The original painters dataset from the MASS package contains
the subjective assessment, on a 0 to 20 integer scale, of 54 classical painters.
The painters were rated on four characteristics: Composition,
Drawing, Colour and Expression, and grouped according to "School" based on
nationality, era, and style.
The data is due to the Eighteenth century art critic, Roger de Piles (1743).
This extended version adds categorical variables that capture art historical distinctions among schools of painting based on their chronological period, artistic emphasis, style, and treatment of light.
Format
A data frame with 54 observations on 10 variables:
- Composition
Composition score (0-20) assigned by de Piles
- Drawing
Drawing score (0-20) assigned by de Piles
- Colour
Colour score (0-20) assigned by de Piles
- Expression
Expression score (0-20) assigned by de Piles
- School
School of painter: "Renaissance", "Mannerist", "Sciento", "Venetian", "Lombard", "16th C", "17th C", "French"
- Sch
Letter code for School of painter: "A" through "H"
- Period
An ordered factor. Historical period: "Early" (1400-1520: Renaissance, Venetian, Lombard), "Transition" (1500-1600: 16th C, Mannerist), "Baroque" (1600-1750: Sciento, 17th C, French)
- Emphasis
A factor. Primary artistic focus: "Form" (emphasis on drawing, composition, classical ideals), "Color" (emphasis on color and light effects), "Drama" (emphasis on dramatic realism and emotional intensity)
- Style
A factor. Aesthetic approach: "Classical" (balanced, harmonious, adherence to classical ideals), "Expressive" (emotional intensity, dramatic effects), "Regional" (distinctive regional characteristics)
- Light
A factor. Treatment of light and shadow: "Balanced" (even, harmonious lighting), "Luminous" (rich color and atmospheric light effects), "Dramatic" (strong chiaroscuro, dramatic contrasts)
Source
Venables, W. N. and Ripley, B. D. (2002) Modern Applied Statistics with S. Fourth edition. Springer.
Details
Names of the painters are given as rownames(painters2).
The original version painters used letters, "A" through "H" to identify the schools of painters.
This is kept here as the variable Sch, and the variable School now gives the actual label of the school.
The four new categorical variables (Period, Emphasis, Style, Light) were constructed to reflect art historical distinctions among the schools:
Period groups schools by broad historical era
Emphasis captures the primary artistic focus of each school
Style reflects the aesthetic approach and philosophical orientation
Light distinguishes approaches to light and shadow treatment
These variables can be useful for exploring how art historical categories relate to de Piles' quantitative ratings, and for demonstrating MANOVA and multivariate discriminant analysis techniques.
Examples
data(painters2)
#> Warning: data set 'painters2' not found
# Compare original School with new Period grouping
with(painters2, table(School, Period))
#> Error: object 'painters2' not found
# Compare original School with new Period grouping
with(painters2, table(School, Emphasis))
#> Error: object 'painters2' not found
# Summary of de Piles ratings by Period
aggregate(cbind(Composition, Drawing, Colour, Expression) ~ Period,
data = painters2, FUN = mean)
#> Error in eval(m$data, parent.frame()): object 'painters2' not found