Influence of spatial imagery and imagery control on geometric form location in paintings

The study of artistic works requires an educated vision, a certain way of looking that unveils potential relations amongst objects. Fine art students develop skills that are resultant of their training in finding possible connections amongst elements in a painting. One of the abilities related to the observation and analysis of a work of art is the capacity to form mental images. The present study involved 188 fine art students (105 first-year students and 83 fourth-year students) and was meant to find out whether their education level, their spatial imagery ability and their imagery control had any influence on the location of geometric forms in a painting. We assessed hits minus errors. Results showed Results showed that fine arts students' spatial ability and im-agery control explained a significant percentage of score variation in the task of locating geo-metric figures in Vel ' azquez's paintings. The significance of these results is consistent with those obtained in previous studies, spatial capacity, and imagery control influence on the achievement of skills in the artistic field.