The impact of illuminance and colour temperature on viewing fine art paintings under LED lighting

Abstract

The aims of this study were to investigate suitable LED lighting conditions for viewing fine art paintings in a museum environment and to test Kruithof's rule that defines pleasant lighting in terms of correlated colour temperature (CCT) and illuminance. The experiment was conducted in a room designed to simulate the exhibition of real paintings in museums. Twenty-four observers of different gender and educational background participated to evaluate oil and gouache paintings under different lighting conditions. Each painting was assessed via 14 word pairs using the categorical judgment method. The results showed that illuminance had a larger impact than CCT on visual perception, and three factors dominate visual perceptions: Comfort, Vividness and Definition. The present results only partially agreed with Kruithof's rule. A comfort zone of illuminance and CCT for paintings in museums has been developed.

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