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Machine Vision Reveals Previously Unknown Influences Between Great Artists
KentuckyFC writes Art experts look for influences between great masters by studying the artist's use of space, texture, form, shape, colour and so on. They may also consider the subject matter, brushstrokes, meaning, historical context and myriad other factors. So it's easy to imagine that today's primitive machine vision techniques have little to add. Not so. Using a new technique for classifying objects in images, a team of computer scientists and art experts have compared more than 1700 paintings from over 60 artists dating from the early 15th century to the late 20 the century. They've developed an algorithm that has used these classifications to find many well known influences between artists, such as the well known influence of Pablo Picasso and George Braque on the Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt, the influence of the French romantic Delacroix on the French impressionist Bazille, the Norwegian painter Munch's influence on the German painter Beckmann and Degas' influence on Caillebotte. But the algorithm also discovered connections that art historians have never noticed (judge the comparisons for yourself). In particular, the algorithm points out that Norman Rockwell's Shuffleton's Barber Shop painted in 1950 is remarkably similar to Frederic Bazille's Studio 9 Rue de la Condamine painted 80 years before.
How long until dead artists' heirs latch onto techniques like this to prove "substantial similarity" as part of a copyright suit to try to squeeze money out of working artists?
I suppose the only way people will quit caring more about which artist drew something than how it looks, is if we replace artists with computers.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
What the computer can do is point out what is similar. Whether the similarity is an example of influence then needs to be established with further evidence.
I looked at the Rockwell/Bazille comparison, and they don't really seem all that similar - they have three similar elements (stove, chair, and window) but those seem coincidental more than anything. The window in Rockwell's piece, for instance, is small and rectangular while the one in Bazille's is huge and arched. The chair in the Rockwell piece is actually barely identifiable as a chair at first glance, whereas the one in the Bazille piece is immediately recognizable as a wooden chair. They're also three objects that are likely to be close to one another. For instance, my aunt heats with wood and has a stove roughly the same distance from a window as in the Rockwell and Bazille pictures, and if I remember right even has a wooden chair in the same room. I think all this proves is that people tend to put their stoves in rooms with windows and chairs.
So...because Rockwell and Bazille's paintings both have windows, people, a chair, and a stove they are influenced by each other? All of these are common things that you would expect in any building in the late 1800s and mid-50s (note the age of the building implies it is not new construction at that time and would definitely still rely on a stove for heating). I guess they are trying to argue that the placement of the items is the connection? Barbershops always have their chairs on one side near the wall, and people tend to put chairs near walls and objects as well, not in the middle of the floor. The right angle formed by the wall and floor and then the pane in the window seems a bit of a stretch, since wouldn't any painting of a man-made structure include right angles at some point?
I guess I just don't "get it"
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Independent invention isn't a thing in art?
The other medium.com linkspammer.
Interestingly when M.C. Escher paintings were analyzed it kept returning "divide by zero errors". Upon further examination, it was discovered that it was claiming "divide by the letter "O" errors" and not the number zero.
Do you think Chris Hadfield was influenced by David Bowie?
Just using the bottom example. The 'related' elements are that each painting used a window, each painting had a small group of people (the first in mid-ground, the second in a back room), each had a pipe shaped heating stove, each had a piece (different) of furniture and each had a diagonal element (both differing angles).
Those things, they think, may be from influence instead of, say, the fact that humans have all those things in everyday life.
Their algorithm and their view of its output needs a lot of tweaking.
the whole "man vs machine" conversation has gotten hopelessly muddled by "AI" hype from Kurzweil types & pop science news...
impossible...computers are complex machines that follow instructions
what you mean is, "if we continue programming computers to generate art"
the "artist" is whatever monkey programs the machine to make the art....UNDERSTAND THIS FOREVER AND INTEGRATE IT INTO YOU PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY
the researchers in TFA are doing some interesting work, but they are fully choosing the parameters to compare...which means the accuracy of the research is *dependent on the researcher's ability to pick salient visual factors*, the researchers would have to learn alot about how artists work AND have a good understanding of visual design
each artist works differently, and no researcher can ever confirm if the artist has ever seen the art they are supposed to have been influenced by
there are so many holes in this research you could drive 6 trucks into it simultaneously at 6 different angles...call it an "MC Escher error"
Thank you Dave Raggett
Art is taught and can be learned, I study this as well as everything else I can find to learn (yes, even at a University). What an artist learns is how to move a persons eye, and how to make aesthetically pleasing art, amongst other things.
As an example, If you draw an X in the center of the canvas and maintain the lines in the painting, people's eyes will be drawn to the center. Numerous Xs will have numerous focal points. Great artists know this, and obscure the lines so it's harder for people to notice. Flat lines are obvious and can be boring.
Layering paints is another one that people can be taught, but can learn on their own. I don't have to teach you the brush strokes required, you would figure it out. If you press a brush on canvas and drag the brush, paint moves in the same way as the brush. Layering requires a touch lift technique (or waiting until paint is dry). We don't need to have the same influences to figure this out, just a little bit of experience with the medium.
In "teaching" art I may be able to hasten your learning curve, but these are two concepts that you would surely figure out on your own. Unless I know you were classically trained I can't claim to know how you were influenced by looking at simply technique.
Like you said, I have no issue with them claiming that they can see what's "similar". Unless an artist admits to being trained by so-and-so or influenced by so-and-so, I don't buy into a piece of software being able to do this just by looking at technique.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
This can only lead to the Facebookization of the art world. No thank you.
wow, pretty neat that some scientists can develop algorithms that can analyze different art styles. Cool. thanks for sharing the links.
The machines have found proof that we have an immortal painter living who's been changing names throughout history!
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Those pictures are supposedly similar because they both have people, a window, a chair, and a stove in them? Do you know how many thousands, if not millions, of pictures I can find that have the same basic setup? The painting of the pope looks like another painting of the pope, that was painted using the first one as a basis? Wow, obviously they are similar, Bacon used the one as a model. This is fucking stupid.
>> In particular, the algorithm points out that Norman Rockwell's Shuffleton's Barber Shop painted in 1950 is remarkably similar to Frederic Bazille's Studio 9 Rue de la Condamine painted 80 years before.
Not at all. Apart from both being of (different sized) rooms painted from an approximately similar angle, there really is nothing else that is the same about the two paintings. It would appear that the computer is keying only off of very large features such as a general observation that a large lightsource of a simliar size and location is in both (but in one painting its half a window which is really a secondary subject, and in the other, a doorway to a room with a light in that is the primary subject). If the computer can only make decisions based on such broad generalisations, it really is pretty much useless.
humans are not "just machines" because we can **choose to program ourselves and formulate/test hypothesis that we communicate/share/compare with others**
humans **can be** programmed...yes...
ways you can "program" a human:
> control information they receive
> physical/emotional abuse
> chemicals (alchohol, 'roofies', etc)
> the Frey Effect
> cattle prod
note: all of the above are **abuse** and illegal without informed consent
so you're wrong...humans cannont "be programmed"....the can surely "be abused" however
understand this forever and change your way of thinking or you are **just a slave**
Thank you Dave Raggett
An algorithm scanned through images of works of art, and identified similarities. And that means what?
It is well documented that the african art in beginning of 1900's started to be taken seriously through expositions. Picasso never made a secret of this influence.
Makonde wood carvings such as the ones with shetani on long legs, influenced Dali to paint those elephants on long legs.
On a funny note you should check out Martin Schwarz (for reference: Giger liked him a lot) work: he painted the mona lisa without the mona lisa - he found the background to be more inspiring.
Art is never a coincidence - this is the definition of art for me.
People forget the painstaking search of Pollock for the exact consistence of his paint.
Engineering projects are the biggest outbursts of art - when they get to show results, even if it are turds like from Wim Delvoye's "Cloaca".
From the article: ..."
"They've developed an algorithm that has used these classifications to find many well known influences between artists, such as the well known influence of Pablo Picasso and George Braque on the Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt,
I never heard that before. In what way did Picasso and Braque influence Klimt's art?
yeah...I see now...
so I run VooDooCode...it looks like this:
1 eye of newt
1 heart of chicken (fresh)
4 feet of black cat born under full moon
1 gallon pig blood
the position of the elements of the code determines the future of the person who I am reading
like your idea, VooDooCode explains human behavior simply, and proves that humans are "just machines"
Thank you Dave Raggett