Valuing visuals: What elements attract viewers of paintings and Instagram photos?

Visual characteristics of paintings on auction sites are assessed with respect to their hammer prizes. In a content analysis of realistic paintings collected within a limited period, price, and size, visual characteristics will be identified, and statistically related to their hammer prizes. In the second part of the project, these characteristics will be applied to a collection of Instagram Influencer visuals and related to their social engagement. Visual characteristics that affect both hammer prizes and likes may help social media visual designers, and inform researchers of computer vision models.

We are going to look for visual properties of paintings, both abstract (background-foreground) and concrete (depicted cat or dog), and check whether they raise the hammer prizes. Next, we do the same for Instagram Influencer visuals and the share of likes they get. This way we hope to find general properties of visuals that affect viewers.