In this article it is my purpose to share with you some general observations about the process itself, statements from those who were able to make accurate guesses about how they did it, and some conjectures about the nature of the relationship that exists between an individual's personality type and her approach to art. For us, this was an interesting first step in understanding not only how personality type impacts on the way one goes about doing art, but on how different personality types differ in how they VIEW art, and how they make guesses about the personality types of others!

As a result of our experience, we have made one minor changes in the 'art and personality' page - this time types will not be revealed until someone has guessed the artist's reported Enneagram type and someone has also guessed that artist's reported MBTI type.

The Polling Process

skip to section two

Although the poll that we conducted used only four artists and was not a scientific study, it provided us with a valuable learning experience and with information of an unexpected sort that challenged some of the assumptions that we tacitly made at the beginning of the project.

In designing the process, we made no effort to control the parameters of the experiment by choosing artists with particular personality types, or requiring them to answer specific questions in writing their 'statements'. We tried to encourage diversity along various lines - personality type, gender, age, professional status, race, sexual preference, artistic medium, and so forth - and will continue to do so in the future. But this was done in an informal way; no specific protocol was articulated. And although we assisted people in assessing 'type' when asked to do so, we accepted the artists' reports about their type, and made no attempt to influence them in this regard. In the future, we will do the same.

Neither did we invoke procedures that would ensure that individuals who made guesses comprised a representative sample of the population, typewise or in any other way. And we did not solicit personal information about those who did make guesses, although we gave them every opportunity to identify their own Enneagram and MBTI types, if they knew these.

We were not out to prove any particular hypothesis regarding art and personality type. We were just curious, and wanted to give folks the opportunity to play - but in a meaningful and interactive way that might eventually shed light on art and personality type and help us all to better understand the relationship between the MBTI and the Enneagram.

General Observations

skip to section three

Much of what we observed happening in our little experiment might have been predicted. The patterns were so obvious, in fact, that we could not help but think 'yes, we should have known that!' But as evident as these patterns may seem in retrospect, they did not occur to us when we began this project.

Furthermore, sometimes what is most obvious may not be quite so easy to explain. Questions about why these patterns were occuring began to arise, and some POSSIBLE answers naturally followed. I offer some of these below, not as definitive answers, but as obvious hypotheses. We invite you, our readers, to offer any insight you have in these matters.

So what did we observe? We observed that -

• Not everybody who came to the site visited the 'art gallery'. When they did, most people who viewed the art did NOT submit guesses. Even those who submitted guesses did not volunteer comments on how they went about guessing, until after we had identified their answers as correct. We did not find this particularly surprising. Most people who read newspapers don't submit letters to the editor, and most of our visitors to the site don't leave messages. Perhaps not everyone who viewed the art felt comfortable guessing the type of the artist. Were those who did not reply interested in the art or the process? Did they formulate conjectures that they kept to themselves? Did they feel that they did not have enough information on which to make educated guesses? Or that they lacked adequate expertise about one or the other typing system? We simply do not know. Some expressed the view that it is not easy to 'read' personality type from a single piece of art.
• Most people who DID guess, did NOT submit guesses for each artist. This seems to suggest that whereas individuals might be confident in their ability to make a conjecture about one artist, they felt less confident in making a judgment about another. This, of course, raises the question as to what factors play a role in determining this. Do some people/artists 'wear there type on their sleeve'? Are there people who are less distinct 'types'? Or is the determining factor in the 'eye of the beholder' - might the viewers type(s) be a factor in his/her ability to guess?
• Many people who DID guess, submitted ONLY Enneagram guesses, or only MBTI guesses. Were they more familiar with one system than the other? Or more comfortable using it for this purpose? Do people feel that one type might be ojectively harder to determine - eg, 'one can read MBTI type from a piece of art, but not Enneagram type'?
• Some people who used both systems made characteristically accurate MBTI guesses, but less accurate Enneagram guesses. Others were characteristically more accurate in using the Enneagram. Nobody actually seemed be consistently good at using both systems! If this is generally true, and not simply the result of such a small sample, what impact does it have on which theories about the relationship between the Enneagram and the MBTI will be popular in the population at large? If a person is knowledgable (and capable of accurately using) the Enneagram, for instance, but not the MBTI, will their conclusions about the relationship between the two systems be skewed accordingly?
• According to the accounts of those who made correct guesses, most reportedly relied more heavily on the words provided by the artist than on the art itself. Is this because it is difficult to read type from art? Or could this be because the type indicators used by practitioners of these systems are 'word-based' indicators, and regular use of these instruments inadvertently habituates practitioners to rely primarily upon verbal cues? The answer to this question could have implications for how we train people to use these systems. ¹
• People seemed to project more of themselves into the art work than into the words of the artist - they 'saw things' in the art that was not intended by the artist. One individual, who took us by surprise and volunteered two different guesses for each piece - one based on the art, another on the artist's statement - was particularly helpful in demonstrating that this might be the case, as the two different methods often led him to contradictory results! Is it possible that some people may use their art to express sub-personalities that differ from their 'main' personality? This individual also surprised us by making a guess about the personality type of the person depicted in the 'mary' charcoal, coming reasonably close to the truth (Mary is an ENFJ; the guesser, who is an ENTP, guessed that Mary was also an ENTP).
• Persons who guessed correctly were usually accurate in guessing the type of those artists with whom they SHARED either Enneagram or MBTI personality type - the INFJs, for instance, could detect the presence of another INFJ. But the same individuals did less well when it came to guessing about artists with a personality types different from their own.
• Some participants who, because they shared an MBTI (or Enneagram) type with an artist, were able to correctly guess that type, seemed to mistakenly expect that the artist would also share their Enneagram (or MBTI) type. For instance - a few INFP-4s correctly identified the artist who did 'Mary' as a Four, but also incorrectly assessed him as an INFP (when he is, in fact, an INFJ).
• The two people (the INFP-9 and the INFJ-4) who exemplified the prototypical combination of Enneagram and MBTI types were most frequently guessed correctly. People were less successful with the ENTP-7 and the INFJ-4.
• Nobody guessed the types of the 'logomaker' correctly.In this case, in fact, guesses were all over the place, with many way off! People guessed the artist to be an ESTJ or INTP, for instance. Nobody saw him for the INFJ that he is, or the Enneagram One. Is this because it is harder to 'read' type from the work of a 'professional' artist. This particular individual has had a long and successful career as a commercial artist, and commercial artists are good at producing work that reflects the concern of their clients (the 'ESTJ' business world, in this case, and the 'INTP' techies for whom he was designing). Or did difficulties occur because the combination of INFJ and type One confused viewers, who tend to see all INFJs as romantic Fours, and Ones as ISTJs?
• Individuals who made wrong guesses sometimes based their guess on what might be considered a 'sterotypical' characterization of the personality type in question. One individual thought that the artist who did 'Mary' could not be an N type because the portrait seemed 'realistic' and too 'precise' in detail. Another concluded that because the 'logomaker' talked about his feelings, he was an Enneagram Two. There was some basis for the latter guesser's conjecture - as the logomaker scored high in 'Two' - but nonetheless is a One. How many times does this kind of 'mistake' occur - in which we wrongly take one quality that is present in an individual as that individual's DEFINING quality, determining 'type'?

What Those Who 'Guessed Correctly' Had to Say

skip to section four

As I have mentioned, some individuals succeeded in identifying one or other of the individual's types correctly, and sometimes both. Unfortunately, no-one chose to explain how they accomplished this until after we identified their guesses as 'correct' and asked for an explanation. Even then, some individuals declined to respond to our queries.

Only two individuals were successful in identify BOTH personality types for at least one artist. Here are excerpts from what these individuals had to say when we asked them to explain how they accomplished this. As we had previously guaranteed that artists who agreed to participate would not be the subject of negative criticism, it was only after the artists in question convinced us that it was okay to publish the following comments that we would even CONSIDER doing so. We have no interest in embarassing those who present their work here, and will in the future continue to ask permission of those who are 'critiqued' before publishing certain potentially offensive remarks.

'K', an ENTP/7, correctly guessed that 'Mary' was done by an INFJ-4. The '3 wing' that he mentions, however, is in contention, as the artist does not agree.

The mary picture strikes me as different, but I don't actually like it. He [the artist] say's he's not a professional artist, but ironically that's the impression I get - a bit cold, and very detailed. There are persons who radiate a certain energy that you could call 'the evil eye', which is captured in this image. Hope I don't sound to drastic here, ...! Have you seen inspector Poirot? There is the same energy there. Anyway I can't say what it is, but I find the text a bit in-authentic, maybe because of some 3 energy hidden there.

Everything seems to be about deeper meaning, that's screamingly fourish, which could lead me to believe it's the work of a 3w4 ! - no 4w3 is more like it. The author doesn't give a dammn about the technique, but I find tons of it here. And he uses the 3 comment "to tell the truth". It's definitely between 3 and 4. But the choice of words and everything leads me to believe that it's a 4w3/INFJ behind this, but the image look's S, but I simply have to overule that impression, because there are things here that lead me to 4, because this is a person that obiously got ton's of talent, and the technique seems superb. Maybe too good.

K also was correct in identifying the artist who created 'mountain' as a Nine, and an IF, although he mistakenly believed that she was an ISFP, instead of the INFP which she actually is -

I think that behind the last (and the prettiest) picture, is an ISFP nine. ... there are some six vibes in there, but there is still something ninish about it. The picture itself looks fourish.

'R', an INFP who scores high in Enneagram 9, 4, and 6, correctly identified the artist who painted 'lake' as an ENTP, and in the course of explaining why, spontaneously (and correctly) decided that the artist was also a 7. She says,

I seem to remember thinking, while looking at the picture itself, that it felt like it was done by either a 4 or a 6, because it seemed so muddy and murky and pessimistic--angst-filled, almost. But I don't remember if I filled that in on the form; you say that I didn't. Next, I don't actually remember filling in that it was "ENTP". If I did (which I guess I must have!) it was on the basis of what I read of the artist's comments--so if you'd like to know my reasons, here they are! I guessed ENTP from the artist's own words because he sounds cerebral in a playful, almost flippant way. He experimented playfully to get the effects in the painting--it wasn't some deep and meaningful deliberate symbolism. I could almost think that he/she was uncomfortable or embarrassed by the negative feelings engendered by the painting (it is definitely not cheerful!) and felt the need to cover it up by explaining it away, as it were. I'm not saying the artist necessarily made up the explanation (although that's possible), but that the flippant tone does seem at odds with the gloomy tone of the picture. If I could guess his/her enneagram type now, I'd say it was 7, for this reason, as well as the others I gave for his/her being an ENTP. (It's also possible that the artist is a 6, for the same reason--he/she was scared by the gloominess of the picture and asserted control by being flippant?) I think it would be hard to type the artist as either ENTP or 7 (or 6) on the basis of the picture itself; you really need to read the explanation that goes along with it. Actually, I'd be interested to know if I'm right or not about the artist being a 7!

One Conjecture On Art and Type

skip to section five

Does type manifest most clearly in the PRODUCT of the artist, or in the PROCESS the artist uses? If the former is the case, one should be able to gleen type from viewing a particular piece that the artist has produced. But we have the hunch that the individual's PROCESS may also differ according to type - and that this may in fact provide a more reliable cue to the artist's personality types. Although it may be true, for instance, that introverted intuitives are more sensitive to symbolism, and utilize it in visual art (like Picasso did), does the absence of overt symbolism in a piece suggest that it was not the work of an introverted intuitive? A subtle form of symbolism occurs in 'logo', but where is it in 'mary'? And how, then, does the latter piece exemplify the work of an IN?

Can we use the 'functional preference orders' associated with MBTI type to describe distinctly different 'processes' taking place in artists who are different types?

The INFJ-1 who created 'logo' and the INFJ-4 who created 'mary' agree that they have in common some general features of their approach to the creative process. Both use Fe (extraverted feeling) at the beginning of the process, to experience the situation. In the case of the logomaker, it is extraverted feeling that he relied on to 'pick up' the feeling tone of the organization for which he was designing the logo - its needs and values. For the creator of 'mary' Fe was used in the process of 'feeling into' the personality of Mary, for reasons that he did not quite understand at the time. Both immersed themselves in subtleties of those feeling states until something of meaning emerged within, the product of Ni. For the logomaker, it was a symbol that expressed the essence of 'paradigm' - subtly hinted at by the figure-ground reversal that is characteristic of a paradigm shift. As his statement indicates, during the process of creating this symbol he tapped deeply into his own experience of paradigm shifts and into the deep empathic bond that he had with his client. For the portrait artist, there was also a deep feeling of empathy, and the much-valued culmination of the process was an 'aha experience', an inner shift in the 'meaning' of the situation. By making a deeply felt-connection with the individual being portrayed, he experienced a profound breakthrough in his relationship to music, and was able to let himself go more deeply into an exploration of sound as a deconstructive 'process', and into experience a shift in his appreciation for the 'masculine' energy that Mary modeled. We hear, by the way, that as it synchronistically turns out, unbeknowst to the artist, Mary (whom he had not seen in years), had been exploring her 'masculine' side in a way that made him feel as if his 'statement' was actually somehow telepathic in nature.

Where the two INFJs seemed to part company was in their relationship to 'technique' - and this seems to have a lot to do with differences in their Enneagram type. The logo-maker, a 'One' is careful and precise, and is not reluctant to speak in positive terms about technique. The 'Four', on the other hand, almost shows disdain for the word, and is a champion of 'process'. Although his work does not seem to lack precision and detail, as K points out, the felt-emphasis - the reason d'etre of the work - is an exploration of paradox and its embodiment.

The reverse seems true of his counterpart, the artist who is a One - although paradox was present in the formulation of the logo, it is the precisely worked-out design that is foremost in his mind - the elegant curve of the 'P', that he meticulously worked on. The eye picks up no 'mistakes' in the product, even when it is viewed for a long time. As it turn out, both individuals have enneagram points 4 and 1 amongst their four highest enneagram scores - but in a different order! Readers knowledgeable about the statistical evidence that the EM survey provides may recall that 4, 5, and 1 were the only enneazones in which INFJs had a greater than random chance of falling. It is very interesting, by the way, that both of these INFJ artists have 4, 5, and 1 in their group of four highest Enneagram scores. Do all INFJs tend to score high in 4, 5, and 1? - in which case each INFJ is a 'microcosm' of how INFJs as a group 'distribute' across the enneagram!

When the woman who created 'mountain' spoke to us about HER process, she pointed out that for her it usually started with extraverted intuition (Ne). The symbol of the 'mountain' was what intrigued her at first, and it is this that she painted. But she did this in such a way as to arrive at an intense inner feeling state (Fi) - a feeling of inner harmony that also expresses her core 'Ninish' interest.

The process of the ENTP who did 'lake' apparently began with his introverted thinking function. He was looking to solve a practical problem - he wanted a new 'background' for his computer screen, and began to play with the technology at his disposal. He did not even think of this as 'art' at first, but his process inevitably brought him to a place where he began to play with outer possibilities (Ne), in the form of symbols that he projected onto the picture. As one observer put it, the lake that he painted is frought with possibility and archetypal symbolism, but it seems to be projected outward, into the looking glass mirror of the lake. One can see all sorts of things lurking in the shadows of this pool!

Interestingly, the opinions that these four artists have of each other's work also seems to reflect type preferences - but this we shall not go into here.

Conclusions

Conclusions? There are really no conclusions that I wish to make. I remain satisfied with having made some observations and raised some questions. And I really do look forward to hearing from you about these matters. Please share with us, in whatever form you wish, how you use art and what, if anything, this might have to do with type. Or how you experience the art of others, and whether their approach, as they describe it, sounds familiar or foreign to you.

Beginning of This Paper Back to Front Page