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Is This Rembrandt a Real One?

Posted by Zonk on from the i-wish-i-had-this-kind-of-problem dept.

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."

8 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. What gives? by BWJones · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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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    1. Re:What gives? by BWJones · · Score: 4, Interesting

      People come here to read the latest News for Nerds(tm) and there shouldn't be an issue with who is providing the news, unless of course there is abuse taking place.

      That, I think is exactly what the concern is. Is there indeed abuse taking place that lines the pockets of Roland and perhaps Zonk by using the traffic that Slashdot can provide though links?

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    2. Re:What gives? by John+Harrison · · Score: 5, Interesting

      BW,

      I recently had a long email conversation about this with Taco. He basically isn't interested in feedback, which seems very not in the spirit of open source to me. He also said that /. doesn't track who is submitting what and doesn't care about a submitter's positive or negative track record because it would be hard to keep track of such things. If only there were a way of automating the process...

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    3. Re:What gives? by BWJones · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I guess you have noticed the censorship of this thread by someone with unlimited mod points.... Previously, this was just a curiosity to me, but with the censorship on top, I've become fairly irritated by this. So much so that I've just sent a couple of emails to journalists I know that cover the technology beats for publications like Wired, Macworld and the New York Times. This may get absolutely no traction at all, but Slashdot has become a big enough resource to drive Internet traffic that this may in fact, become an issue.

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    4. Re:What gives? by dorkygeek · · Score: 4, Interesting
      It's a fucking shame what's going on on Slashdot when it comes to critics of either the story submitter, the editors, or Slashdot itself. There's systematic downmodding of criticism, apparently executed by the editors (which have unlimited mod points).

      So much for freedom of speach and anti-censorship, for which Slashdot tries to stand.

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  2. Re:And what if they're not real? by kebes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  3. Re:And what if they're not real? by WalksOnDirt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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  4. Re:And what if they're not real? by Lord+Crc · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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 :)