Why People Buy. Louis Cheskin
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Art. It was published in 1940. I have just reviewed a number of the chapters in the book and they brought to my mind the idealism that motivated me. I have been told that idealism is quite evident to anyone who reads it.
To put down the “social-aesthetic” principles in the simplest possible language so that they would reach the greatest number of readers was quite a struggle. I remember the torturous job of cutting my original 425-page manuscript down to 200 pages. I was completely wrapped up in and dedicated the book to Adult Education.
Adult Education leaders liked the book. It is one of the most widely quoted and least read books. Authors refer to it, speakers quote from it, but few besides these have read it.
As a student and later a teacher, I could not understand how a modern, up-to-date Frenchman, like Matisse or Picasso, who enjoys all the fruits of an industrial society, becomes a primitive when he takes a hunk of clay or brush into his hand.
It could not be that the pillars of modern art, the giants of contemporary aesthetic expression suffered from schizophrenia. There was evidence that both Matisse and Picasso and the other kingpins of modern art were well adjusted to contemporary modes of living, in fact, to the luxuries of “streamlined” surroundings.
I was still more perplexed by the reactions of “art lovers” to various types of art. I heard a woman, who was educated in a finishing school and conditioned to either classical or Victorian art, exclaim, “How beautiful!”, “What great feeling!”, “Such wonderful originality!”, as she gazed at a Picasso painting. I witnessed another heaping great praise on a Kandinsky abstract, but when I visited her home, I found it filled with French Provincial furniture. These two examples are typical of thousands of our contemporaries.
Finding out what made the “modem” artists do the things they do and what caused “art lovers” to behave as they do, became my primary goal.
To get the answers required probing the depths of human motivations. This is why I became interested in people’s attitudes and became a researcher.
In 1935, the Adult Education Program of the Chicago Board of Education gave me the opportunity to fulfill my dream to put art to scientific measurement. Under the auspices of the Adult Education Program, I organized an Art Education Division, and set up a project for conducting studies on the psychological effects of visual media—designs, images and colors. Later a special project was organized for conducting studies on how visual media can be used as aids in motivating people to get interested in adult education. A special unit was formed for developing measuring instruments, testing devices, methods and techniques for evaluating attitudes.
For a short time, I directed a program in connection with the Federal Art Project, for training creative men and women in the graphic arts to communicate. Most of the creative people despised and resisted this program. To communicate meant to them limiting creativity and stifling originality. The program lasted about one year. The projects of the Board of Education were in operation from three to five years.
We were trying to measure attitudes toward adult education, toward citizenship, social studies, traditional and modern art.
A number of studies revealed the attitudes toward “adult education.” They showed that the majority of men and women thought education was meant for the young, not for adults.
I decided to find out whether my book, Living with Art, did not become a best seller because it was not adequately promoted or for other reasons. A choice of one from five books was offered as a prize. This was only one part of the test, but the results of this part were quite revealing. Two of the books were novels, two were on modern art and the fifth was Living with Art. Test results: those respondents with art interests wanted one of the two on modern art. Respondents who had no art interests, about 80% of the sample, wanted one of the novels. Living with Art came out with a preference of 6%. It was quite clear that a very large majority of men and women were not interested in Living with Art.
This happened in 1940. I was busy directing a number of projects—with test forms, teaching plans and community programs; but “mercenary” ideas—had suddenly crept into my mind. What did this mean? I was toying with the idea of offering my services to commerce. I felt very guilty about this. I had been trained to be a teacher and researcher and had been conditioned to serve the general good, not do anything merely for a profit. Even my creative efforts in painting were to communicate, to inform, and seeking payment was supposed to be incidental or a necessary evil.
I was conscious of the fact that the Adult Education Program opened great vistas to me. I felt greatly obligated to the individuals who made it possible for me to have the experimental projects that gave me opportunities few persons have in a lifetime. I have always felt obligated to the late Elizabeth Wells Robertson and to Vernon Bowyer of the Chicago Board of Education, and I appreciated the aid I received from Harry T. Fultz and the late Clem O. Thompson of the University of Chicago. I felt close to the Adult Education movement and to the men and women who led it. It was difficult for me to break away.
However, “Pearl Harbor” accomplished for me what I couldn’t do for myself. I was called to help save the world from Tojo and Hitler. While trying to teach soldiers how to recognize aircraft, how to camouflage themselves and how to do a job, no matter what it might be, in the shortest time and in the most efficient way, I had plenty of time to think. Although my thoughts were often interrupted, because I had an “errand to do” for the Colonel, I still found time for meditation.
During the war I met business people. In talking to them, I found out, much to my surprise, that they were investing millions on the basis of hunches. They discussed consumer products in rational terms. One told me that if you make the best mousetrap, the people will come to your door.
Very few had heard of the unconscious mind and of unconscious motivations. Most of those I talked with, some executives of large corporations, could not believe that a package, trademark or color could mean the difference between success and failure. By the time the war was almost over, I was convinced that I could make a major contribution to business.
However, I knew nothing about running a business. Like the character in search of an author, I was in search of a businessman who would run the business while I administered the services. I told a friend of mine, who was in the insurance business, that I needed a partner to whom business was not a mystery as it was to me. A few days later he invited me to his home for dinner where I met a man who was well known both as a business executive and as a public relations man. His name was George D. Gaw.
I showed George Gaw several examples of the research of images and colors from the experimental projects at the Board of Education. He examined them carefully and I was very flattered by his complimentary remarks.
He was particularly impressed with the studies on color. “Businessmen and advertising men think they know a lot about design and copy, but they are aware that they know nothing about color,” he said. This, I could understand.
He also told me about some “tests” he had done with color. They were extremely naive, with no controls whatever. But it was quite clear that George Gaw had a passion for color. He was running a service organization called “The Direct Mail Research Institute.” He showed me a few of his releases. I saw that they contained many references to color. Most of them were reprints on color from popular magazines.
I saw the Direct Mail “literature” at his office at our second meeting. Our third was at the Chicago Board of Education offices where he asked me to come to his office on the following day to talk business.
The Direct Mail Research Institute was operating from the headquarters of the National Research Bureau. Gaw told me that the National Research Bureau would sell any services that had to do with research. This sounded good.
In less than a month I was installed as Associate Director of the Color Research Institute. This was in September of 1944. We thought the war was almost over, but after a number of weeks of Color Research Institute activity, the Allied troops had a setback in Holland and affairs in general looked bleak to me.
Soon, world affairs began to improve and we continued to organize the Color