Professor Shigeki Nakauchi's research team at Toyohashi University of Technology worked with researchers from the University of Minho (Braga, Portugal) to examine preferences for color composition by Japanese and Portuguese people for Japanese and Occidental paintings through experiments using the original paintings and paintings with artificially altered color compositions. It was discovered that regardless of nationality, differences in Japanese and Occidental paintings, and differences in figurative and abstract paintings, many people preferred the original color composition even for paintings they had never seen. This trend can also be seen for the images composed of square pieces collected from different art paintings and composed as patchwork images. The universality in preference for color composition in paintings found in this study suggests that beauty as felt towards paintings may have a common biological basis, more than cultural background or educational experience.