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Using Computers To Weed Out Art Fakes
jackelfish writes "Reminiscent of handwriting analysis software used in the television series CSI, computers are now being used to evaluate the authenticity of works of art without an expert ever setting eyes on it. The technique identifies the artist by analyzing their characteristic brush or pen strokes from high resolution scans of previously authenticated works. Much like a fingerprint, these characteristics can then be compared to a work in question. The method, to be published in an upcoming issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences promises to reduce the subjectivity of art assessments made by human experts."
"Yes, this is certainly authentic. What a beautiful ink painting!"
--- Sucker.
There's stupid, and then there's stupid. Paint != ink. Besides, the "painting", even if they somehow printed it in paint, would be flat -- which paintings generally aren't.
For example, analyse a collection of paintings by a particular master. Next paint a picture yourself. Finally, introduce random 'mutations' to your painting, running each mutated painting through the fake detector and selecting the best mutation as input ot the next iteration. The result might just be your very own 'Raphael'.
Such a painting would be undectable by the computerised fake detector, since the painting was 'defined' to pass the detection process. If the computer is better at analysing paitings than humans, presumably your new masterpiece would also past any inspection by a human.
Art fraud is one of the places where the definition of value becomes very interesting. It makes it very clear that the value in a painting lies in more than its utility as a picture (even a very beautiful or skillfully made one).
Languages aren't inherently fast -- implementations are efficient
Art is subjective. This software might be able to fingerprint an artist's style, but it's up to me/you/us to decide whether a painting is "good".
I can go out, buy a canvas and some paints, come back home and paint something abstract. If it's interesting or pleasing to the eye, I might be able to sell it to a small gallery or at an art fair and even make a profit over the cost of my materials. However, if someone like Damien Hirst does the same thing, it's going to sell for tens of thousands of pounds, purely because of the artist's name.
So, what if this software reveals that the Sunflowers weren't actually painted by Van Gogh? One thing's for sure - the painting would be worth a lot less, even though it's the same painting. The valuations are all artificial.
In general, I kinda like a lot of Monet's paintings. I'll buy a print of one of his "Houses of Parliament" paintings, or "San Giorgio Maggiore at dusk". If the opportunity arose, I wouldn't mind owning one of the originals and I'd even be prepared to shell out quite a few readies for it, because he's a popular artist, lots of people like his paintings and, therefore, other people are going to want to own it as well. So, for argument's sake, let's say I'm prepared to pay up to the equivalent of, say, 4% of my annual salary (before tax), for one of those paintings. That's never going to happen, because original Monets are valued in the millions.
But, the thing is, if it turned out that Monet hadn't painted that painting after all, I'd still be prepared to pay the same amount of money, because it doesn't really matter to me whether it was painted by Monet or by some unknown artist - I still like the painting and that's what it's worth to me as a piece of art.
D.
It's time one realizes that art authentication is totally useless : if a copy is so good that humans fail to see any difference from the original and need machines to do so, then the copy isn't less good than the original. That's all.
If, regarding to this matter, there's anything computers can help with, it's understanding that allowing copies without restriction is not necessary as "evil" as some pretend to think.
This would have been considered obvious a few centuries ago. Art has not always been about the author.
War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left.
So, since this is purely a commercial program whose purpose is to provide a notional valuation based on association with celebrity, expect it to be extensively challenged. Too much is at stake. The art experts will soon weigh in there: the brush strokes being evaluated are actually those of the atelier assistants who did most of the work, the bits actually by the master defy analysis by a machine, and so on. Part of the value of the art market depends on gambling: finding the missed masterpiece, having a painting lose value owing to wrong attribution only to have the perceived value of the "real" artist increase as fashion changes. Anything that introduces apparent certainty will partly destroy the churning process that pushes art prices upwards, and no-one in the market wants that.
The price of art is as unrelated to the long-term assignment of aesthetic values as the price of CDs is unrelated to the actual merits of the performers. That's the sad reflection on our society.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
It's a question of art history, not a question of "just as good".
A mediocre work by, say, Picasso, is interesting because it tells a story about his development as an artist, and therefore will likely have some monetary value to a collector or a museum. A mediocre work by, say, me, is just mediocre.
Museums don't exist just to show "good" pictures. Part of their mission is to preserve and illuminate the history of art.
Think of it this way: an early, buggy version of linux is interesting from a historical perspective, while an early, buggy version of my personal operating system is of little interesting to anybody.
Many now famous artists were not appreciated for what they accomplished in their lifetimes.
If I studied Greek history, art, and drama for decades and passed a contemperary "Greek Tragedy" off as an ancient work, that derivative work would provide no NEW insight into Greek culture or history. It would at best provide a view into my interpretation and understanding an art form from that time.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
I mean, if you can't tell the difference between the forgers piece and Picasso's then really, whats the difference?
Maybe the difference is that Picasso came up with the IDEA of the original.
It's obviously so much easier to copy something that's already there than to create entirely original art.
Art is an expression of emotion. Forgers don't express themselves. Your analogy also says that writing is a farce, as anyone can copy out what someone else wrote, ignoring the fact that coming up with the story is the hard part.
Art isn't about technical perfection, but emotion. Copying art has no emotion, creating art does.