Being K. Malevich: A hands-on approach to compositional preference

Perceived visual balance is one of the critical factors that determine whether an artwork is regarded as aesthetically pleasing or not. This kind of balance seems to depend on the perceptual weight given to the major elements of a composition that can differ in size, position, shape, orientation, and colors within the pictorial field. We probe the relationship between perceived stability, dynamics, balance and aesthetic ratings of ten original artworks from the Suprematist art movement and 20 participant-arranged compositions with the elements taken from the artworks. For each artwork, 22 art-naïve participants arranged first all shape elements on the corresponding “canvas” of the paper version separately according to two tasks: create a stable and create a dynamic composition. After this, they transferred the final compositions to the computer and rated their digital versions of the stable and dynamic arrangements as well as the original Suprematists’ artworks according to the degree of perceived balance, stability, and dynamic appearance and personal preference. Qualitatively, in “stable” compositions shape elements were arranged more symmetrically and often stacked on the lower part of the “canvas,” whereas in “dynamic” compositions elements were often rotated with respect to the pictorial field and distributed unevenly or asymmetrically over larger areas. The relationship between perceived stability, dynamics, and liking varied with the complexity of the artwork and geometrical indices of balance did not correlate strongly with perceptual ratings and liking. Our analysis revealed differences in individual preference for either stable or dynamic arrangements.