Abstract
Some paintings by renowned artists were drawn in inaccurate perspective, but the psychological effects of such technique on impression of paintings were not clarified. This study investigated the influence of information about inaccurate perspective on impression of paintings. Three famous paintings drawn in inaccurate perspective were used as stimuli. In two experiments, participants were asked to answer the impression of paintings using two kinds of rating scales, information rate scale (IRS) and semantic differential (SD) scale. When watching paintings, half of participants were given information about inaccurate perspective, and the other half were not. The impressions were compared between two groups. Results showed that information about inaccurate perspective increased “novelty” impression of paintings that consisted of mainly IRS items. We discussed the relationship between perception of inaccurate perspective and impression of paintings. Furthermore, we confirmed that it is efficient to separate impression of paintings into informational impression measured by IRS and semantic impression measured by SD scale in empirical study of paintings.
