Yet Another Statistical Analysis of Bob Ross Paintings

TL;DR

This paper conducts a statistical analysis of Bob Ross paintings focusing on colorspace and luminosity, revealing shared aesthetic features and introducing new analytical components to understand his artwork.

Contribution

It introduces 'eigenross' components for analyzing shared variance and provides the first renderings of average paintings, expanding prior qualitative analyses.

Findings

Demonstrates subtle aesthetic qualities of Ross's paintings

Identifies common variations and relationships among paintings

Introduces 'eigenross' components for shared variance analysis

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze a sample of clippings from paintings by the late artist Bob Ross. Previous work focused on the qualitative themes of his paintings (Hickey, 2014); here, we expand on that line of research by considering the colorspace and luminosity values as our data. Our results demonstrate the subtle aesthetics of the average Ross painting, the common variation shared by his paintings, and the structure of the relationships between each painting in our sample. We reveal, for the first time, renderings of the average paintings and introduce "eigenross" components to identify and evaluate shared variance. Additionally, all data and code are embedded in this document to encourage future research, and, in the spirit of Bob Ross, to teach others how to do so.