Loading...
Please wait, while we are loading the content...
Similar Documents
Do we like what we see?.
| Content Provider | CiteSeerX |
|---|---|
| Author | Latto, Richard |
| Abstract | Shapes have an aesthetic value even in the absence of meaning. This observation underlay the move to abstraction in 20th century art. It also raises the question of why some abstract shapes are more attractive than others. One possibility is that we find pleasing those forms most closely tuned to the properties of our visual system. An example of differential tuning is the oblique effect in orientation perception: horizontal and vertical lines have privileged access, predicting that they should also be preferred. The effect of rotating Mondrian's paintings on their aesthetic appeal was examined, controlling for frame orientation by using paintings with either oblique or horizontal/vertical frames. There was a preference for pictures when their component lines were horizontal/vertical rather than oblique and, independently of this, for the original orientation, perhaps because rotation changes the painting’s balance as well as the orientation of component lines. There was no overall preference for either frame orientation, but there was an interaction between frame orientation and component orientation, resulting in a preference for paintings where the components were parallel to the frame. A follow-up study analysing a representative sample of paintings found a greater use of horizontal/vertical contours in a wide range of styles, including representational paintings. Together these findings suggest that there is an aesthetic oblique effect paralleling the psychophysical oblique effect, both of which reflect the structure of our visual environment. |
| File Format | |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
