painters2: Painters Data with Historical Art Variables

In candisc: Visualizing Generalized Canonical Discriminant and Canonical Correlation Analysis

Painters Data with Historical Art Variables

Description

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.

Usage

painters2

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)

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.

Source

Venables, W. N. and Ripley, B. D. (2002) Modern Applied Statistics with S. Fourth edition. Springer.

References

De Piles, R. (1743). The Principles of Painting. London, n.p.

See Also

painters

Examples

data(painters2)

# Compare original School with new Period grouping
with(painters2, table(School, Period))

# Compare original School with new Period grouping
with(painters2, table(School, Emphasis))

# Summary of de Piles ratings by Period
aggregate(cbind(Composition, Drawing, Colour, Expression) ~ Period,
          data = painters2, FUN = mean)

candisc documentation built on Nov. 25, 2025, 9:07 a.m.