Manifestations of Socionic Functions Purely in the Stylistic (Rather Than Narrative) Features of Works of Visual Art

The author’s observations and inferences

INTUITION

• Ne Wild imagination depicting what is impossible in reality. Strange combinations of things. A phantasmagoria of details. A rainbow of colors.
• Ni Morbid imagination emphasizing dark and frightening things. Strange distortions of and damage to things. A phantasmagoria of details. Fog. Lifelessness. Faded whitishness or blackness.

SENSING

• Se Sharp and sweeping but confident brushstrokes and lines, bright colors without half-tones, clear boundaries of objects. Exaggeratedly “cool” and deliberately sexualized depictions of characters and things, to the point of being pornographic.
• Si A healthy and rich (but not “garish”) color palette, with natural shades predominating. Rounded, “appetizing” forms. Characters exude health; the things depicted evoke a distinct smell in the mind, food - an appetite.

DEFICIT OF INTUITION

• -Ne Realism faithful in its details. Realistically rendered textures, often - bearing traces of time. An artificially aged image - muted tones. Everyday life and things as they were one or two generations ago.
• -Ni Realism faithful in its details. Casual style. Everyday life and things as they are now. Normal, everyday combinations of colors and objects, without excessive schematization or detail (everything as the average human eye sees it). A sense of life flowing all around, a sense of the stability of the future.

DEFICIT OF SENSING

• -Se Exaggerated fragility, smallness, weakness, and infantilized asexuality of the central characters in comparison with the objects and background characters of the surrounding world. Tentative sketches, thin trembling lines, restrained pastel tones.
• -Si Elongated and pointed forms of objects and characters, a sense that they could lose their balance at any moment (implausibly long and thin spires, high heels, being at the edge of a precipice, etc.). Contrasting (unhealthy, “poisonous”) combinations of two colors (often - some bright color - for example, red, yellow, pink, purple - with black).

LOGIC

• Ti Schematic representation. The presence of perspective and a sense of space. Numerous things in the background whose distribution follows statistical regularities.
• Te Bare functionalism. Professional templates, as though stamped out using a stencil. A sense that the artist is saving time and depicting only the important details - those whose presence will be paid for.

ETHICS

• Fi A focus on the personalities of the characters. The individuality of each depicted subject and object is elaborated. Even things look as though they have individual histories.
• Fe Heroic style. A monocentric composition with a focus on an overvalued image*. The space is filled with light falling from the heavens, luminous halos.

DEFICIT OF LOGIC

• -Ti Caricaturally exaggerated appearance, facial expressions, and poses of the characters. Violations of spatial perspective and of the proportions of objects and people.
• -Te Decorativeness, ornamentation. The artist likes to depict beautiful details (patterns, flowers, etc.) without any practical purpose.

DEFICIT OF ETHICS

• -Fi A focus on the plot, on the meaning of what is happening. Action. Objectification of characters unimportant to the plot (for example: the main character mows down a crowd of enemies resembling dummies).
• -Fe Objectification of characters central to the plot - depiction of the prosaic underside of life. The simulation of light is not used - the images are emotionally flattened.

QUESTIMITY

• Qe An image with a claim to the highest quality - fit to hang on the wall under glass. Marks of quality - monograms, coats of arms. The Master’s signature.
• Qi A unique artistic style in which the creator’s personality can be felt. A carefully thought-out and coherent plot that cannot be found anywhere else.

DECLATIMITY

• De A well-developed image, as required by mainstream standards. Everything to make as many people as possible want to hang it on their wall.
• Di An image in strict accordance with the canons of the culture in which the artist works.

DEFICIT OF QUESTIMITY

• -Qe Creases and dirt on the canvas. Extraneous details showing through. An image on something not intended for drawing but that happened to come to hand. Carelessness in depicting details - a drawing done any old way, slapdash, just to finish as quickly as possible.
• -Qi Obvious but superficial imitation of the style and typical plots of some subculture. Comics.

DEFICIT OF DECLATIMITY

• -De Traces of the artist’s work - insufficiently developed or incompletely drawn elements, sketch guidelines showing through. Works that have taken excessively long and remain unfinished. Everything that narrows the audience niche to a small circle of connoisseurs of this particular artist’s work.
• -Di Flagrant violation of canons and unspoken taboos.

From the comments (30.05.2025):

Anna Ponomareva: The author always and everywhere describes Fe only from the Beta perspective.

Socionic Navigator: (…) a focus on an overvalued image is more a matter of extraverted questimity, that is, Beta. But highlighting with light that to which value is attached is quite characteristic of extraverted ethics in general. After all, light and perspective are dual phenomena, since together they provide a full understanding of the vastness of the space encompassed by the mind’s eye (which is what distinguishes the values of the “merry”). Alpha Fe, however, yes, less often focuses on a single individual, narcissistically exalting that individual, and more often assigns value to everything that exists, like light illuminating the entire Earth.

Dmitry Galkin: Is surrealism a manifestation of Ne in its pure form?

Socionic Navigator: Dmitry, Ne or Ni, and more likely in their leading positions, coupled with tactics (tacticians like to depict numerous details and elaborately rendered textures). Ne, in this case, prefers to create unusual combinations, whereas Ni prefers to deform the depicted objects plastically.