Slashdot Mirror
Is This Rembrandt a Real One?
Roland Piquepaille writes "About a year ago, I told you about how computer scientists from Dartmouth college were investigating digital images. But they're also interested in old paintings authentication, as reports Wired Magazine in The Rembrandt Code. Mathematicians are using high-resolution digital cameras and computers to examine old paintings and evaluate their authenticity. Even the New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is asking them to discover which of the 42 paintings it owns and that were once believed to be Rembrandts are really authentic. The Wired article is pretty entertaining, but this overview contains more details, pictures and references about this authentication process."
I know that it is a Slashdot controversy, but can anyone tell me here whether or not the Slashdot editors have addressed just why it is that so many of Roland Piquepaille's articles get posted, particularly by Zonk? Does he really submit that many articles to Slashdot? I know that there have been a number of instances where some Slashdot users have submitted articles only to have them rejected and later accepted after submission by Roland Piquepaille... So, what gives?
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Sorry, but you are wrong. Look at this and previous stories submitted by him: they all end in the sentence "... article is pretty entertaining, but this overview contains more details, pictures and references.", which is a link to his blog on zdnet.
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
I think it's hard for us geeks to understand why art is valued the way it is. If we have a wicked computer that works perfectly, but later find out that it's (omg) not a real AMD, but in fact some sort of replica... we say "who cares?... As long as the IO behaviour is what I wanted, that's all that matters!"
Seriously, though... like it or not, the way that art appraisal work has little (nothing?) to do with talent of the artist, and everything to do with perceived value and context. After all, a sufficiently awesome printer could produce (in principle) copies of Rembrandts that most people would not be able to differentiate, but ultimately they would have little value. Similarly, artificial diamonds are just as good (or better) in terms of purity, hardness and optical properties as natural diamonds, but the natural diamonds are valued higher "just because."
Even if no one can tell that it's a fake for many years, art critics want to know if it's real or not. Such knowledge can change the perceived value of the item, even if it doesn't change its physical appearance. Again, art value is NOT about how "nice" or "well done" a work is, but rather based on "how much are people willing to pay for it."
And in a strange way, having some Rembrandts shown to be fake would actually INCREASE the value of all the other Rembrandts, since they would suddenly be perceived to be a more rare commodity than before. So in fact a Rembrandt collection could stand to have its calculated worth INCREASED if some of them were found to be fakes. (Obviously other Rembrandt collections would also increase in value, especially if it were found that they contained no fakes.)
Lastly, let me mention that above and beyond the determination of the value of art, it's worthwhile from the perspective of art history to determine which ones are real and which are not. If a given conclusion about a time period is based upon a painting that turns out to be fake, well then we have to update the (art) history books.
The sad thing about this is that people look to detect
'fakes' in order that they can be weeded out and derided
as "not good". But if an artist can paint as well as one
of the Masters, shouldn't we be excited to find a 'fake'
because it means that there is another great painter out
there who we know nothing about - and who paints so well
that even an art expert can't point out why that person
is a worse painter than Rembrandt?
We should be looking for other masterpieces by the same
guy and hanging those up next to the Rembrandts too.
www.sjbaker.org
The controversey isn't about the *art* it is about the *artist* and the authenticity of the painting. It's exactly identical to the controversey that exists at a flea market when someone is caught stapling fake mimeographed 'Certificate of Authenticity' on a highly collectable Elvis Clock (either kind-the one where it's Elvis' name on a fake guitar body, or the one where the clock is in Elvis belly)
The point is, it's all about speculators and untalented people and their drive to make money. And the 'marks' they victimize by creating a frenzy of scarcity around certain items.
This is happening in the 'tech' world as well. There was a certain amount of controversey recently over someone selling a close replica of the Apple I computer on eBay. It had the same chips in the same layout on the board, but was clearly marked in etched-in text on the board as a modern copy. "But what if the new owner scrubs that off and tries to sell it as authentic!!!" people cried. People who buy into the "rarity-as-valuable" thing get panicky whenever anybody challanges their assignment of value.
It has little to do with 'trademark' or IP concerns when it enters the true 'collectable' scene, as it usually concerns items long out of production, so none of the accrued value of the 'rare' items goes to the creator.
resigned
I knew a couple who had a genuine Salvador Dali painting. I was looking forward to seeing it, since I liked the pictures of the droopy clocks I'd seen in photographs of his art in books and magazines, but I was very disappointed in the actual painting when I saw it. The painting wasn't a picture of anything, just your typical "modern art" type paint smears.
After talking about it I found out they didn't even like the painting but bought it because Dali was famous and old, and they expected the value to go up after he died. So Dali could put nearly zero effort into his paintings and get big bucks from collectors who only cared about it being a genuine Dali that they could sell for even more bucks after he died.
The name is often the only thing that matters to people.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
I think it's hard for us geeks to understand why art is valued the way it is. If we have a wicked computer that works perfectly, but later find out that it's (omg) not a real AMD, but in fact some sort of replica... we say "who cares?... As long as the IO behaviour is what I wanted, that's all that matters!"
:)
After the theft of some valuable Munch paintings here in Oslo not long ago, I had this very discussion with my gf. I argued that they should get some exceptionally good forgeries and display them to the public instead of the real deal. My argument was that since you'll need microscopes and UV light, not to mention expertise, to tell the fake from the original, the viewers would have the same experience. My gf refused to accept this, simply stating "but I'll know it's not the real deal!". Apparently "the real deal" has some intrinsic properties that I fail to sense
Wikipedia has a note about Roland's deletion. It seems, they think, he's unworthy of a Wiki article. However, they do feel that figging is.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Andre Breton coined the anagram AVIDA DOLLARS for Dali with good reason.
Dali was in fact one of the greatest technical painters of all time but his adored wife Gala turned him into a media circus - little of his later work is worth more than the material it is painted on (and the magical signature of course!).
Gala was originally married to the French poet Paul Eluard (very fine poet BTW) but divorced him when her rapacious instricts told her that Dali was a better bet financially.
As you can guess, Rockmore disagrees and comes with an analogy of his own. For him, analyzing paintings and drawings is like comparing chess and checkers. And for him, computer programs have already beaten men in chess tournaments. So will art historians be the next victims of computers? Time will tell.
On the other hand if you happened to choose chess and go, then you would reach a completely different conclusion. Since they're both two player strategy games with fairly simple rules, but while computers are obviously excellent at playing chess they've always sucked at playing go (and are highly likely to go on sucking in the forseeable future). Just because two problems are in a similar area doesn't mean they'll both be amenable to computer analysis.
just wait a few years when the extreme high quality diamonds are being produced en mass, they've already made diamonds for 5 dollars a carat which were too pure, and made the diamond valuers cream there pants, twas a story about it with 3 yellow diamonds or soemthing. diamond will be used heavily in the future i believe, and the diamond based computer chips which can run at much higher heats would be great, specially for intel ;)
If your neighbours roof is flying past your window, you know it's cyclone season.