This work takes a step towards understanding fundamental aspects of appearance change in cultural heritage. Particularly, we concentrate on the case study of the Hedal Madonna – a polychrome wood sculpture dated to the mid-1200s, and an important object of ecclesiastical art and Norwegian heritage. It is covered with a layered coating that gives rise to complex reflective properties and gives the sculpture a unique appearance. We studied the goniometric, spectral, and chromatic properties of mock-ups manufactured according to medieval techniques, and also carried out accelerated aging. We compared the properties of aged and original mock-ups, and found non-trivial changes in polychrome appearance. While the color of the mock-ups did not change significantly, we observed a noticeable change in their glossiness, presumably caused by structural degradation of the surface. We also found a difference in the goniometric properties of the polychrome material’s reflectance as a function of angle. Reflectance distributions that were originally symmetric with respect to angle became asymmetric. These findings will help to understand the original appearance of the Hedal Madonna, as well as aiding the design of appropriate conservation conditions for both the original statue and its recent reconstruction.
In this paper, we construct a model for cross-modal perception of glossiness by investigating the interaction between sounds and graphics. First, we conduct evaluation experiments on cross-modal glossiness perception using sounds and graphics stimuli. There are three types of stimuli in the experiments. The stimuli are visual stimuli (22 stimuli), audio stimuli (15 stimuli) and audiovisual stimuli (330 stimuli). Also, there are three sections in the experiments. The first one is a visual experiment, the second one is an audiovisual experiment, and the third one is an auditory experiment. For the evaluation of glossiness, the magnitude evaluation method is applied. Second, we analyze the influence of sounds on glossiness perception from the experimental results. The results suggest that the cross-modal perception of glossiness can be represented as a combination of visual-only perception and auditory-only perception. Then, based on the results, we construct a model by a linear sum of computer graphics and sound parameters. Finally, we confirm the feasibility of the cross-modal glossiness perception model through a validation experiment.