Author(s)

Zhipeng Zhang ¹, Siti Mariam Mat Nor ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Faculty of Creative Industry, City University Malaysia, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, 46100, Malaysia

Corresponding Author

Siti Mariam Mat Nor

ABSTRACT

Urban loneliness is increasingly recognised as an important emotional and social issue in contemporary urban life. Urban-themed oil paintings can express such emotional experiences through visual elements such as colour, composition, figure representation, and lighting. However, limited quantitative research has examined how specific visual elements in Chinese urban-themed oil paintings influence viewers’ perception of urban loneliness, particularly within medium-sized non-Western cities such as Jilin City, China. This study investigates the predictive effects of four core pictorial determinants, including color tone, compositional density, figure state, and tonal contrast, on individuals' perceptions of urban loneliness.A quantitative visual-stimulus survey design was employed using 20 realistic oil paintings depicting urban scenes in Jilin City. The selected pictorial attributes were coded with a standardized visual assessment rubric, while respondents' subjective perceptions of urban loneliness were measured using a revised loneliness perception scale. Empirical data were collected from 200 adult permanent residents of Jilin City through purposive sampling and analyzed using multiple regression analysis. The findings indicate that cool and desaturated colour tones, sparse compositions with ample negative space, solitary or absent figures, and strong contrast of light and shadow were associated with higher levels of perceived urban loneliness. These results suggest that specific visual strategies in urban-themed oil paintings can influence how viewers emotionally interpret urban environments. This study contributes to quantitative research on the relationship between visual art expression and urban emotional perception in a Chinese urban context. It also provides useful references for urban-themed artistic creation, museum curatorial practice, and visual emotional design research. In addition, the study offers a replicable quantitative approach for interdisciplinary research integrating visual art, environmental psychology, and urban emotional studies.

KEYWORDS

Urban-themed oil painting; Visual elements; Perceived urban loneliness; Jilin City; Quantitative analysis

CITE THIS PAPER

Zhipeng Zhang, Siti Mariam Mat Nor. Quantitative Analysis of Visual Elements of Loneliness in Urban-Themed Oil Paintings of Jilin City, China. Art and Performance Letters (2026). Vol. 7, No. 2, 6-17. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/artpl.2026.070202.

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