{"id":117520,"date":"2020-09-09T16:09:05","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T14:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=117520"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:25:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:25:03","slug":"noah-van-dongen-wrote-a-dissertation-without-any-financial-support-my-approach-was-not-in-line-with-what-others-were-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2020\/09\/09\/noah-van-dongen-wrote-a-dissertation-without-any-financial-support-my-approach-was-not-in-line-with-what-others-were-doing\/","title":{"rendered":"Noah van Dongen wrote a dissertation without any financial support: \u2018My approach was not in line with what others were doing\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why do some people like certain types of art but not others? Last Friday, Noah van Dongen was awarded a PhD for answering that question in a dissertation entitled Investigations into Art Appreciation: An Interdisciplinary Approach<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLevien Willemse<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

What was your research project about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI conducted research on art appreciation. Why do we like and create art? Those two questions go hand in hand. No one creates art that they don\u2019t want to look at. And this being the case, why do we like certain types of art, but not others? These are questions that encompass more than can be studied in one doctoral research project. So I focused on four elements, which resulted in four studies on the contrast between light and dark, how lay people and art professionals look at art, authenticity and the context in which art is presented \u2013 for instance whether we see it in a museum or at a restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did you end up choosing this subject?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn a roundabout way. I once embarked on a degree in Industrial Design, only to realise that I was only interested in the drawing aspects. So after that I attended an academy of fine arts. During the theory lessons, we were told that art appreciation is always subjective and relative: the quality of art cannot objectively be measured. That always struck me as quite improbable, because after all, we do have museums, and we can take art classes, which generally involve some kind of assessment method. So it can\u2019t all be completely random. This is how I ended up doing a master in Arts and Culture Studies at Erasmus University, where the general consensus was that what is considered art is determined by social and cultural factors. That, too, struck me as a rather one-sided view of art. So I threw in a neurological perspective as well, since it is my hypothesis that biological and neurological factors also play a part. I wrote a bachelor thesis on that way back when I was doing my pre-master programme. It ended up becoming Chapter 2 of my dissertation.\u201d<\/p>\n

I read in your preface that getting your PhD wasn\u2019t easy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI completed my master degree six years ago. I really wanted to continue my research and wrote several grant applications, in association with my supervisor, Koen van Eijck. They were all rejected, but in the meantime, I continued conducting research in my spare time. After a while, I\u2019d written so much that all I needed was an introduction. So we decided that I\u2019d complete my dissertation as an external PhD student, in my spare time. In the meantime, I embarked on another PhD research project on the philosophy of science. I started out in Tilburg and ended up in Turin. I\u2019m currently putting the finishing touches to that dissertation as well, and hope to be awarded my PhD in December. That will be handy in terms of timing too once I\u2019m ready to apply for a Veni grant, because that must be done within three years [of getting a PhD].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t
\n\t\t\u2018If you increase the contrast between light and dark in a painting, the painting will get a significantly higher rating\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

So you wish to keep conducting research?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI hardly know what else to do. I really enjoyed doing this and I haven\u2019t found anything else yet that I enjoyed more.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was your key conclusion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you increase the contrast between light and dark in a painting, the painting will get a significantly higher rating. Given the number of filters on Instagram that boost contrast, that was to be expected. People love that kind of stuff. Several reviewers of our paper thought we had made a mistake, as they couldn\u2019t believe the values we had come up with. Generally, such significant effects are rarely seen in statistical analyses of psychology research. But we repeated the test four times, and the values always remained the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did you encounter other kinds of sceptics as well?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI really did my best to try to get paid for the work I was doing. I submitted four grant applications. I always received the same criticism: the project wasn\u2019t feasible enough. It didn\u2019t matter which experts or what kind of material I presented, they always said my approach was too interdisciplinary. It was not in line with what others were doing. At least that\u2019s how I interpreted it. When we published our papers, too, we received some genuinely nasty responses.\u201d<\/p>\n

In your acknowledgements section, you expressed your gratitude to NWO and Stichting De Verre Bergen for not giving you any money. Was that sarcasm?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it was a bit. That said, though, I did end up in Turin for my current research project because of their rejections. That wouldn\u2019t have happened if it hadn\u2019t been for all those setbacks. So in a roundabout way, I\u2019m grateful to them for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did you ever consider giving up research, rather than writing a second PhD dissertation in your spare time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, that would have been very strange. I\u2019d already come this far.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s on the cover of your dissertation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI designed it myself. It\u2019s a painting by Mondrian. Mondrian used high contrast in this work, and it worked perfectly as a cover, what with those lines and empty spaces where I could put text. What\u2019s funny is that I actually prefer Mondrian\u2019s slightly older work, which isn\u2019t all that rich in contrast. I\u2019ll be wearing a Mondrian tie, Mondrian tie pin and Mondrian socks during my PhD defence ceremony.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t

De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t