Lighting and visual experience of artworks: Results of a study campaign at the National Museum of San Matteo in Pisa, Italy

Light is one of the main factors affecting the visual experience of artworks in museums and can determine the success or failure of an art exhibition. The lighting design is not yet extensively recognized as a crucial element of museum exhibitions, but recent research studies show how different lighting arrangements can create different impressions of the artworks and affect the visual experience of museum visitors. This project involved a psychophysical study of two ancient artworks, a painted panel (14th Century) and a marble sculpture (15th Century), exhibited at the National Museum of San Matteo in Pisa, Italy. Each experiment was set up with different lighting arrangements and different luminaires, with the aim of creating different lighting contrast ratios between the analysed artwork and its background. Those lighting arrangements were presented to different groups of observers in order to investigate the trends of personal preference. The results of the surveys pointed out that, on average, the observers preferred lighting arrangements that provide a certain level of contrast, while configurations with high contrast or almost no contrast were evaluated as less pleasant, less interesting and less suitable to enhance the artworks.