by Maria Elena Murguia

Are you a non-smoker looking to fritter away that socially awkward twenty-minute class break by heading to the computer lab only to be disappointed by the “one new message” pop-up producing a less than titillating 10kb email from “Broadcast News”? Try the bbc.com’s Art and Personality test. The mildly entertaining test designed by Dr. Stan Reimers in collaboration with the BBC is part of a long history of art and personality tests designed to help you … well … you know, “know thyself,” and all that.

Like abstract art? Well chances are, you are the live-wire, disagreeable type, who thirsts for something, how do I say, different, nay… extraordinaire! Prefer your garden-variety, fuzzy-looking-lady-at-the-mirror Impressionist paintings? Well then, you probably fall in with the bit more shiny, as well as happy, people. The test shows you examples from six different schools of art; Northern Renaissance, Impressionism, Islamic, Abstract, Cubist, and Japanesse, asks you three questions; how much do you like the piece, how talented do you think the artist is, and how does the painting makes you feel (how silly you exclaim, how naïve! … just you wait for the déjà vu to set in during critique week). Then the test asks you about your personality, asking you to agree or disagree to whatever degree with statements such as.. “I make a mess of things,” and “I do not have a good imagination.”

In terms of popularity of school of art is concerned, the test has Impressionism way out in the lead (stunning…just stunning…) followed by Japanese art. Abstract art and cubism are straggling like you kids who forgot to pick up your UPass on time, followed by Northern Renaissance and Islamic art.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/art/ to take the test.

September 2005