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
Volume
23
Issue
2
Peer Reviewed
yes
Keywords
Experimental Aesthetics, Color, Paintings
eCommons Citation
Polzella, Donald J.; Hammar, Stephanie H.; and Hinkle, Chad W., "The effect of color on viewers’ ratings of paintings" (2005). Psychology Faculty Publications. 99.
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/psy_fac_pub/99
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