Frontiers in Psychology (Apr 2018)

Reliable Top-Left Light Convention Starts With Early Renaissance: An Extensive Approach Comprising 10k Artworks

  • Claus-Christian Carbon,
  • Claus-Christian Carbon,
  • Alexander Pastukhov,
  • Alexander Pastukhov

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00454
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9

Abstract

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Art history claims that Western art shows light from the top left, which has been repeatedly shown with narrow image sets and simplistic research methods. Here we employed a set of 10,000 pictures for which participants estimated the direction of light plus their confidence of estimation. From 1420 A.D., the onset of Early Renaissance, until 1900 A.D., we revealed a clear preference for painting light from the top left—within the same period, we observed the highest confidence in such estimations of the light source.One sentence summaryThis study demonstrates a robust preference for painting light from the top left for Western art history, starting from Early Renaissance until 1900.

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