Matteo Smolizza's 'No title' project tests if painting triggers universal emotional responses

Philologist and art historian Matteo Smolizza has launched 'No title', a research project investigating whether painting functions as a stable language with invariant emotional responses. Over two years, a sample of one million people (300,000 tested so far) will view 47 paintings by Fabrizio di Marzio—deliberately of low artistic value but paradigmatic for the test—and report which emotion they felt, its intensity, and which specific element triggered it. Smolizza presented the project at a conference at the Biblioteca dell'Ambrosiana in Milan, emphasizing that the aim is to determine if painting operates as a language in the strong sense defined by linguistics. The conference included historical research on pre-cultural artistic instinct, the relationship between art and neuroscience, taste formation, and perceptions of beauty and ugliness. Smolizza noted that contemporary art poses comprehension challenges even for educated individuals, but argued this reflects its serious, specific, and complex language rather than obscurantism. The test is available online, and the paintings are collected in a volume published by Electa (2017, 96 pages, €24.90).