A couple weeks back, I posted a rant about Marshall McLuhan. Basically I was arguing that while the medium may be the message, the medium isn’t the only message. There was a fair bit of commentary on my post, both here at Word Munger and around the blogosphere. As expected, I don’t think I changed many minds — “believing” McLuhan’s argument seems to be more a matter of faith than anything else.

It turns out, psychologists have something to say about all this. There is plenty of psychological research on art, but as you might expect, most of this work is done in labs, not museums. Instead of looking at the original works of art, participants observe slides, or (gasp!) digital photos of the works. Paul Locher, Jeffrey Smith, and Lisa Smith (of Montclair State, Rutgers, and Kean University, respectively) conducted a study where they explored whether this makes a difference; whether the medium is indeed the message — or the massage (”The Influence of Presentation Format and Viewer Training in the Visual Arts on the Perception of Pictorial and Aesthetic Qualities of Paintings,” Perception, 2001).

Locher and his colleagues corralled visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on their way inside and asked if they’d like to participate in a study. Participants were shown a series of nine works by Chardin, van Eyck, Petrus Christus, van Ruisdael, Breugel, El Greco, Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Giotto (apparently either Locher had a thing for Dutch art or the researchers figured it would be easier to show participants works that were displayed in the same general area of the museum) and given a museum CD as compensation for their efforts.

Others were shown museum-quality slides of the same works, and still others were shown digital photographs of the paintings displayed on computer monitors. Everyone was asked to rate the images on a scale of 1 to 9 along sixteen different dimensions, including “patterned — random,” “usual — surprising,” and “pleasant — unpleasant.” Participants also reported their level of training in the visual arts.

Perhaps surprisingly, there was little difference in the results between trained and untrained viewers. There was also little difference between media along many of the dimensions viewers were asked to rate, especially those relating to the physical and “statistical” properties of the works, such as “small scale — large scale,” and “sparse — dense.”

But for a few of the works, the viewers of the original rated a few of the dimensions very differently from those who only saw slides or digital photos. These were the more subjective measures, such as “uninteresting — interesting” and “common — rare.” The differences in ratings were sometimes whopping: those who saw Petrus Christus’ “Portrait of a Carthusian” in person rated it an average of 7.35 on the 9-point “uninteresting — interesting” scale, whereas slide and computer viewers rated it only a 4.7. So apparently, if you’re a Netherlandish painter, reputed to be a student of van Eyck and known primarily for your portraits, the medium is indeed the message. McLuhan is redeemed!

On Sunday when I was driving through town, I noticed there were a few bedsheets strung from some of the trees along the road. Most of them were painted with some kind of message like “We love you, JoAnne.” I dismissed it as a “small town” thing. There’s always someone hanging up a bedsheet and spray-painting some message: “Lordy, lordy, Bertha’s forty,” or “Ain’t it nifty, Melvin’s fifty.” Of course, this was Old Davidson — as a newcomer who had only lived in town for eleven years, I didn’t know any of these people, let alone their bizarre customs. I had this vague idea that there was one lady who was sort of famous for it — weren’t those signs usually in front of the same house?

I developed the hypothesis that maybe these new signs were some kind of Valentine’s day surprise for the lady who was always putting up the signs. Perhaps her name was JoAnne. But what was her last name?

Sure enough, on Valentine’s day, there were even more signs. Some said “We love you, JoAnne,” others said “We love Mrs. S.,” and still others said simply “We luv U 2.” Somehow I didn’t think they were talking about the rock band. It seemed like every other house had raided the closet for an old sheet to hang out on the street.

My daughter knew something about it: she had been to her youth group the night before, and they had made a sign. My wife knew a little more: JoAnne was the crossing guard at the elementary school — remember her? Yes, she was the one who always painted those birthday sheets. She had suddenly come down with lung cancer, and this is the way the community decided to support her. It was a big surprise for her, in the very style she had created. Driving through town later that day, I could see dozens of the signs, and not just along the main roads. Head back onto Lorimer, or Ashby, and they were in front of nearly every house. There must have been hundreds of them.

When they were in elementary school, my kids used to walk to school every day. JoAnne helped them across the street, right at the busy spot where dozens of parents were rushing their kids to school in their cars. She’s probably helped thousands of kids across that street, and wished hundreds of people happy birthdays, or anniversaries, or helped them through other momentous events in their lives. It made me think: What have I done for the community? Certainly nothing like what JoAnne has contributed. I didn’t even know her, and she helped me, by helping my children.

Thank you, JoAnne. We do love you.

P.S. In the spirit of “giving back” a little to the community, I thought I’d offer a few pointers for hanging sheets displaying messages of sympathy or support.

1. Use a white sheet. Your leftover “Buzz Lightyear” set won’t do it.

2. Use a flat sheet. No fitted sheets, and definitely no pillowcases.

3. Find a sturdy tree or post to hang your sheet from. If none is available, you will need to construct a dedicated sheet hanger. If you don’t happen have six-foot tomato stakes, you can simply drive a couple of spare shovels into the ground.

4. Hang your sheet proudly from all four corners. You don’t want your sheet flapping loosely in the wind, or worse, sagging on one corner so that its message is obscured.

5. Please use permanent ink or water-resistant spray paint for your message. Nothing is less appealing than seeing a message like “Ain’t it nifty, Bill’s turned fifty” slowly dribbling off the sheet and into the gutter. Especially if you’re Bill.