Recent research published in journals Psychology of aesthetics, creativity and art We provide evidence that the human brain applies different standards of beauty depending on the type of visual art it evaluates. By comparing the visual properties of historic building facades and artistic paintings, scientists discovered that architects and painters value aesthetic features such as symmetry and complexity in completely different ways.
When people look at an image, their evaluation of its beauty depends on several visual variables. These variables include properties such as color, balance, symmetry, complexity, and the relationship between the main subject and its background. Psychological theories of visual perception suggest that humans tend to prefer sensory properties that the brain can easily process.
“I’m interested in the brain’s evaluation system, the network that learns and develops values for decision-making,” said Norbert Grzywacz, a professor of psychology at Loyola University Chicago. “In particular, I was interested in the aesthetic values that are also processed in this system. At some point, I asked myself whether aesthetic values in sensory domains such as vision are universal, or are they specific to different domains?”
Rating systems rely on various neural circuits to determine our preferences. “Recent research shows that specific networks in the brain, or rating systems, determine our preferences about things in the world,” Grzyvac said. “This network corresponds to different sensory modalities, including vision, hearing, taste, and smell.”
Taste and smell refer to the sense of taste and smell. “So we know that there are different repositories of aesthetic value for each of these modalities,” Grzywacz said. “But we were surprised to find that even within one modality, vision, different values are stored separately in different domains. In our study, we found that aesthetic values are domain-dependent and different for art and architecture.”
Current computational models of how people learn aesthetic values treat these rules as universal. This means that the model assumes that the brain evaluates paintings using the exact same visual criteria it uses to evaluate sculptures or buildings. A quick observation shows that this universal approach may not be completely accurate.
For example, a building that looks unbalanced may cause discomfort because it looks like it’s about to topple over. Architects planning the exterior of a building may want to maximize the balance of the exterior to provide a sense of stability to the public. In contrast, artists who paint may use intentionally unbalanced compositions to create a sense of movement and drama.
To test whether aesthetic value is associated with specific categories, scientists compared the visual statistics of architectural and artistic paintings. It is difficult to make this comparison fair because buildings are often limited by physical materials, construction costs, and construction regulations. To address this, the authors focused on a specific time and place characterized by immense artistic and architectural freedom. They chose the period of the Great Haussmann Renovation of Paris, which took place from 1853 to 1870.
During this renovation, architects were given an almost unlimited budget to redesign the French city. Around the same time, an era of large-scale artistic production was dawning in France. Many famous painters from various art movements were active in this area. This overlapping period has allowed scientists to study the artistic choices both architects and painters made when they were free from major economic or structural constraints.
Researchers collected photographs of the facades of residential buildings constructed in Paris during Haussmannian renovations. They photographed the buildings under similar lighting conditions and angles. After removing images with perspective distortions and obstacles such as trees, we ended up with a sample of 55 architectural images.
For artistic comparison, scientists collected 142 photos of paintings by 61 different artists. These paintings are in the collections of the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. To ensure accurate historical correspondence, all selected paintings were completed between 1853 and 1870 by French artists or artists who spent most of their careers in France.
The authors then used a computer program to analyze specific visual characteristics across both image groups. They measured three types of visual complexity by looking at differences in light intensity, spatial arrangement, and color changes. Complexity in this context refers to the mathematical amount of visual information contained within an image.
The scientists also calculated the degree of balance and symmetry in each image. To do this, the computer compared the distribution of light and dark areas on the left and right sides of the photo. The program then evaluated the images for repeating spatial patterns, known as periodicity.
Additional measurements included the distribution of visual orientation, examining whether horizontal and vertical lines dominated the image. The scientists also measured the proportions of foreground and background space, as well as the dominant color shades present in the pieces. We then performed statistical tests to compare the building data to the painting data.
The data provided evidence of measurable differences in how aesthetic variables were applied in the two areas. Buildings tended to have a significantly higher level of visual complexity than paintings. Although it may intuitively seem that a painting is more complex than a wall with windows, in reality a building contains more distinct variations in the boundaries of light and space. Many paintings have similar skin tones and mixed backgrounds, which actually reduces their mathematical complexity.
House facades also exhibited a greater degree of balance and symmetry. The visual weight of the architectural photo was evenly distributed across the center. Artistic paintings showed much more imbalance, as artists often grouped bright or detailed subjects to one side of the canvas.
Additionally, although buildings tend to repeat patterns and exhibit a high degree of spatial periodicity, artists rarely incorporated such strict repeating patterns into their works. Similarly, architectural images showed a strong bias towards strict vertical and horizontal lines. Paintings included a much greater variety of orientations, including slanted lines to indicate movement.
The researchers found that buildings have clear boundaries between background walls and foreground elements such as windows. In painting, the border between subject and background was not so clear. The scientists also investigated whether materials and artistic movements affected these visual statistics.
They categorized paintings by medium, such as oil and watercolor, and by art style, such as Impressionism and Romanticism. In most cases, medium and style had little effect on measured aesthetic value. One exception is the visibly increased color complexity in Impressionist paintings.
Paintings of the Barbizon school, a realist movement focused on landscape painting, reduced the complexity of color. Interestingly, both buildings and paintings shared a preference for warm orange colors. The authors suggest that this may be because humans tend to prefer calm, earthy tones. Also, the buildings exhibited a high degree of visual harmony with each other, probably due to the need to use local cream-colored limestone.
“When we say something is beautiful, the context of what we are looking at is important,” says Grzywacz.
However, potential limitations of this study include its reliance on analysis of the final product rather than directly testing human observers.
“We have been asking whether contemporary artists and architects use the same aesthetic values in their craft,” Grzyvac said. “These results are not the most direct way to explore whether the brain has separate aesthetic values for art and architecture. To directly answer this question, we will need to work with a sample of participants.”
Another limitation includes this study’s reliance on a single historical period and geographic location. The large visual differences between the buildings and the paintings may have been influenced by the unique cultural background of 19th century Paris. If we look at other historical periods, such as the Renaissance or Baroque eras, we may obtain different statistical patterns.
“We work on a variety of issues related to values, and we often use aesthetics for experimentation and modeling,” Grzywacz said. “Four examples are: 1. Why do different people (including identical twins) have different values? 2. How do the aesthetic values of people with mental health problems differ from those without such problems? 3. How will AI affect the distribution of values in society? 4. Why are values socially polarized?”
“Einstein once wrote, ‘The more I read, the more I was perplexed by the order of the universe and the disorder of the human mind,'” Grzyvac said. “Einstein was understandably perplexed by how disordered the human mind seemed. But the more he studied it, the more he realized that the disorder stemmed from rational mechanisms. Einstein was adapting each person as best he could to his own situation.”
The study “Domain-Specific Aesthetic Values: A Comparison of Painting and Architecture” was authored by Norberto M. Grzywacz, Consuelo M. Correa, and Ivan Correa-Herran.
