface for displaying information about something over and beyond the surface itself. (Sculpting, depicting, graphic symbolizing, writing) ñ separate!
3. The modification of an existing surface so as to improve or enhance its appearance as a surface, so as to invite inspection of the surface, without changing what it affords or making it specify something else.
The last (I suggest) is what we call decorating, ornamenting, embellishing, adorning, or beautifying. (Also coloring , covering, texturing, patterning, or enriching.) The human surface is bedecked, bejeweled, bespangled, beflowered, dressed, festooned, and treated with cosmetics, at least the female human surface. The hair and beard are trimmed and shaped; and so are the plants in the garden and the surfaces of the landscape.
Note that the “rules” for ornamenting a wall are surely not the same as those for ornamenting an ear, a finger, the skin, or the hair; nor those for a cake the same as for a Christmas tree. A sword, a room, and a frame (picture, door, window) are different in this respect.
These three kinds of artifice are, of course, combined and mixed in various proportions. This fact explains (it seems to me) why the psychology of esthetics is in a muddle. For there are different sorts of “pleasure” (a slippery term) that are involved in viewing those surfaces (objects, places, persons, [events]) that have (1) use-meanings or affordances, those that (2) stand for other things, and those that (3)invite inspection (of the layout, pattern, color, shading, or motion) of the surfaces for their own sake. The fact that they are mixed is no reason why they should be confused (cf. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, p. 273 for a preliminary statement of this position).
Solids, Surfaces, Sheets, and Strings (Fibers)
You can assemble a surface from parts, (or destroy it)
You can join surfaces, or attach them together (cementing, gluing, sewing)
You can shape, mold, chip, or sculpt a solid, or melt and cast a solid substance
You can wash, clean, scrape a surface
You can paint, color, texture or pattern a surface
You can scratch, indent, incise, or groove a surface
(You can differentially alter the transmittance of a film.)