Driven by Caravaggio through his Painting. An Eye-Tracking Study

In the study here presented, we have observed and measured the eye behaviour of two samples of volunteers interacting with two Caravaggio original paintings in different viewing contexts through eye-tracking technology. Having involved viewers in the natural environments where the paintings are exhibited, this paper represents one of the first original experience in which visual perception has been investigated in an ecological environment, with wearable state of the art eye-tracking tools. The scope is to assess the artist's ability to create in the paintings' layout and structure an effective visual path in the viewers' ocular behaviour and attentional pattern. The experiments have been conducted on the original paintings, representing a significant and original approach in this field of study. According to our preliminary results, which have been built with a solid methodological approach, the context strongly influences the fruition path designed by the artist.