Likeness, Familiarity, and the Ambient Portrait Average

Abstract

This artist-led research project involved 10 visual artists producing 10 ambient portraits and a portrait average of a locally familiar Sitter, and 10 ambient portraits and a portrait average of a less locally familiar Sitter. All were then assessed for likeness by more than 150 members of the general public attending an exhibition during Australia’s 2018 National Science Week. The results of this study are that portrait averages can be highly shape accurate and tend to be seen as a good likeness by all viewers. However, the portrait average is not necessarily the best likeness. Extending and validating our previous findings regarding the relationship of likeness, familiarity, and shape accuracy (as measured using geometric morphometrics) in portraiture, unfamiliar viewers favouring shape accurate depictions of a Sitter attained statistical significance. Familiar viewers, however, although also tending to view shape accurate depictions a good to very good likeness, were shown to have a stronger preference for portraits that exaggerate a Sitter’s facial distinctiveness, including an exaggeration of their head pose, providing such exaggerations are in approximate proportional agreement.

Analysing Texture in Portraits

“…This reference photograph was taken during a preliminary life drawing session with the Sitter’s face lit by two studio lights: a primary light source located ∼ 60° above and to the right of the Sitter’s face (i.e., above left in the picture frame) and a secondary, highly diffuse source above and to the left. As with the shape and likeness analysis of these 12 images (Hayes et al., 2020), the reference photograph is taken to be the most accurate depiction.…”

“…The portrait average is a statistical average of the 10 portraits achieved using the thin plate spline software created by James Rohlf (2015), and was exhibited as a portrait alongside the portraits from which it was derived—made possible by the images being only identified by a letter (A–K). Further information regarding the production and exhibition of the works can be found in Hayes et al. (2020).…”

“…Visitors posted their completed assessments into a purpose-built box, which were subsequently dated, coded, and filed. For more detail, see Hayes et al. (2020).…”

“…This current study is a companion analysis to Hayes et al. (2020) and arose from the recommendations of two reviewers of the previous papers.…”

“…A subsequent review of the literature indicated there are few, if any, precedents examining the relationship of texture depiction in portraits to likeness, and furthermore, only one set of portraits that we analysed for shape depicts the Sitter’s head and face in an unoccluded frontal view (Figure 1), which is required for undertaking a texture PCA with the MATLAB-based software, InterFace (Kramer et al., 2017). This, therefore, is an initial, and necessarily limited, case study primarily addressing how portrait textures can be quantitatively analysed, and if these findings can be related to their previously reported likeness assessments (Hayes et al., 2020). What follows is an overview of how texture (luminance, hue, and saturation; reflectance) has been explored within face perception and the visual arts, including where some of these studies have applied image processing, and what this indicates regarding the likely relationship of texture to portrait likeness.…”