Can you focus on one thing for 10 min?

here is a chance to prove it

This interactive article gives us the chance to focus on one painting for 10 minutes to see how we do.

I thought I would do better as I've been preparing for some master studies of great works of art and it takes a lot of time and focus to examine the art.  But alas, 8m37s was the limit of my attention span.  Can you do better?

What was so hard about that? The text that popped up in the beginning was a bit distracting as was the five-minute mark and the last thirty second countdown. I was not expecting any of that and thought it took away from the experience, so I went a couple extra minutes to compensate.

I liked the painting and looked at it a couple different ways. One just to enjoy and take it in. I liked the water with the reflections of the lights and buildings. In the foreground especially I liked the swells rather than waves and how the reflections of I guess the smokestacks were broken into segments by the swells. I couldn't figure out what specifically the buildings were, except the one looked like the steeple of a church. The colors in the water and sky were interesting and I liked the little bit of greenery in the foreground. I don't know what the little rectangular thing was, a signature maybe?

Being a total beginner and self-thought in watercolor, I also looked at it to see what I could learn, and one thing was, it doesn't have to be perfect. The visible brush strokes especially in the foreground and also in the sky were interesting. Having finished a total of five paintings in my entire painting career and thrown away fifty non-perfect attempts, just who the heck am I to be a critic? It really doesn't have to be perfect; it has to have life.  

I found the lack of a well defined horizon line difficult as I'm not a fan of large bodies of water and the painting made me feel like I was in a boat. That's why I gave up early.  Even with the weeds, I still didn't feel welcomed into the painting.  Like it's keeping me out.  But that artist always makes me feelcthat way.

Now, if it was a constant cloud study.... i just spent an hour on one of those.

I have no doubt that I could stare at a painting for three hours, I didn't time it, but I probably have done it before. In galleries I have lingered for long minutes lots of times.

In the lobby of a hotel in Jackson's Hole Wyoming there is or was a painting hanging above a fireplace. It depicts three or four Indians on horseback in deep snow.  The men's hair and clothing and the manes and tails of the horses are being whipped wildly in the wind. Little snowballs kicked up their hooves are leaving little trails as they blow across the surface casting shadows along their paths. The horses are wild eyed, men weather worn. One horse is dragging a makeshift skid loaded with wooden poles. Another pole has just snapped being pulled down by another horse; I could hear the crack. Show and ice scattered in the air as telegraph wires snapped and whipped through the air. As deep as the snow was and as fierce as the wind the sky behind showed far worse was soon to arrive. I think the name of that painting was Comanche Firewood, I don't remember the artist.

There was a cushy sofa conveniently placed for viewing. I sat down and took maybe one sip of my drink before I forgot about it. When I got up to go to my room the ice had melted, and the drink was warm. Some art can take you to other places and other times, that painting can make you think you might have frost bite on your toes.

Mark Reed wrote:.....The colors in the water and sky were interesting and I liked the little bit of greenery in the foreground. I don't know what the little rectangular thing was, a signature maybe?
 

Looked like a plant holding a cellphone to me, lol!

As for looking at it for 10 minutes, I simply found it too boring, and there was an issue I was trying to figure out about it, but staring at it won't solve that problem so it felt like a waste of time to continue. However, having finished a Bachelor's in Fine Arts and gone to many galleries & had to do many critiques, I know I am capable of spending time with artwork and analyzing it. And for another BS & an MS I'd hyperfocus for 6-10 hours at a time on on topic for many assignments.

I want to ask others about the concern I had, which I couldn't figure out, but I don't want to affect how much time other people might spend on it... hmm...

Ok, SPOILER ALERT that will give you something to look at and figure out, so stop reading after this sentence if you want to look at the picture without knowing what I saw and what intrigued me.... last chance to stop reading, lol... ok, so what I noticed was that the immediate reflection of the town (which I'll call a steeple and 3 smokestacks with a hill in between), was correct, but there was another reflection in the foreground near the plant, which looked like the same reflection but in reverse. Look for the upside down 3 smokestacks and the steeple-shape and then look at the hill, and the other hill.... notice that it's the same layout but backwards. Then there's an additional part of that lower foreground reflection: another building on the right that looks like a factory (with 2 small smokestacks), which, if we imagine the continuation then that building would be on the top left of the painting, but out of view, leaving me wanting to see what would exist on the left portion of the painting, and feeling frustrated about it not existing, like a tease.

PS - You can zoom. I didn't notice the + and - at the top; maybe I would have looked longer if I saw that before. Now I like it better because I can see the brushstrokes.

Is this a Zen clear-your-mind sort of thing? Is it purely static or can it be active?

Looking at a painting? I'm not sure. I'm not wired as a visual arts person, though I do perceive narrative and intent to be understood in some works.

Put a guitar in my hands? No problem.

First seed catalogue when it's still cold and snowy and grey here? Also no problem.

Spoilers

In answer to the earlier Spoilers

The article mentioned it might be an earlier attempt and he turned the canvas over and started again with a different composition. As oil paints grow transparent with age, these ghost paintings appear.  

I don't have tot ake a test if i can focus on something ten minutes. I know people are easily distratcted and have the attention span of a gold fish, but it hardly ain't us old gardeners?

How about something you aren't interested in?   From what I read, the painting was chosen specifically because of the sparse subject matter.

I couldn't do it at all.

I bailed out after 22 seconds.

It felt like I had a load of guys with guns pointed at me forcing me to do something against my will and my brain simply wouldn't tolerate it so I closed the window down before it freaked me out too much.

But then I've always been a bit weird like that... Pathological Demand Avoidance? Abused as a child? Escaped out of a brainwashing cult? Not sure which but a painting has to call me in gently and entice me to look at it and interact with it. I have even worse problems listening to music - mostly it feels like brainwashing to me, being forced to think other people's thoughts, and it freaks me out.

Oh aha, no i can't do that, if it doesn't interest me. I float off quickly. Sorry failed

I don't see the point in using ten minutes of my life in something I'm not interested in. I could probably look at interesting art for that long, but not something that didn't speak on some level.

I can get quite a bit done in ten minutes! Is not doing something for ten minutes good for me?

I can look at a Salvador Dali for an hour easily.  Something I'm not interested in?  I'm like Burra...

I experience the inattentive variety of ADHD and I don't get along with the meds they prescribe, so I go without. I don't need to click through and try it out to know that I'd fail at that. :-)

I'm Autistic & ADHD, so I can both get absorbed in something I'm interested in & lose track of time for an hour or more .. AND feel like it's an impossible struggle to pay attention to one thing that's not sufficently interesting.

Bonus: doing two routine things at once can be more tractable than just one, as at least my brain doesn't feel completely underwhelmed by interest !

I notice that there are quite a few factors in attention span, including clothing—I try to garden barefoot in comfortable weather-appropriate clothes because it seems to increase my attention span and concentration, letting me get a task done. I also notice that if another person is present, it matters a lot what they are doing and what my perceptions of their intent are. If their intent is the same as mine and we are doing something together, it seems as if I could focus on something until I drop from exhaustion, but if they’re doing something else nearby at the same time, and depending on who it is, it may bring on an anxious, restless feeling that shortens the attention span.

I haven’t tried the exercise yet.

I feel similarly about most TV and novels as Burra does with music. Some people need something to read or watch whether it’s good or mediocre, but I have mostly limited my “fiction” consumption to classics and mythologies, and that only occasionally. If I’m not immersed in my own story, I want to be in a story that conveys the same depth and complexity of meaning that I experience in my own life, or even better, something that deepens my perception of life.

When it said there were still 7 more minutes ... I pushed the 'quit' button. With this image I had the idea I had seen everything there was to see. I think if there was an image with more (interesting) details I could have watched it longer. Maybe even 10 minutes.
Yes, I know my attention span is short

But I can work (I mean: actually DO something, be busy) for hours without getting distracted.

Trace Oswald wrote:I can look at a Salvador Dali for an hour easily.  Something I'm not interested in?  I'm like Burra...

Dali! I once was at an exhibition of Dali (in Rotterdam in the 1970s). I can spend all day, or even several days, watching Dali's paintings!

Kim Wills wrote:...

Ok, SPOILER ALERT that will give you something to look at and figure out, so stop reading after this sentence if you want to look at the picture without knowing what I saw and what intrigued me.... last chance to stop reading, lol... ok, so what I noticed was that the immediate reflection of the town (which I'll call a steeple and 3 smokestacks with a hill in between), was correct, but there was another reflection in the foreground near the plant, which looked like the same reflection but in reverse. Look for the upside down 3 smokestacks and the steeple-shape and then look at the hill, and the other hill.... notice that it's the same layout but backwards. Then there's an additional part of that lower foreground reflection: another building on the right that looks like a factory (with 2 small smokestacks), which, if we imagine the continuation then that building would be on the top left of the painting, but out of view, leaving me wanting to see what would exist on the left portion of the painting, and feeling frustrated about it not existing, like a tease.

PS - You can zoom. I didn't notice the + and - at the top; maybe I would have looked longer if I saw that before. Now I like it better because I can see the brushstrokes.

I did see that (the 'wrong' reflection in the water, left of the plants) in the 3 minutes I watched that painting. It looked like there was a first attempt and then the artist changed his mind.

The first minutes I watched it was as if I noticed more and more. But then (probably after 2 minutes) there was not more to see and it was like the painting faded away. So then I wanted to stop. A warning came that there were still 7 minutes left, but I did not want to watch any more!

I made it 49 seconds. Painting was fine, was trying to notice everything I could but the text instruction was annoying and I could not abide and wanted to be left alone with my noticing.

I'm not sure what this means but I can't stand watching youtube videos and can only watch one if if it is very specific about something I need to accomplish and gets straight to the point. Usually those have to do with fixing something that I wish I didn't need in the first place. Like a car.

Edited to include that Christopher Weeks made a video the other day to show what it's like when he cuts rocks on his tile saw. Short and sweet. Right to the point. Perfect!