Abstract

This study was carried out in three different cities (Erzurum, Artvin and Tokat). The aim of the study was to determine people’s preferences about wall paintings or pictures they have in their living quarters and the related wall painting-natural environment by putting forward the perceptions people get from the places in the pictures about their daily life. A total of 300 subjects, 100 in each city, were interviewed personally. It was found that the subjects mostly preferred the pictures characterizing a combination of seasons (37.0%), and they rarely preferred pictures characterizing winter season (1.0%).  Pictures including seaside and sea landscape characteristics were the first on the preference list (M: 0.32). This was followed by pictures including forest, water and rural house landscape characteristics (M: 0.29). The majority of the interview participators (46.7%) stated that they would like to live in such places as illustrated in wall paintings and 22.0% of them reported they would not. It was determined that the paintings aroused a feeling of esthetical pleasure in people in their daily life (M: 0.47). It was concluded as a result of the study that wall paintings were significant, in that, they are one of the ways through which people living in urban settings could satisfy their longing for living in natural places.

Key words: Wall paintings, perception, longing for natural places.