Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2005

Publication Source

Empirical Studies of the Arts

Abstract

Sixty college students rated digitized facsimiles of 20 paintings on 12 semantic differential scales. The paintings represented two classes of content, landscape and portrait, and two styles, traditional and modern. Half the participants viewed the paintings in color, half in black and white. Removing color from portraits increased their perceived pleasantness and beauty and reduced tension. In contrast, removing color from landscapes reduced their perceived beauty. It is argued that for landscapes color may provide a critical channel for transmitting increased amounts of information such as depth. For portraits, color can be superfluous or even distracting.

Inclusive pages

153-163

Document Version

Preprint

Comments

The document available for download is the authors' accepted manuscript, provided in compliance with the publisher's policy on self-archiving. Permission documentation is on file. To view the version of record, use the DOI: https://doi.org/10.2190/ECK9-C18E-RQN9-7WNE

Volume

23

Issue

2

Peer Reviewed

yes

Keywords

Experimental Aesthetics, Color, Paintings

Link to published version

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