Software To Authenticate Paintings

eldavojohn writes, "There's a new software tool out and about called Authentic which analyzes paintings to determine if they are indeed authentic works of the artist. If you don't think this is a serious problem to tackle, some experts estimate up to 15 percent of 'original prints' sold at auction houses are actually fake. From the article: 'By dividing 145 digitized paintings into pixels and analyzing the colors of each and how they compared with nearby pixels, the system was able to spot patterns unique to the painter. The software also showed Van Gogh's use of complementary colors (PDF) increased during his most active period from 1885 to 1890, according to the study published in Pattern Recognition Letters... In tests, Authentic performed as well as 15 human volunteers who were each given a small segment of a painting to study.' I've heard of many tools that analyze texts to verify the author but this is an extra dimension and a new frontier for pattern recognition. Tacking on another dimension, how much longer until we are able to analyze video in the same way?"

Comments

How to Start in Java

[eldavojohn]

What amazes me is how many tools are out and available online regarding this sort of pattern recognition development. Since a lot of people know Java, I'm would encourage you to use the Java Media Framework (free from Sun). Once you have those libraries installed, it's quite easy to start editing sound, images & video. You might need to grab and install codecs if you're doing video analysis but I think almost all image codecs are supported.

I'm not going to lie, the video computation can be quite heavily but thankfully that framework is implemented such that the entire video doesn't have to be loaded into memory, just a one frame buffer analysis can be used if you want.

The last thing you would need is simply the know-how on programming these analysis algorithms. There are sites out there with a large wealth of up-to-date algorithms. An example would be the text book style site of pattern recognition or image processing. While this doesn't teach you how to do things, it does contain the raw resources and algorithms. General resources like the computer vision homepage exist that serve as links to all kinds of resources. Unfortunately, I know of no real solid books that contain everything out there because this field is so rapidly developing. My professors taught me from hand printed slides in a large compendium they had accumulated over the last couple years.

The last piece missing is the data to analyze. While you might not have the ultra high resolution Van Gogh images to do this yourself, it may be possible to visit museums with 6 MP cameras to obtain your own data. Failing that, there are repositories online that sometimes contain image information you can start with. While this may not satisfy your specific needs, it sure is great for the lazy developer like myself.

Lastly, I will mention citeseer and Google Scholar for cutting edge papers that you might want to try implementing. Distributing these algorithms and building a good GUI can be tricky but really anyone can build the backend. I heavily recommend experimenting with this if it interests you.

Re:How to Start in Java

[MrCoke]

Very informative, great post !

Re:How to Start in Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Very informative, great post!

Thank you, although you'll notice that it was still moderated as -1 Offtopic at one point.

I do swear that there are some people on this site that mod me down no matter what I post.

OT eldavojohn

So I need to license this fine piece of software

[mrmeval]

to make sure my fakes are not fakes?

Weally?

[suv4x4]

If you don't think this is a serious problem to tackle, some experts estimate up to 15 percent of 'original prints' sold at auction houses are actually fake.

What if I *still* don't think this is a serious problem?

The value of those pictures is a pure bubble anyway, if you can willingly give a $10k or so for a mere painting and it looks real to you, maybe it doesn't matter if it's fake. Better not tell you otherwise.

While not obvious at first site, there's a very tight relation to the "authenticity" of paintings (and antiquated things as a whole), and... digital piracy.

In both cases we're talking about things that can't cover their announced value just for what they are. Instead you're told they own some sort of authenticity, and thus cost X dollars.

In both cases you can make much cheaper copies (or free copies) so abuse will always happen, unless we wisen up and stop paying for "star power", and artificially limited supplies.

Re:Weally?

[ScentCone]

In both cases we're talking about things that can't cover their announced value just for what they are. Instead you're told they own some sort of authenticity, and thus cost X dollars.

A thing commands whatever price someone is willing to pay. If their willingness is based on a fraud (a fake painting, for example), then that blows the viability of that marketplace.

Whether you, personally, can imagine paying a lot of money for, say, a canvas that Picasso personally touched and applied paint to - well, it just doesn't matter. Some people really, really, really would like to have (and show to people) something completely unique that Georgia O'Keeffe or Titian etc personally created, with their own hands. It's literally a piece of history. When someone passes off a fraud as a piece of history, that's... fraud.

Re:Weally?

[Deadstick]

The value of those pictures is a pure bubble anyway, if you can willingly give a $10k or so for a mere painting

Actually, a Klimt went for $100+ mil not long ago, but you're right. Here's a scenario you read about once in a while:

-Prestigious museum acquires a painting by the great Renaissance artist Antonio Fettucine for $10 million.

-Grad student examines the painting with high-tech equipment, and announces it's actually the work of Fettucine's star pupil Vittorio Linguine.

-Museum finds its painting is now worth only $1 million and screams bloody murder.

Why?

If Fettucine's work is worth ten times as much as Linguine's, he must be that much better, right? But how did anybody know he was, if the only way to tell them apart is with, like, neutrinos and shit?

rj

Hypereal Paintings?

[nih]

Tacking on another dimension

i'll buy that for a dollar!

Think of the Alternative

[eldavojohn]

So I need to license this fine piece of software to make sure my fakes are not fakes?

I believe the alternative is for you is to pay an 'expert' to analyze your work and fill out a certificate of authenticity. I'm no expert but I believe this gets pretty expensive with many many works of art requiring many different expert's (for each artist's) time.

Now, this software doesn't yet work for all artists but I would imagine that if I spent large amounts of money on art, I would prefer my auction house that I frequent to have this service ready so I can see for myself that the computer gives me a 95%+ level of confidence that it is indeed an original. That's not to say the certificate of authenticity isn't necessary, it'd just be nice to know before bidding and probably help the auction house catch frauds.

While the initial acquisition of this software might be pricey, the long term value of ensuring works are originals is, well, probably worth a lot more.

Re:Think of the Alternative

[Merovign]

It's not just expensive - I can't get these people to return my calls!

I've got five paintings, two of which have been "informally valued" at considerable prices - but I literally can't get appraisers to return my calls.

I even called literally 50 galleries trying to find someone to help me - zippo.

So, there they sit. It seems that more and more industries these days just don't want my money

It's like going to a car dealership and being told "we don't have any salespeople today, try back next year."

And no, I'm not adding anything useful to the discussion, just griping.

Re:Think of the Alternative

[sakusha]

There are two conventional approaches to authentication: provenance and catalog raisonne.

The provenance of a work is a detailed history of every owner to possess the work since its creation. If you can establish an unbroken, verified provenance, the work is presumed to be authentic. The only problem with this scheme is that a provenance may also be forged or broken. For example, some recent works that were stolen by the Nazis during WWII have forged provenances that reassigned the works through sham owners. It is sometimes possible to reconstruct the history of a work, and indeed, recently the provenance of a work by Gustav Klimt was reconstructed, proving it was stolen and not sold to a gallery, and the rightful owner regained ownership of the painting, and it sold at auction for the highest price ever paid for a painting: $135 Million.

A catalog raisonne is a complete catalog of every known work by an artist, preferably compiled within the artist's lifetime, with his cooperation. If an artist says he created the work, who is anyone to dispute it? Of course, many catalogs raisonne are compiled after the death of the artist, and rely on expert's opinions and provenances. Some of these decisions are quite controversial, for example, the Rembrandt Research Committee has recently removed several works from the catalog, deauthenticating them based on new technologies and scholarship, or on new research that broke the provenance. This is horrifying for an owner of a deauthenticated work, who can only sit and watch his multimillion dollar painting become worthless.

Anyway, in an ideal world, all works would have well established provenances and cataloguing. Indeed, I used to work for a major art institution which had the goal of establishing a provenance for EVERY known artwork in the world, putting it all into a computer catalog, to be housed in a nuclear-blastproof vault. But this is just a pipe dream of a few crazy art historians with more money than sense.

Re:Think of the Alternative

[mrmeval]

So with this software it will be cheaper to make my fakes?

Hurray!

Numb3rs anyone?

[Philosopher-Geek]

This type of program was on the television show Numb3rs this season. It almost makes you wonder if tv writers (or even fiction writers) are on the cutting edge, or if we are just so far behind.

Re:Numb3rs anyone?

[Calydor]

TV and fiction writers are on the cutting edge; the job of a sci-fi writer, for instance, is to think up plausible science and inventions that we do not have yet. For instance, I read somewhere that cell phones were originally inspired by the communication devices used in Star Trek. Or, perhaps, something I've seen on TV long before it was invented: A cell phone sending a video feed of whoever you were talking to. We have that now. I saw it in an animated series in the early 90s. Yes, fiction writers are at the cutting edge. Inventors get inspired by them.

This will be very hard to do

[Anonymous Coward]

As most paintings have shitty passwords and most artists were so dumb they painted them into the corner of the image for anyone to sniff. Authentication in such an environment will be near impossible.

Making fakes

[Harmonious Botch]

No, you don't need the software. You still need a person. Because data like this can be used to create fakes also, and the fake created by a fraudulent piece of software will fool the detection software because they rely on the same data.

Doesn't really help stop forgery.

[soricine]

This tool depends on having a collection of 'known good' works in order to make a comparison. But quite often a painter doesn't paint like 'himself'. False positives would be very easy. When van Meegeren forged his Vermeers in the thirties, the paintings didn't have all the signature marks of Vermeers. They were purported to have been from a hitherto little-known period of Vermeer's work.

Re:Doesn't really help stop forgery.

[udderly]

But quite often a painter doesn't paint like 'himself'.

Amen...I wonder how they deal with that. For instance, one of my favorites, Rufino Tamayo (examples: http://www.kolahstudio.com/Underground/?p=62) definitely doesn't always paint like "himself."

Advances like this

[Anonymous Coward]

...will be certain to improve both the quality and the quality of fake artwork available. No more "Paint by numbers" Rembrandts for art lovers, they will look like he actually had a hand in creating them.

No.

[sakusha]

Sorry, this software does not detect fakes, as claimed. All it can possibly do is detect whether or not a painting resembles other paintings by an individual artist. Speaking as a painter myself, I know that most artists undergo radical changes through their career, and painting styles may change radically due to such simple factors as buying a different brand of oil paint. Some artists never repeat the same style twice. Some artists create works in a unique style and then abandon that style after only a few works. Some artists emulate the style of their teachers so closely that even experts can't tell their works apart. Software is not likely to help these situations.

And to further complicate the problem, the biggest problem in the art market is not forged oil paintings, it is forged prints. I know one famous atelier that keeps the plates from famous artists works they've printed (they are supposed to be destroyed at the end of a printmaking edition) and once in a while they'll reprint a few, forge the artist's signature, and sell them under the table as unnumbered Artist's Proofs. These forgeries sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and are undetectable from image analysis, they are printed from the same plates as the originals and are 100% identical. But they're fakes by any standard, since they were not authorized by the artist and are not numbered.

Conventional analysis is more than sufficient to deal with fakes. Chemical analysis of pigments or grounds, and IR, UV, or XRay imaging, etc. are well developed techniques for identification of forgeries. I know of some Matisse fakes that were identified because an art historian looked at the thread count in the canvas and determined this type of machine-woven canvas was not manufactured until after Matisse's death. You can't teach this to a computer, it requires experience and long study.

Poor rich art collectors

[Alaska Jack]

If you don't think this is a serious problem to tackle, some experts estimate up to 15 percent of 'original prints' sold at auction houses are actually fake.

Yeah, well, I still don't consider it a serious problem.

- Alaska Jack

Re:Poor rich art collectors

[ScentCone]

Don't be an ass. People of regular means sometimes actually choose to purchase an original piece of art for about the same price that some other people spend on yet another hopped-up gaming PC which they'll plug in right next to their other five in their Mom's basement. Poor rich game-worthy-PC collectors? When someone who is not rich chooses to, say, spend $750 on a hand-pulled lithograph by Malcolm Lipke because they think it's beautiful and likely to become more valuable over the years, a person producing fake pieces interferes with that. The artist has chosen to make one (or some other limited number) of his vision, and someone ripping him and his audience off tends to impact a lot more people than just "rich art collectors."

What fakes prove..

[Anonymous Coward]

If art is so easy to fake, doesnt that indicate that people are paying way too much for that Van Gogh? If fakes can be good enough to fool the pros, that tells me the original painting isn't so special, except as a historical artifact.

Computers move in on another industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Is no one safe?

I've always wondered about that too.

[NotQuiteReal]

I have alway wondered why there is such a premium on "an original". Especially art.

Maybe it is just the bias of a geek, used to mass-produced goods. Take a nice CPU for example, A multi-million transistor technological work of art. First copy - billions, subsequent production run, pennies apiece - all the same.

If you really like a painting, you can get a print. Want more? You can get reproductions, done brushstroke, by brushstroke. 99% of humanity couldn't tell the difference, your freinds might know you don't have the bucks for the original. In 200 years will an antique 20th century reproduction of a 19th century masterpiece be worth much less than the original?

Many gemstones can be reproduced too. Synthetic rubies, emeralds, saphires (and probably others) are chemically identical - and PERFECT. Yet, "natural" objects of the same materials are more costly. Why? Because it takes a lot more work to get the "natural" version out of the ground. Cosmetically, I'd take a fake emerald over a cloudy natural one any day. Oooh shiney!

A collector will pay a premium for a mis-struck coin. You will take your defective DVD back to Wal-Mart. Stamp collectors on the other hand, like nice, well centered examples... unless they are way off, then - tada! It's a rarity.

If I were to make some "fake" gold coins, out of real gold, are they really fake? I suppose the US Mint breaks old molds, but what if they found an old, rare $20 gold piece die, and decided to whack a few out, just for old times sake - official US minted gold coins with the original dies... what happens to the value of the "rarity"? (Some lawyer would probably take the case :-)

I just don't get artifical scarcity - "rare pokemon cards", "rare beenie babies". Crap, forget rare, I have a yard full of unique, one-of-a-kind "pet rocks"!

And now, the million dollar winner - "rare bits", yesiree, here are some copyrighted bits, far more valuable than those pirate bits...

I think I am rambling.

Re:I've always wondered about that too.

[sakusha]

If you really like a painting, you can get a print. Want more? You can get reproductions [huntfor.com], done brushstroke, by brushstroke. 99% of humanity couldn't tell the difference, your freinds might know you don't have the bucks for the original. In 200 years will an antique 20th century reproduction of a 19th century masterpiece be worth much less than the original?

I hope you realize that those "reproductions" are painted in sweatshops in China. No I'm not kidding.

The reason why an original is more prized than a reproduction is twofold:

1. The original work is done by an artist who is trying to advance his own work and skills, and by doing that, he is advancing the arts as a whole. A reproduction copies the work and skills of another artist, and the reproducer has nothing to contribute to the advancement of the arts, he is actively retarding progress by the promotion of old works.

2. Scarcity. This applies to printed reproductions as well, that's why artists put an edition number on a print. You often see a little number like "12/50" on a print, which indicates it is the twelfth print in an edition of 50, and there will never be any more printed beyond that 50. A print from an edition of 50, for example, will be more valuable than a print from an edition of 50,000. I often see "limited edition prints" at crappy mass-market galleries that have edition numbers indicating there are 100,000 copies of this print. Hell, there are phone books that have smaller print runs than that! This quantity of printing always exceeds demand, it is phony scarcity.

True scarcity is not artificial. Most artworks are lost or destroyed due to the ravages of time, a scarce work will always become more scarce over time. You cannot go back in time and create more 200 year old paintings. But scarcity does not always create value. Scarcity plus demand creates value. Many artists fail to sell their full editions, there is no demand for their works because they are unknown.

Re:I've always wondered about that too.

[Anonymous Coward]

In 200 years will an antique 20th century reproduction of a 19th century masterpiece be worth much less than the original?

Yes, by several orders of magnitude. Next stupid question, please.

Re:I've always wondered about that too.

[rolfwind]

In 200 years will an antique 20th century reproduction of a 19th century masterpiece be worth much less than the original?

Um, yes. "Fake" or "reproduction" paintings are nothing new. Throughout the ages, many students of art copied the old masters just to get better at their craft.

This is not to impact your point as a whole, but I just thought this particular line weakened it. Anybody who buys a reproduction Van Gogh as such for their living room is obviously not concerned about the value 200 years from now.

Re:I've always wondered about that too.

[lixee]

You make an excellent point here, General!
I think the problem is inherent to capitalism as we know it today: Excessively superfluous.

Re:I've always wondered about that too.

[identity0]

Well, as another poster has noted, unless you have a time machine you won't be able to make another 300-year old painting. Unless you have the time machine and a copy(clone?) of the artist, you won't be able to make a new painting by that artist.

The value of art that is from a noted artist is only partly in the image on the canvas; if you wanted that, you could buy a poster for $20. And yet, as you noted, the originals still sell for thousands. The value is in having an object that was shaped by the artists themselves, and is a direct part of their history.

It's like the original Constitution or Declaration of Independence that they have at the capitol; it's not like we don't have more copies of them, or that our laws are no longer valid if we lose the actual papers signed by the founders. But the originals are an important part of our history, and something invaluable would be lost if we lose them.

Plus, there can be important data in actually having the thing, as opposed to simply the image on the surface. See this example of a Da Vinci sketch found under another painting of his. Art restorations and forensic analysis can bring out details or history that is hidden, in the materials or image, and that is just not possible with a reproduction. No archaeologist would say that we should be okay with the destruction of cave paintings as long as we have the image copied - to them the value is in the creation, not the aesthetics.

Re:I've always wondered about that too.

[raehl]

I have alway wondered why there is such a premium on "an original". Especially art.

If you had a smaller penis, you'd understand.

Re:I've always wondered about that too.

[niktemadur]

I have always wondered why there is such a premium on "an original". Especially art.

It depends on the collector.

On the one hand, there's Peggy Guggenheim, who bought left and right from living artists, putting food on their table, getting drunk with them, making their name. She was buying Jackson Pollock before the guy invented action painting. Picasso, Francis Bacon, Giacometti, you name it. As far as collectors go, she's the all-time queen. Of course, it helped that she had true passion for art as well as a keen eye. The result is that the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars she paid for became tens or hundreds of millions, and they're increasing in value all the time. A gigantic bonus on her behalf is that because she bought directly from the living artist, there were no forgeries in her collection. Plus, she had a blast.

On the other hand, there's these anonymous buyers who in the eighties invaded the art world with a Wall Street mentality. In fact, I very much doubt that they even enjoy/exhibit these works in their homes, my guess is that they store the artwork in climate-controlled vaults. Cold and dispassionate, no positive effect on living artists. You buy a Van Gogh, a Klimt or a Monet because it is a hyped commodity, and of course it helps that the artists are dead.

One final thought: If I buy a Klimt for $100 million, am I expecting that another rich schmuck will buy it from me for $150 million in a couple of decades? I tell ya, truth is stranger than fiction.

"rare pokemon cards", "rare beenie babies"
If I'd only hung on to that Make-A-Face Pez Dispenser from 1977, or that Raydeen Shogun Warrior with missile launchers for knuckles...

The greats live on!

[Anonymous Coward]

So now that we can use image recognition to identify the miniscule techniques that identify an artist, lets get a few photoshop filters together and make some new art. I'd love to see VanGogh's take on Wrigley Field and I have the perfect photo to use as a base.

First step towards automating fakes ?

[cathector]

Seems like a great first step towards being able to generate paintings in the style of particular artists. Neat! Are these artist profile parameters combinable, one wonders.

Pffft, the solution is really easy...

[Da_Biz]

...they should just install the Windows Genuine Advantage code on the paintings. (ducks)

D'oh!

[dingen]

From the article: 'By dividing 145 digitized paintings into pixels and analyzing the colors of each and how they compared with nearby pixels, the system was able to spot patterns unique to the painter.'

So how do you know the paintings you use as source material aren't fake?

Sounds like a great tool for forgeries

[viking80]

Just use "Authentic" to guide you to a perfect forgery.
You do not even need an art expert anymore. With this tool anyone can become a great forgerer.

Verified

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Tech: "It's real."

Preston: "Burn it."

Re:Verified

[BlueLightning]

Damn, you beat me to it.

Interestingly though the painting they show in the film could not have been the real one as it's too small.

Re:Verified

[camperdave]

For those of us who have no clue as to what the two of you are talking about, please enlighten us.

Re:Verified

[BlueLightning]

http://imdb.com/title/tt0238380

A truly brilliant film.

NUMB3RS...

[Wire Head]

They used something like this on $TOPIC a week or two ago.

Not an impressive benchmark

[wealthychef]

In tests, Authentic performed as well as 15 human volunteers who were each given a small segment of a painting to study.'

How about comparing the software at identifying fake paintings vs. volunteers, given that both the people and software can look at the whole image if they wish? The restriction to a small piece of the painting is purely to "make it fair" to the software, which won't benefit from the whole painting like a human could.

Could it ID late Van Goghs based on early ones?

[dpbsmith]

What exactly is meant by the statement that "The software also showed Van Gogh's use of complementary colours increased during his most active period from 1885 to 1890?"

Reading between the lines, I'm inclined to wonder whether, if the software had been "trained" on early Van Goghs, it would have recognized the later ones as authentic, or whether it would have rejected them because of the apparently uncharacteristic use of colors.

Actually this whole story bothers me. To begin with, human art experts not only are not 100% accurate, they are far from 100% agreement with each other in authenticating art. So, how can the software ever be tested for accuracy?

Re:Could it ID late Van Goghs based on early ones?

[CAPSLOCK2000]

This software will not give a guaranteed Real/Fake judgement about paintings. Instead it will give an opinion, that can help a human expert in deriving an answer. Such an opinion could be "This picture matches a Van Gogh picture from his late period." It's up to a human to determine if that supports or refutes the claims made about a picture.
This does not differ from what human experts do in their head. The big advantage is that this piece of software makes that information measurable. An expert does not have to depend only on his gut feeling, but he can also use objective evidence from this software.

Subconscious plagiarism?

[tepples]

If an artist says he created the work, who is anyone to dispute it?

You'd be surprised, especially for values of "artist" within "recording artist". See what happened to George Harrison in Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music (Google it).

Re:Subconscious plagiarism?

[sakusha]

I would hardly be surprised. There's an old (probably apocryphal) story about Picasso, a woman brought him some drawings to authenticate and asked if they were his work. He signed them and said "Now they are!"

Thank you, Captain Obvious

[NotQuiteReal]

[point zero - re: Chinese sweatshops. Each has to decide whether one man's sweatshop is another's step in incremental societal evolution or a stumbling block to "progress".]

1. Re: original artwork. The point is moot. The originality is already recognized, to wit, it is a popular work. There is a desire to have [even] a reproduction. The whimsical quality of "artistic value" has already been realized, hence the demend, either by true appreciation, or simply by gross peer pressure to be "with it".

2. Re: scarcity, artificial. The whole point of numbered editions is exactly what I am talking about - artificial scarcity. I like art (that I like). I have purchased signed art. I paid less because it was "unnumbered". I liked the work. I could give two shits what number it was. It is the EXACT SAME PIECE. It is pretty arbitrary what number the artist puts on it.

There is no longer any reason for works of "art" to be "lost to the ravages of time", by my definition. If it is "good", there will be many copies, because it has the essence of what makes it "good". Some copies are sure to survive. Is a unique "artistic statement" lessened because it is not the original embodiment of the idea?

Re:Thank you, Captain Obvious

[ScentCone]

There is no longer any reason for works of "art" to be "lost to the ravages of time", by my definition. If it is "good", there will be many copies, because it has the essence of what makes it "good". Some copies are sure to survive.

Look, when a fine art printmaker personally draws an image on a stone or plate, and produces a texture that lays semi-reflective ink onto a particular texture of hand-made paper using a certain density of ink... and then hand-registers the print while pressing the paper against another half-dozen litho stones to produce a very specific finished result... that cannot be photographically reproduced. Or mechanically so. Or digitally so... not in any way that produces the same results to the eye. Especially when the artist wraps up the print run by hand-coloring with other media, or applying Chine-colle, etc., however many of that particular piece have been produced are as many as will ever be produced. And some of them will not be kept as well as others. Scarcity ensues, and value (if the work is worth anything to its audience/appreciators) does go up. Looking at a high-res scan of the thing is NOT the same.

Exactly the same thing applies to a limited run of castings from a sculpture. The process is destructive, the original may be lost... these are things that are not the same, when seen photographically. Do you really think that seeing a full-sized copy of "David" is the same as walking into the room that contains the original one that Michelangelo personally touched with his own hands? It's not.

Is a unique "artistic statement" lessened because it is not the original embodiment of the idea?

Maybe, maybe not. But the experience of actually seeing (or touching) the work may very well not be the same, and that's between the artist and his audience - not between scam artists and a scammed audience. Someone being told they're looking directly at the piece of work produced by the artist, and seeing something like a Giclee or other reproduction, will either know they're being lied to, or suddenly think a lot less of the artist.

Re:Thank you, Captain Obvious

[FLEB]

I think you've just got a different perspective and a different set of values. For a collector, respect for (and ownership of) *THE* work, not *A* work, is a large part of the hobby. Replicas can do perfectly well in conveying the meaning and content of a work, and would be perfectly suitable for a person who wishes to study or reflect upon it, but for a collector, there is a value of status, both for the object and the owner, in having something scarce and original. Not everyone, after all, is able to acquire an original of a scarce collectible.

The world we live in (especially that of the high-value-item collectors such as these) is far from starving, and basics such as durability, suitability, and adequate quality are easily available. With these basic attributes being a simply-attained commodity, more esoteric distinctions become attainable. In the same way that you might find value in a higher-quality print (even though a mediocre print may get the point across), someone passionate about originality might find value in an original.

For all its pomp and flying dollar-signs, the value of collectibles is, at its core, driven by hobby-- a passion for things that are not vital, but bring people pleasure nonetheless.

Re:Thank you, Captain Obvious

[Cyberax]

Well, that just means that reproduction technology is not ideal. So mass-production statement of parent does not apply - you have REAL scarcity, not an artificial one.

BTW, it may be possible tomorrow to laser-scan David sculpture and recreate it using plastic printers down to smallest details.

Re:Thank you, Captain Obvious

[raehl]

Do you really think that seeing a full-sized copy of "David" is the same as walking into the room that contains the original one that Michelangelo personally touched with his own hands?

Of course not. In one of those cases, your jet lag is much worse.

Re:Thank you, Captain Obvious

[suv4x4]

Do you really think that seeing a full-sized copy of "David" is the same as walking into the room that contains the original one that Michelangelo personally touched with his own hands? It's not.

That's the problem. While people considering touching something with specific pair of hands blows its value way up, this problem will always haunt us.

Michelangelo may be one in a billion, or even just one in a universe. Still, his hands are normal human hands like anyone else's hands. We're not that unique, and our touch is not so expensive.

I truly doubt people value Michelangelo's work because he touched it with his hands.

Art is a statement, and even: it's a product that explores our senses. If you value art you take it for what it is as an end result, and not look who touched it, or who signed it, and how valuable investment it is, like you would with your portfolio.

The strive to have the only and original is a manifestation of our desire for perfection. The original may have so many flaws on its own, but it's THE original and we use this as a measure of what's right.

This gives it value. And since modern civilisation rarley has its members fighting for food or water or other basic survival necessities, we put meaning into our live by demanding recognition and obsorbing value.

Hence, those paintings really have value because they have value. It's a hype that feeds itself, based on a plausible story we all chose to believe in (or at least those that buy them).

useful!

[Lord Ender]

Think of all the implications of this technology in the IT world!

"Please paint a happy little cloud to log on."

Re:useful!

[camperdave]

Charles Shultz, the author/illustrator of the cartoon "Peanuts", once drew a picture of Charlie Brown to prove his identity to someone (or so the story goes).

Welll....

[Dieppe]

Numb3rs did it! (October 6th episode "Proveance").

:)

Re:Weally? - Don't lie. Don't steal.

[ancientt]

I almost hate to venture an opinion on this as I feel most of the points have been well covered but I think there is a simple one that has been understated.

• Lying is bad.
• Stealing is bad.
• Forgery is lying to steal and.. you guessed it: bad.
• Letting people know when they are being lied to or stolen from is good.

There might be exceptions but I don't think that forging art is one of them. All the comments on whether or not art is worth what is paid for it are missing the central point which is that it is something to help people keep a crime from being committed or to let them help prove when one has been.

Of course you may not think art is worth the price or a car is worth the price or a piece of software is worth the price, but it doesn't matter. It matters to the person getting scammed.

Note that I am not disagreeing with the replied to post, mearly simplifying here because I didn't see a better place to put this.

Brush stroke analysis

[nickovs]

Colour analysis is interesting but it's well known that an artist's colour usage changes over time (a famous example being Claude Monet and his eye cataracts). Brush stroke patterns, on the other hand, seem to change less. There was an interesting paper in 2004 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on using wavelet analysis of brush stroke marks to separate originals from imitations and to detect areas of paintings that had been reworked.

Of course these are all just tools that add evidence either way, not proof of originality or forgery. I suspect that using both colour and brush stroke analysis would do a better job than just one or the other.

SciFi Realities Become Reality?

[JPFitting]

We saw this type of technology in the movie "Equilibrium." The next thing I want is some type of technology that we should have seen already that would allow us to transport ourselves into paintings, or sidewalk chalk drawings.

cui bono

[BorgCopyeditor]

some experts estimate up to 15 percent of 'original prints' sold at auction houses are actually fake

Would they happen to be among the people aiming to sell expensive software to deal with this problem?

Volunteers, skilled or otherwise?

[OfNoAccount]

> FTA: Authentic performed as well as 15 human volunteers who were each given a small segment of a painting to study

So, those volunteers - random people, or skilled forgery hunters? If the former then they've basically said "our program is as good as dumb luck at detecting forgeries".

Well of course there's software to do this

[Zen]

Anyone who watches the TV show Numbers knows that they did this exact same thing a week or two ago, and it worked flawlessly on TV, so why wouldn't it work in real life? Actually, kidding aside and while I'm still only partially ot, I'm pretty impressed with this particular TV show. It seems like all the equations used to solve the mysteries would actually work. Now how you use the right one versus all the other ones that would yield similar yet invalid results, I'm not sure. Anyone else here that watches this?

Fakes by any standard?

[ljw1004]

"Fakes by any standard"? "Since they were not authorized by the artist and are not numbered"?

Then that same standard says that pirated mp3s are fakes compared to the original mp3s. And seems a silly standard.

No, you're mistaken here.

[raehl]

These forgeries sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and are undetectable from image analysis, they are printed from the same plates as the originals and are 100% identical. But they're fakes by any standard, since they were not authorized by the artist and are not numbered.

They are clearly only fakes by SOME standards, particularly the standard of an artist who doesn't want someone profiting off their work.

If I have a Unforgiven (the song) on CD, and I copy it but-for-bit to my hard drive, and then play it, in it's 100% identical digital form, is it not still Unforgiven? Same song. Sounds the same. And certainly no-one would say it was fake.

If I have Unforgigen (the movie) on DVD, and I play it on a really crappy black and white TV, where the picture is definitely not 100% identical to the film print, you still wouldn't call it a fake.

And if you have a process that creates a print, and the process creates 100% identical copies (or at least, the copies made by one person using the process have the same set of variations as copies made by another person using the process), then all copies are real. Making the plates is the art, pulling the level to put out 101 copies instead of 100 copies isn't any different than pressing the green button on the copier. Actually, it is different, because you're getting an original printed copy instead of a photocopy, which isn't a perfect copy.

If you have to items that are the same in every way, and the only difference between them is the information you believe in your head to be true, you're paying a lot of money for nothing. I'll lie to you for free.

Re:No, you're mistaken here.

[sakusha]

You haven't quite got a handle on the situation here, I think.
When an artist produces a run of limited edition prints, he is entering into a contract with the art market, an old established contract that every honest artist and atelier operates by. He is declaring that his edition of, say 100 prints, means that ONLY 100 prints will ever be made (plus a few artists proofs made during testing runs). The atelier is breaking the contract with both the artist and the market when they produce these illegitimate prints, they're clearly forgeries because they bear forged signatures. The atelier is flagrantly violating their contracts when they retain rather than destroy the plates. Most print runs end with a "cancellation print" which is a print of the plate with a big scratch through it, proving the plate has been destroyed, and the artist signs it to show he's convinced the plates are destroyed. I've heard of those cancellation prints being forged, they trick the artist into believing the plates are ruined and no more prints can be made. But the atelier can continue to secretly produce prints using the same plates the artist made (with assistance from the atelier's printmakers), and the prints are made on the same paper as the originals, using the same inks, and sometimes even by the same printmakers that made the legit editions. But without a real signature, the print is really worthless.

Surely some of the value of a limited edition comes from its scarcity, creating more prints dilutes the value of the original. Essentially this is like counterfeiting, printing fake money with no backing by the Treasury undermines the value of real money, since we might be duped into accepting fake money with no real value.

Re:No, you're mistaken here.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're only proving the OP's point. The run of 100 prints is artificially limited to 100. The 101st print is exactly the same as the others with the exception of the signature. In this case, is the value of the work really in the signature? Art should be valued for the idea it expresses, not how many times the artist allowed it to be expressed.

Re:No, you're mistaken here.

[sakusha]

Is the value of a $100 bill the same, if it is visually identical to one issued by the US Treasury, but was printed by a counterfeiter? The value is in the authenticity. Only the signature assures authenticity. Some printmakers now sign their works with a special ink containing their extracted DNA, to assure a unique authentication to one human being.

Re:No, you're mistaken here.

[raehl]

Is the value of a $100 bill the same, if it is visually identical to one issued by the US Treasury, but was printed by a counterfeiter?

If the $100 bill printed by the coutnerfeiter is identical enough, then yes, the value is the same.

A few thoughts...

[kn0tw0rk]

I wonder if it would be usefull to be able to find other 'works' that are similar. Say like what happens with some online music shops.. you liked artist AAAAA, why not try some of BBBBB?

It reminds me of a short story by Bob Shaw where aliens were secretly buying up original earth art and replacing them with forgeries that were undetectable with our technology. Must go find it and re-read.

OT: Anyone want to buy my latest work of a chinese dragon drawn in celtic knotwork at the bargin price of AUS$100,000 ?? :D Its original, one of a kind, no copies made, and actually looks good.

from a business standpoint

[tinkerton]

I doubt a bit if (a part of) the art world considers it a problem either, it's just part of the game. So let's try a cynical description of the game:

As with the old joke of cans of sardines being used as alternative money in the war, the rule is that you don't try to eat the sardines. That is not what they are for. So once a piece has a certificate of authenticity, the owner has no interest in having it checked, and assisted by a certificate from a reputed expert, she will only sell to people who do not insist on any new checks being performed before the transaction.

Acquiring the certificate is an interesting phase. Considering that a judgement is often not categorical but rather a matter of percentage, the expert has to judge the 'complete context' when deciding to make his 80% certainty to become a 100% or not. What are the chances his judgement will turn against him?

It's good to make sure you like a painting before you buy it.