In what ways is your taste in art kiki and in what ways is it bouba?
I’m going to give you some language to understand art that you probably aren't familiar with. Then, I’m going to try to apply this language the level of spiritual satisfaction that art (and illustration) provides.
Art is either kiki or bouba (Wikipedia).
A work can be kiki in one sense, but bouba in another. So you can have kiki colors and contrast, but bouba shapes.
This image is more kiki not just because it has squares, but because it’s more detailed.
At the basic level of just shape, line, color, contrast, and texture, you develop a vibe. A single work of art can take on a different vibe by just changing the contrast:
Higher contrast makes the sculpture more severe and kiki, whereas the first photograph is still dramatic, but the lower contrast between light and dark give it a more optimistic vibe.
Ultimately, artists are trying to represent something. Above are some sunglasses. We normally associate bright colors with happiness, but the artist here undermines the idea that a colorful world necessarily be a happy and bright one. The colors are sharp, acidic, metallic. The picture seems to say: please stay away from me.
Gay pride represents this as well. Sometimes the vibe is light and cheery like this picture where people are coming together to hold a big long flag.
Other times the same colors can turn a terrifying corner toward the dystopian. It’s not necessarily “bad” to wear eye makeup, but my eyes can’t bear to take in all that kiki.
What should you put on your wall?
If you like something, put it on your wall. The problem of art critique is professors lecturing birds how to fly. All the “rules” are tools for making things that generally look good. However, if you break some rules and mix up the kiki and bouba, you can end up with art that is universally reviled.
I captioned these images with terms that are only a little removed from simply calling different parts bouba and others kiki.
Playful is bouba shapes with kiki edges. Optimism is warm colors and bouba shapes. The contrast between the black lines and the background is kiki, but they’re squiggly, so that makes them also bouba. The painting in imprecise, which means large surfaces of color (bouba) and random unnecessary imprefections that come from imprecise markings (kiki).
The above painting is intellectual in that the shapes themselves aren’t imprecise. There’s kiki in which objects are placed together. There’s kiki in the lines. The random bouba animals and shapes make it bouba. It’s nihilistic because of the high contrast between light and dark (kiki), the kiki shapes, though the colors are muted (bouba). If you put the painting in most homes, the colors would be kiki in how much they contrast with the environment.
Here’s a few more paintings that I won’t explain:
Stacks of bouba and kiki
These different images tell different stories. Some look back, others forward. Some are optimistic about nearly everything while others are pessimistic. Some are fuzzy and optimistic while others are fuzzy and and pessimistic. That’s bouba on the time axis and bouba/kiki on the vibe axis. Some have a sharp vision of the future (kiki).
Some are divine while others are objective. I’m not sure how this plays on the bouba/kiki scale but the objective view is first-principles and based on physics while the divine taps into wisdom received from heaven. A painting with only the divine or only the objective is bouba.
Images are stacks of bouba and kiki. Some stacks are small. Small stacks make for abstract art.
Tall stacks have many layers of kiki/bouba.
This painting has a subdued overal vibe. It’s a little kiki and a little bouba. The painting detail is kiki in the foreground and bouba in the background. It’s characters are cheerful and united (bouba), but this seems likely to be short-lived as you notice their greedy eyes. They’re happy on the surface. Very kiki. Their joy will be short-lived. Their clothing is mismatched and random: kiki. The sky behind them is cloudy and nearly monotone: bouba, but the yellow and blue in the sky is kiki. It’s warm mixed with cold.
How art critiques the present and future
It’s not that bouba is good or that kiki is bad. If your artistic style isn’t appreciated or popular, it could be because your kiki and bouba are in all the wrong places.
More layers of kiki and bouba don’t always mean more detail. You can have the spiritual without it really connecting down to earth in any meaningful way for most modern people.
How we see the future plays out in our art. If we see religion as stifling, we’ll express it in kiki terms. If we view the materialistic future optimistically, we’ll create long, sensual curves in our ideations of future spacecraft. And these crafts won’t impose or take anything away from nature. They will become extensions of the beautify in the universe.
Today, our view of the materialistic future is a cold and gray. Notice how the sky in the background is so much more bouba. The ring is sharply obstructing the earth. We don’t see much in the future that feeds our spirit.