Does Pictorial Composition guide the Eye? Investigating Four Centuries of Last Supper Pictures

Author(s)
Rosa Sancarlo, Zoya Dare, Jozsef Arato, Raphael Rosenberg
Abstract

Within art literature, there is a centuries-old assumption that the eye follows the lines set out by the composition of a painting. However, recent empirical findings suggest that this may not be true. This study investigates beholders' saccadic eye movements while looking at fourteen paintings representing the scene of the Last Supper, and their perception of the compositions of those paintings. The experiment included three parts: 1) recording the eye movements of the participants looking at the paintings; 2) asking participants to draw the composition of the paintings; and 3) asking them to rate the amount of depth in the paintings. We developed a novel coefficient of similarity in order to quantify 1) the similarity between the saccades of different observers; 2) the similarity between the compositional drawings of different observers; and 3) the similarity between saccades and compositional drawings. For all of the tested paintings, we found a high, above-chance similarity between the saccades and between the compositional drawings. Additionally, for most of the paintings, we also found a high, above-chance similarity between compositional lines and saccades, both on a collective and on an individual level. Ultimately, our findings suggest that composition does influence visual perception.

Organisation(s)
Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, Department of Art History
Journal
Journal of Eye Movement Research
Volume
13
Pages
1-13
No. of pages
13
DOI
https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.2.7
Publication date
2020
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
604004 Fine arts
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Sensory Systems, Ophthalmology
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/does-pictorial-composition-guide-the-eye-investigating-four-centuries-of-last-supper-pictures(472cf4cf-8c00-4cb9-8f02-f0f2d364af45).html