The aims of this study were to investigate suitable LED lighting conditions for viewing fine art paintings in a museum environment and to test Kruithof's rule that defines pleasant lighting in terms of correlated colour temperature (CCT) and illuminance. The experiment was conducted in a room designed to simulate the exhibition of real paintings in museums. Twenty-four observers of different gender and educational background participated to evaluate oil and gouache paintings under different lighting conditions. Each painting was assessed via 14 word pairs using the categorical judgment method. The results showed that illuminance had a larger impact than CCT on visual perception, and three factors dominate visual perceptions: Comfort, Vividness and Definition. The present results only partially agreed with Kruithof's rule. A comfort zone of illuminance and CCT for paintings in museums has been developed.

This study investigated the main visual perceptions and the optimal LED lighting parameters for viewing museum paintings. Oil and gouache paintings seen under different LED illuminants were assessed using the categorical judgement method. It was found that 'visibility' and 'warmth' are the main perceptions for viewing paintings. The results showed that a correlated colour temperature around 3500 K, a negative deviation of the target from the blackbody locus and a high colour rendering index can achieve satisfactory results. The difference between colour fidelity-based colour rendering indices and colour preference-based colour rendering indices for a museum application was also explored.

This paper investigates the atmosphere perception of dynamic coloured lighting over warm and cool hue ranges in a living room. Experiments were carried out with eight fully functional multi-channel tunable LED luminaires. Thirty Chinese observers (14 males and 16 females) evaluated 36 light conditions (2 luminance ×2 chroma ×3 hue range types ×3 speeds) using a questionnaire of 25 response scales. Four atmosphere factors were extracted: coziness, spaciousness, liveliness and warmth. Both dynamics and hue range significantly affected the atmosphere perception.