A Study on the Visual Images of Lotus Ink-Painting

The purpose of this study is to explore the visual images of lotus ink-painting of visitors and to investigate the gender, age difference. The participant who attended 2016 Hsieh, YiE Lotus Ink-painting exhibition. The sample consisted 199 (male: 68, female: 131; age between 18~24 undergraduate student) valid questionnaires had been collected. Results indicate that: A Lotus Ink-painting of “Zen Sit “has the most Phlegmatic (t=-17.380, p=.000), Sorrowful (t=-9.999, p=.000) Meditation (t=-18.783, p=.000), Lonely (t=-10.803, p=.000) Plain (t=-18.747, p=.000) feeling. A Lotus Ink-painting of “Red Lotus” has the most Passionate (t=30.259, p=.000), Abundant (t=24.438, p=.000), Untrammeled (t=24.235, p=.000), Liberated (t=18.187, p=.000), Foison (t=21.306, p=.000) feeling. Gender and age difference do interaction significantly influence the visual images of lotus ink-painting. An artist can adopt the visual images of lotus ink-painting concluded form this study to understand the feelings of visitors on the lotus ink-painting.


INTRODUCTION
Chinese flower and bird painting has a history of more than 1,400 years (Chen 2006;Sung 1992;Luppino 2000).They are used to express certain meanings.The common means are homophony and pun, that convey meaning whilst reflect people's yearning for happiness.For example, the "Four Gentlemen" are plum blossom, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum and given the corresponding symbolic meanings like nobleness, modesty, and integrity (Liu 2000).Ink painting "Hé huā": Lotus is also popular with Chinese people, also known as lotus, Fu Qú, water hibiscus, water Chi, Han Dàn, etc., is the family of Water Lily.Lotus is very important to cultures across Asia.The lotus is a representative of purity and perfect beauty in many Asian cultures and faiths.This plant is the national flower of both India and Vietnam.It is also a symbol in many religions including Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.Many interesting literatures about lotus have been proposed by many researchers.Kubisch and Heyne (2016) conducted practical lessons on bionics, focused on the lotus effect, with 260 students at the botanical garden of the University of Wurzburg.Tarnai and Miyazaki (2003) studied the connection between the conjectural solutions of the discrete geometrical problem and the fruit arrangements in the receptacles of lotuses, and then they put forward a proposition about the contribution of the geometric configurations of lotus receptacles to the conception of certain shapes seen in Japanese culture.Peach (2002) examined the gendered imagery in the lotus satra in order to assess its messages regarding normative gender relations and the implications of these messages for gender justice in the contemporary world.
Creation is to reflect the fountain of their own touches, all the real creative power in the depths of the artist's exudation.But what is the feeling, perception or emotion of the visitors in the gallery of Exhibition hall?Many researchers in the visual arts use social science methodology to design studies that describe and interpret responses to objects of art (Hardiman & Zernich, 1984).However, to the best of our knowledge, there have been no reports on the feeling of visitors after the lotus Ink-painting exhibition.
RELATED RESEARCH Hardiman and Zernich (1984) examined three groups of untrained subjects' responses to paintings done in two different styles (representational or semiabstract) presented in three different modes (as original objects, colored slides, and colored photographic prints).Response profiles generated by eighteen semantic differential (SD) scales revealed no significant response differences due to mode of presentation.This study provides support for the proposition that mode of presentation has little systematic effect on untrained subjects' evaluations of paintings.Chen and Hong (2009) used SD method to explore the lifestyles, and product form image preferences of craft-furniture visitors.A sum of 232 respondents were surveyed after they had visited the exhibition.Based on visitor's lifestyles, four significant lifestyle groupings have been found: conservative and common group, fashion and rationality group, quality driven group, as well as ordinary and moderate group.Huang and Li (2015) reported the similarities and differentials of personal characteristics between expert and novice designers within four product design stages utilizing the SD method.Ikei et al. (2016) evaluated the psychological effect of the smell using the modified SD method.Three pairs of adjectives were assessed on 13 scales as "comfortable-uncomfortable", "relaxed-awakening", and "natural-artificial". Wang (2001) employed qualitative and quantitative analysis to describe the shape of bicycles, inducing product design principles of various feeling images.Zhai et al. (2009) used SD method to convert complex feeling factors into quantitative design rules for improved user satisfaction of specific products.This method has also been applied in the assessment and analysis of product-feeling images, to research the relationship among product design factors and feelings, to conduct further design.

PURPOSES
Given the limit of these relate research about visual images on ink-painting.Hence, the question remains: what is the visitors' feeling or perception of lotus ink-painting.The objective of the following study was to extend the knowledge about the visual images that undergraduate students, who attended the exhibition have on lotus ink-paintings.It was also an objective to analysis the gender, age difference in the perceptions of visual images of lotus ink-painting.Furtherly, to test the interaction between gender and age (freshman: below 19 & senior: upper 20).

Contribution of this paper to the literature
• This study is to explore the visual images of lotus ink-painting of visitors and to investigate the gender, age difference.
• Gender and age difference do interaction significantly influence the visual images of lotus ink-painting.
• An artist can adopt the visual images of lotus ink-painting concluded form this study to understand the feelings of visitors on the lotus ink-painting.

Participants
The participants consisted of visitors who attended 2016 Hsieh, Yi-E Lotus Ink-painting exhibition.Respondents were surveyed after they had visited the exhibition.The participants in this study are including 68 men and 131 women, total 199 valid questionnaires had been collected.The age of the visitors was between 18~24 undergraduate student.The average age of the participants was 20.08.

Stimuli
Five original ink paintings were selected from the collection of the exhibition of 2016 Hsieh, Yi-E Lotus Ink-painting for use as stimuli in this study (see Table 1).The paintings represented two general stylistic classifications (black and white, color).

Procedure
The original ink paintings were exhibited in a gallery in a museum.All visitors were individually finished the scale by themselves.Visitors were recorded their immediate impressions of each ink painting on a semantic differential (SD) instrument.This particular form of the semantic differential consisted of 5 adjective scales that represented emotive, dynamism factors (see Table 2).Visitors must score on a 7-point scale table of corresponding adjective groups to select the better adjective for record his or her impressions of the ink painting of lotus.

Semantic Differential (SD) Instrument
Subjects using this method receive various levels of external stimuli or feelings regarding a product, and compile various adjective groups to use the SD method on questionnaire tests (Osgood and Tzeng, 1990).The instrument comprised a series of pairs of adjectives generated from specialized literature, which permit assessing  The pairs of adjectives of the "positive" and "negative" aspects of each pair were displayed by Questionnaire.A distance of seven points between the extremes was assigned so that those surveyed could mark where they placed each of the reactive for each of the 5pairs of adjectives (see Table 2).

Statistics
The average number of the study is to determine the image of the indicators, first consider the statistical presentation, to recode the value of score (see Figure 1).The average of the operations will correspond to the degree of sensitivity of each conversion value.When the average (M) is less than 4 that means the feeling of the visual images tends to the left and the smaller the value, the greater the degree of perception on adjective.For e.g.: when the average is 2.58 (M<4), showed more feeling about Phlegmatic.
The goal of this study were analyze the whole feeling of the visual images of lotus ink-painting and to analyze the gender and age diffidence in the visual images of lotus ink-painting.The analysis methods were used in this paper with the statistics software of SPSS 20.0: the one-sample t test and two-way ANOVA.

The Composition of Visual Images and Lotus Ink-Painting
A one-sample t test for repeated measures design was used to analyze the data in this study (see Table 3).The "01 Westerly Wind Whispering" (t=-2.880,p=.004) and "03 Zen Sit" (t=-17.380,p=.000) of lotus ink-painting, brought out the "Phlegmatic" feeling from the perception of visual images are statistically significant.
Only the "05 Red Lotus" (t=30.259,p=.000) of lotus ink-painting, brought out the "Passionate" feeling from the perception of visual images are statistically significant.
The "03 Zen Sit" (t=-9.999,p=.000) of lotus ink-painting, brought out the "Sorrowful" feeling from the perception of visual images are statistically significant.
The process of recoding the value of score
The "05 Red Lotus" (t=24.235,p=.000) of lotus ink-painting, brought out the "Untrammeled" feeling from the perception of visual images are statistically significant.
The "01 Westerly Wind Whispering" (t=-2.468,p=.014) and "03 Zen Sit" (t=-10.803,p=.000) of lotus inkpainting, brought out the "Lonely" feeling from the perception of visual images are statistically significant.The "05 Red Lotus" (t=18.187,p=.000) of lotus ink-painting, brought out the "Liberated" feeling from the perception of visual images are statistically significant.
Only the "03 Zen Sit" (t=-18.747,p=.000) of lotus ink-painting, brought out the "Plain" feeling from the perception of visual images are statistically significant.
The "05 Red Lotus" (t=21.306,p=.000) of lotus ink-painting, brought out the "Foison" feeling from the perception of visual images are statistically significant.
A Lotus Ink-painting of "03Zen Sit "has the most Phlegmatic, Sorrowful, Meditation, Lonely and Plain feeling.A Lotus Ink-painting of "05Red Lotus" has the most Passionate, Abundant, Untrammeled, Liberated, Foison feeling.

Comparison between Gender and Age
To statistically compare the perceptions of visual images of lotus ink-painting of gender.The independent sample t test was conducted to determine.This procedure revealed no significant gender differences (n=199).
A two-way analysis of variance for repeated measures diffidence ink-paintings was used to analyze the data in this study.Results indicated that the main effect for gender was not significant for any of the semantic differential scales, but the main effect for age was significant (F (1, 197) =6.169, p= .01)for the feeling of "Lonely" of the lotus ink-painting "03 Zen Sit".In addition, first order interaction for the gender and age was significant (F (1, 197) =5.166, p= .02)for the feeling of "Phlegmatic" of the lotus ink-painting "04Carved".Comparing with the average of four groups, the pattern of responses across age was significant for men.The students of below 19 years old (M= 4.591) expressed the feeling of "04Carved" were more "Passionate" On the contrary, senior student (upper 20 years old) (M=3.689)expressed the feeling of "04Carved" were more "Phlegmatic".

DISCUSSION
This is considerable evidence that artistic style of ink-painting (black and white, color) is an important variable in preference."03 Zen Sit" is the classical style just used black ink for painting was significant for Phlegmatic, Sorrowful, Meditation, Lonely and Plain feeling.On the contrary, using the color of RED for printing operated important role of impact on the perception of visual images, a Lotus Ink-painting of "05Red Lotus" was a typical example has the most Passionate, Abundant, Untrammeled, Liberated, and Foison feeling.Lower saturation of painting as "01 Westerly Wind Whispering" and "02 Rounded" did not cause a strong feeling.
Iinterestingly, the feeling of ink-printing "04Carved" caused the age diffidence within men.The growing up of undergraduate students may be the special experience to change the perception of visual images.
Visual images such as red, can be said to be our nation's favorite color.For thousands of years, whether it is the temple of the high, or rivers and lakes far away, whether it is ceremony, or civilian customs, whether it is the girl's dressing, or literati drama, have been or is still widely used.In many cultures around the world, red seems to be regarded as the exclusive color of women, on behalf of the beautiful, gentle, charming and auspicious meaning.The results of the study further show that the use of color in the creation of art, the visitors ' sense of appreciation, the proportion of the use of red, the visitors have more positive feelings.
The semantic differential method used in this study is traditionally used by artists, critics, historians, and teachers of art to qualify, evaluate, and characterize works of art (Hardiman and Zernich, 1984).But that is not common on Chinese ink-printing.This study provides support for proposition the using of color has effect on visitors the perception of visual images.
Through the traditional aesthetic expression of visual imagery and the spiritual traits of contemporary art creation, it will reach the deeper and foresightedness artistic conception and innovation, and it can be applied to the teaching of ink and ink through the study of visual image.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. The line chart of visual images of lotus ink-painting

Table 1 .
Title, Figure, Artists, and Size of Ink Paintings

Table 2 .
Seven -point scale of each paired adjectives of semantic differential method in questionnaire