Incredibly good piece of writing. So intelligent and thoughtful. Thank you for this.

I love the nod to 'Death Note' in the second image (enjoyed watching this among others with my kid).

Re: the European sociopsychological research (which does sound interesting) -

"over the stereotypical dental-hygienist off-brand replicas of Edward Hopper"

What about actual Hopper's? I just wanted to clarify.

Again though, excellent piece, really enjoyable reading.

*editing* (5mins later) to say, I decided not to be lazy and went to follow your links to the study, which in the abstract of it's conclusions provided says:

"Using high-field functional magnetic resonance imaging in a second study, we found a similar pattern of results, showing specific activation in the precuneus, a brain area associated with self-related operations, in all prime conditions for the viewing of naturalistic paintings, but only in the death and disgust prime conditions when viewing surrealistic paintings. Our results suggest motivated self-reference when viewing both naturalistic and surrealistic artworks under mortality salience. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd."

So, ok, I got it now.