Be warned, art world! In addition to the usual philosophical debates endemic to your disciplines — What is art? What is beauty? Is that a pipe? — you may have to contend with some of the classic science conundrums as well.
Using computer vision algorithms and machine learning techniques, researchers have scanned 1,700 paintings to identify similarities. Notionally, the presence of similarities might suggest an influence of one artist on the other, or a shared influence on both. And, indeed, the search identified similarities between paintings either acknowledged by the artist(s) to have a connection, or documented previously by art historians or critics. It also found what were apparently novel links. [Read more…] about Science Corner: Picasso & Rockwell & Correlation & Causation