Computers have become budding art historians. A new program can figure out a particular painting’s style — whether it’s abstract, impressionist or Baroque, for example — and tease out possible influences on the artists.
Program designers started with a close look at 1,710 paintings. For each work, the program logged the everyday items depicted, such as chairs and stoves, as well as features including color, composition and brushstroke. By comparing lists of these features with lists made from reference paintings, the program figured out the style of unknown paintings about 70 percent of the time, computer scientist Ahmed Elgammal and colleagues at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J., report August 19 in Multimedia Tools and Applications. (1)
Analyzing and understanding art.
This is something only a computer would do.
Or a human thinking like a computer.
Art is not to be understood.
Art is to be felt.
Open your eyes.
Look at your favorite painting.
Close your eyes.
It is not your brain which likes it.
But your heart…
