Hai, from my understanding with regards to your question. Indeed, to touch the artwork is more impactful to the audience. Therefore, there are terms or notions in the art called 'participatory art' to promote meaningful experiences for the audiences. And of course, arts now towards 'engaging' rather than merely 'seeing'. Thank you, I hope that answers your question.

Tracy Stagg

Dear Tracy:

The paradigm of embodied cognition, which sees people as mindful bodies interacting with their environment, is essential for understanding the ways in which we experience art. Here are three links, the first to an article with a summary of the paradigm, the second to an article applying it to a specific painting, the third to an extensive bibliography with thematic sections that can facilitate digging in deeper.

Best regards,

David

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332130722

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346654017

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338412133

Thankyou. Very helpfull. 😁

If we could touch artwork we would have an extended experience. When more than one sense is involved the experience become more complete.

Dear Tracy,

If you are interested in empirical work into the effects of touch of an (art) object on experience of that (art) object, you might want to look into the literature in consumer behavior / marketing / behavioral economics on this topic. In this literature you should find quite some studies that might be relevant. For example, a finding is that touch may increase endowment effect and psychological ownership, which positively affects the value attributed to the object that has been touched. I don't know whether that applies to art as well (and whether that has been tested), but I suspect it will (don't see why not).

Some relevant search terms:

endowment effect, psychological ownership, haptic advertising, sensory online marketing, haptic imagery, haptic technology

Dear Tracy,

Maybe my research on haptic aesthetic pleasure will be helpful?

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2041669520932948

All the best,

Magdalena