Learning an Artist's Style: Just What Does a Pigeon See in a Picasso?

Judgments of style in art, music, and literature are commonplace, although the mechanisms providing for this structural sensitivity are not well understood. Watanabe, Sakamoto, and Wakita (1995) showed that pigeons trained to discriminate colour slides of paintings of Picasso from those of Monet could generalise this discrimination not only to new paintings of Picasso and Monet, but also to paintings of other cubist and impressionist painters. These results suggest that the bases for such judgments of artistic style may be simpler than normally thought. This tacit sensitivity to artistic style is explored in terms of a simple PCA network model applied to pixel-maps of the paintings. The eigenvectors obtained from the singular value decomposition of sets of these pixel-maps provide for descriptions of the stimuli in terms of visual “macro-features”. These macro-features provide a simple basis not only for recognising previously-experienced paintings, but for the successful discrimination of novel paintings into various style categories. A summary of simulations of the performance of Watanabe et al.’s pigeons using precisely the same stimuli and tasks is provided. The results suggest that the eigen-decomposition is a necessary first-step, and that the bases for judgments of style may indeed be quite simple

Surfaces, depths and hypercubes: Meyerholdian scenography and the fourth dimension

An appreciation of Meyerhold’s engagement with theatrical space is fundamental to understanding his directorial and pedagogic practice. This article begins by establishing Meyerhold’s theoretical and practical engagement with theatre as a fundamentally scenographic process, arguing for a reconceptualisation of the director as ‘director-scenographer’. Focusing on the construction of depth and surface in Meyerholdian theatre, the article goes on to identify trends in the director’s approach to space, with an emphasis on the de-naturalisation of depth on stage. This denaturalisation is seen as taking three forms: the rejection of depth as a prerequisite in theatrical space, the acknowledgement of the two-dimensional surface as surface, and the restructuring of depth space into a series of restricted planes. The combination of these trends indicates a consistent and systematic process of experimentation in Meyerhold’s work. In addition, this emphasis on depth and surface, and the interaction between the two, also highlights the contextualisation of Meyerhold’s practice within the visual, philosophical and scientific culture of the early twentieth century, echoing the innovations in n-dimensional geometry and particularly, the model of the fourth spatial dimension seen in the work of Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky

Perceptual 3D rendering based on principles of analytical cubism

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Cubism, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, was a breakthrough in art, influencing artists to abandon existing traditions. In this paper, we present a novel approach for cubist rendering of 3D synthetic environments. Rather than merely imitating cubist paintings, we apply the main principles of analytical cubism to 3D graphics rendering. In this respect, we develop a new cubist camera providing an extended view, and a perceptually based spatial imprecision technique that keeps the important regions of the scene within a certain area of the output. Additionally, several methods to provide a painterly style are applied. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our extending view method by comparing the visible face counts in the images rendered by the cubist camera model and the traditional perspective camera. Besides, we give an overall discussion of final results and apply user tests in which users compare our results very well with analytical cubist paintings but not synthetic cubist paintings. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

The \u27anti-photographic\u27 photography of Pablo Picasso and its influence on the development now known as Cubism

By examining the relationship between photography and painting at the turn of the nineteenth century, it becomes clear that the two mediums have more in common than art historians acknowledge. The two share obvious formal qualities such as form, perspective, depth, and spatial relationships. These formal qualities make it easier to see the potential overlap between the two mediums, as Picasso did during the summer of 1909. Although Picasso is not well known for his photography, the large collection of photographic imagery found in his estate now makes it possible to firmly establish the place of photography within his oeuvre. Indeed, when examining the photographs that Picasso took in the small Spanish village of Horta de Ebro, it is possible to give photography its proper due in the development of the movement now known as Cubism

Cubism and the Fourth Dimension

This article revisits the historiography of Cubism and mathematics, with a particular focus on Pablo Picasso's uses of geometry at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century. In particular, I consider the artistic appropriation of the concept of the fourth dimension, and its pictorial uses as a conduit for a conceptual reformulation of pictorial space. I investigate Picasso's distinctive adoption of this geometric framework in relation to one of his 1909 experiments across painting and photography, and advocate the possibility of drawing novel historiographical lessons from Picasso's work — lessons that bring the historiography of Cubism in a closer dialogue with recent debates in the historiography of science. I conclude with an appeal to consider the continued relevance of this past experiment in art and science when assessing the contemporary drive toward art-science collaborations, and use the case of Cubism and the fourth dimension as a springboard for a critical reflection on the future directions of art-science collaborations

Function versus Form in Czech Cubism: Architecture and Furniture Design

This thesis seeks to negate the idea, prevalent among scholars in the field, that form became more important than function in the works of Cubist applied artists and architects. Cubist theory flourished in these sectors of the arts among young Czech artists who rejected the rationalism of their teachers, Otto Wagner and Jan Kotera. The work of Pavel Janák, Vlastislav Hofman and Josef Gocár provides the case study by which I argue that Czech architects during the Cubist movement from 1911 to 1925 were not only concerned with the utility of their works, but they also applied new functions to architecture and the applied arts--functions entirely different from mere practical concerns. These included the expression of the artists' own inner visions and spirituality through formal design, the conveyance of the possibilities of dynamic movement of mass through the creation of space and its outer shell, and, after World War I, the articulation of nationalism through the synthesis of Rondocubist form and decorative folk elements

Cubist style rendering of 3D virtual environments

Ankara : The Department of Computer Engineering and the Graduate School of Engineering and Science of Bilkent University, 2012.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 2012.Includes bibliographical refences.Cubism, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, was a breakthrough in art, influencing artists to abandon existing traditions. In this thesis, we present a novel approach for cubist rendering of 3D synthetic environments. Rather than merely imitating cubist paintings, we apply the main principles of Analytical Cubism to 3D graphics rendering. In this respect, we develop a new cubist camera providing an extended view, and a perceptually based spatial imprecision technique that keeps the important regions of the scene within a certain area of the output. Additionally, several methods to provide a painterly style are applied. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our extending view method by comparing the visible face counts in the images rendered by the cubist camera model and the traditional perspective camera. Besides, we give an overall discussion of final results and apply user tests in which users compare our results very well with Analytical Cubist paintings but not Synthetic Cubist paintings.Arpa, SamiM.S

Visualising Process- Hofman’s 1926 Hamlet

The 1926 production of Hamlet is of particular significance in a range of contexts. It was Karel Hiller’s return production following a career hiatus occasioned by a devastating stroke in 1924 and marked the beginning of a more reflective stage of his career (Burian, 1982:67). It was the production in which Hofman apparently shifted his focus from explorations of solid matter to explorations of open space (Burian, 2002:127) and has been further identified as significant in its use of screens to articulate that space (Burian, 2007). The significance of this particular production is further evidenced by the rich and varied original design material which has been preserved in a variety of archives (principally those held at Prague’s National Theatre and National Museum and in the Burian holdings of Columbus State University).This Article explores Hofman's design through a processs of computer reconstruction, insights into the formal developments of Hofman’s design are enhanced by analysis informed by his critical writing on the subject published in his article ‘My Evolution in Theatre’ (Hofman, 1926d)

Multi-camera: interactive rendering of abstract digital images

The purpose of this thesis is the development of an interactive computer-generated rendering system that provides artists with the ability to create abstract paintings simply and intuitively. This system allows the user to distort a computer-generated environment using image manipulation techniques that are derived from fundamentals of expressionistic art. The primary method by which these images will be abstracted stems from the idea of several small images assembled into a collage that represents multiple viewing points rendered simultaneously. This idea has its roots in the multiple-perspective and collage techniques used by many cubist and futurist artists of the early twentieth century