IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2206.04013.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The influence of color on prices of abstract paintings

Author

Listed:
  • Maksim Borisov
  • Valeria Kolycheva
  • Alexander Semenov
  • Dmitry Grigoriev

Abstract

Determination of price of an artwork is a fundamental problem in cultural economics. In this work we investigate what impact visual characteristics of a painting have on its price. We construct a number of visual features measuring complexity of the painting, its points of interest, segmentation-based features, local color features, and features based on Itten and Kandinsky theories, and utilize mixed-effects model to study impact of these features on the painting price. We analyze the influence of the color on the example of the most complex art style - abstractionism, by created Kandinsky, for which the color is the primary basis. We use Itten's theory - the most recognized color theory in art history, from which the largest number of subtheories was born. For this day it is taken as the base for teaching artists. We utilize novel dataset of 3885 paintings collected from Christie's and Sotheby's and find that color harmony has some explanatory power, color complexity metrics are insignificant and color diversity explains price well.

Suggested Citation

  • Maksim Borisov & Valeria Kolycheva & Alexander Semenov & Dmitry Grigoriev, 2022. "The influence of color on prices of abstract paintings," Papers 2206.04013, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2206.04013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.04013
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Susanne Schönfeld & Andreas Reinstaller, 2007. "The effects of gallery and artist reputation on prices in the primary market for art: a note," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 31(2), pages 143-153, June.
    2. Buelens, Nathalie & Ginsburgh, Victor, 1993. "Revisiting Baumol's 'art as floating crap game'," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 1351-1371, October.
    3. Lisa Farrell & Jane M. Fry & Tim R. L. Fry, 2021. "Gender differences in hammer prices for Australian Indigenous art," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 45(1), pages 1-12, March.
    4. Andrew C. Worthington & Helen Higgs, 2004. "Art as an investment: risk, return and portfolio diversification in major painting markets," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 44(2), pages 257-271, July.
    5. Elena Stepanova, 2019. "The impact of color palettes on the prices of paintings," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 755-773, February.
    6. Lan Ju & Zhiyong Tu & Changyong Xue, 2019. "Art Pricing with Computer Graphic Techniques," Papers 1910.03800, arXiv.org.
    7. Pownall, Rachel A.J. & Graddy, Kathryn, 2016. "Pricing color intensity and lightness in contemporary art auctions," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 412-420.
    8. Chanel, Olivier, 1995. "Is art market behaviour predictable?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 519-527, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shailendra Gurjar & Usha Ananthakumar, 2023. "The economics of art: price determinants and returns on investment in Indian paintings," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 50(6), pages 839-859, January.
    2. Jaehyuk Choi & Lan Ju & Jian Li & Zhiyong Tu, 2023. "Information extraction and artwork pricing," Papers 2302.08167, arXiv.org.
    3. Andrew Worthington & Helen Higgs, 2006. "A Note on Financial Risk, Return and Asset Pricing in Australian Modern and Contemporary Art," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 30(1), pages 73-84, March.
    4. Helen Higgs & Andrew Worthington, 2005. "Financial Returns and Price Determinants in the Australian Art Market, 1973-2003," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(253), pages 113-123, June.
    5. William N. Goetzmann & Luc Renneboog & Christophe Spaenjers, 2011. "Art and Money," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 222-226, May.
    6. Demir, Ender & Gozgor, Giray & Sari, Emre, 2018. "Dynamics of the Turkish paintings market: A comprehensive empirical study," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 180-194.
    7. Nauro F. Campos & Renata Leite Barbosa, 2009. "Paintings and numbers: an econometric investigation of sales rates, prices, and returns in Latin American art auctions," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 61(1), pages 28-51, January.
    8. Francesco Angelini & Massimiliano Castellani, 2019. "Cultural and economic value: a critical review," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 43(2), pages 173-188, June.
    9. Lan Ju & Zhiyong Tu & Changyong Xue, 2020. "Pricing the Information Quantity in Artworks," Papers 2011.09129, arXiv.org.
    10. William N. Goetzmann & Luc Renneboog & Christophe Spaenjers, 2011. "Art and Money," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 222-226, May.
    11. Garay, Urbi & Pérez, Eduardo & Pulga, Fredy, 2022. "Color intensity variations and art prices: An examination of Latin American art," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 158-176.
    12. Oosterlinck, Kim & David, Géraldine & Huemer, Christian, 2019. "Art Dealers’ Inventory Strategy The case of Goupil, Boussod & Valadon from 1860 to 1914," CEPR Discussion Papers 13941, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Wang, Fang, 2023. "Do emerging art market segments have their own price dynamics? Evidence from the Chinese art market," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 318-331.
    14. Marilena Locatelli-Biey & Roberto Zanola, 2002. "The Sculpture Market: An Adjacent Year Regression Index," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 26(1), pages 65-78, February.
    15. Assaf, Ata & Kristoufek, Ladislav & Demir, Ender & Kumar Mitra, Subrata, 2021. "Market efficiency in the art markets using a combination of long memory, fractal dimension, and approximate entropy measures," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    16. Kräussl, Roman & Elsland, Niels van, 2008. "Constructing the true art market index: A novel 2-step hedonic approach and its application to the German art market," CFS Working Paper Series 2008/11, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    17. Olav Velthuis, 2011. "Art Markets," Chapters, in: Ruth Towse (ed.), A Handbook of Cultural Economics, Second Edition, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Werner Pommerehne & Lars Feld, 1997. "The Impact of Museum Purchase on the Auction Prices of Paintings," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 21(3), pages 249-271, September.
    19. Sun, Qinglin & Zhang, Zhiyuan, 2023. "Can art hedge against economic policy uncertainty?: New insights through the NARDL model," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    20. Stephen Sheppard, 2021. "Image Content, Complexity, and the Market Value of Art," Department of Economics Working Papers 2021-08, Department of Economics, Williams College.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2206.04013. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.