一張圖告訴你：畫家最偏愛什麼顏色？

A programmer has created these stunning graphs to reveal the dominant colour of artworks through history.
一個程序員通過分析得出了一組很棒的圖表，表明歷史上的諸多畫作中使用最多的顏色是橙色。

They show Orange has always been the most popular colour - although in recent years blue has begun to catch up.
這些圖表顯示橙色一度是畫作中最流行的顏色，但是最近幾年藍色開始受到畫家們的青睞。

'I made a visualization of the change in colors of paintings over time,' said Martin Bellander, a PhD student in psychology at the Karolinska Institute who created the graph.
卡羅林斯卡醫學院心理系的博士生馬丁·柏蘭德製作了這些圖表，他說：“我做的這些圖表形象地展示了以往畫作中畫家們對橙色的偏愛程度。”

To do this, he wrote software first to scrape the images of the paintings from sites where they were available for free download - BBC, Google Art Project, Wikiart, Wikimedia commons, and various museums.
爲了做這些圖表，他首先製作了一款軟件，把從各大網站上免費下載的畫作圖片放在一起進行分析。

Then, the software extract the relevant colour information from them, and plots it in a nice way.
這款軟件能夠從這些畫作圖片中提取相關的顏色信息，並以圖表形式給出結果。

He found the paintings change over time - from orange to blue.
柏蘭德發現從古至今畫作的流行顏色從橙色逐漸變成了藍色。

'The changes in color might be a results of a combination of factor,' he wrote.
他認爲這種變化可能是因爲一系列因素共同造成的。

'One of these could of course be trends in the use of colour.
他說：“這當然也會成爲顏色使用方面的一種趨勢。”

'If we assume a smooth linear deterioration of certain colours in oil paintings, it would be possible to subtract that change and study the short term fluctuation in colour use.
“如果我們假設在油畫創作時某種特定顏色的使用頻率呈平穩的線性下降趨勢，那麼我們就有可能去除這種變化並研究顏色使用的短期波動情況。”

'For example the marked increase of blue at the time of the First World War, might actually reflect a true trend in colour use.'
“比如第一次世界大戰期間，藍色的使用頻率大大增加，這可能就反應了顏色使用中的一種趨勢。”

Bellander used freely available images for the project.
柏蘭德在做這項分析時使用的全是可以免費下載的畫作圖片。

'There are a bunch of different sites where you can access (photos of) paintings, for instance the BBC, Google Art Project, Wikiart, Wikimedia commons, and various museums.
他說：“在諸如BBC等很多網站上，我們都能免費下載很多畫作的圖片。”

'One of my favorites is the BBC's site where you can browse through over 200K of well organized paintings - an amazing resource.
“其中我最喜歡的是BBC，在上面可以下載到大小在200K左右的處理得非常好的畫作圖片。”

'For many of these there is also information on the year they were painted, the artist, etc.'
“而且很多圖片都還附有繪畫年份、畫家名字等基本信息。”

He believes that some experts who have claimed perhaps the change is due top the price of paint are wrong.
柏蘭德並不認同一些專家所說的顏色變化是因顏料價格升高而引起的。

'I haven’t found any data on the prices of blue, so that explanation is hard to elaborate on.
“我沒有發現任何與藍色顏料價格相關的數據，所以那種觀點很難站得住腳。”

'However, it is not only blue that increases but all colors except orange, which might speak against the pigment prices explanation. '
“而且使用頻率增加的不只有藍色，而是除了橙色以外的所有顏色，這也能反駁顏料價格影響顏色使用的說法。”