THE FACTORS OF THE LATERAL ORIENTATION OF PORTRAITS
THE FACTORS OF THE LATERAL ORIENTATION OF PORTRAITS

Summary/Abstract: This paper analyses the portraits` aesthetic experience from side perspectives, including left and right orientation. Research was conducted by performing two experiments. The first experiment included 40 participants, the second had 26 participants of both genders who were not trained in the field of fine arts. The stimuli were 12 reproductions of portraits, profile orientation, of models made by famous painters. All the portraits represented adult persons, of different genders (male or female), spatial orientation (left or right) of the model and form (original or inverted). The participants assessed the presented portraits without time limitation on six scales, which measured two dimensions of aesthetic experience: evaluation and activity. The results support the hypothesis claiming that left side orientation (looking to the left) is valued higher with female portraits, while right side orientation with male portraits is valued higher. It has also been shown that the given differences in estimation were stable, keeping values in the same trend when the portraits were being inverted along a vertical axis.

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