The impact of cultural background on lighting preferences for viewing paintings

This study investigates the LED lighting preference difference between Eastern and Western viewers for viewing museum paintings. The experiment was conducted in a room designed to simulate the exhibition of real paintings in museums. A total of forty participants (twenty Western and twenty Eastern observers) evaluated six oil paintings under twelve different lighting conditions. Each painting was assessed via 13-word pairs using the categorical judgment method. The experimental result depicted that illuminance level had a larger impact than Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) on visual perception, and two factors dominate visual perception for Western observers (comfort and warmth), while three factors do for Eastern observers (comfort, colorful and warmth). In addition, comfort zones of illuminance and CCT for paintings in museums for Western and Eastern observers had been established.