Picasso, Matisse, or a Fake? Automated Analysis of Drawings at the Stroke Level for Attribution and Authentication

This paper proposes a computational approach for analysis of strokes in line drawings by artists. We aim at developing an AI methodology that facilitates attribution of drawings of unknown authors in a way that is not easy to be deceived by forged art. The methodology used is based on quantifying the characteristics of individual strokes in drawings. We propose a novel algorithm for segmenting individual strokes. We designed and compared different hand-crafted and learned features for the task of quantifying stroke characteristics. We also propose and compare different classification methods at the drawing level. We experimented with a dataset of 300 digitized drawings with over 80 thousands strokes. The collection mainly consisted of drawings of Pablo Picasso, Henry Matisse, and Egon Schiele, besides a small number of representative works of other artists. The experiments shows that the proposed methodology can classify individual strokes with accuracy 70%-90%, and aggregate over drawings with accuracy above 80%, while being robust to be deceived by fakes (with accuracy 100% for detecting fakes in most settings)

Viewpoint: Standards in conservation [Interview]

There are many ways that people use the word standard in conversation, I might be tempted to use it broadly, for example using ‘standard’ to describe an agreed way of doing things or to describe uniformity. Within the sector, the terms standards and benchmarks are often used interchangeably to describe a system to measure how you are performing. In a more precise sense, a standard is not necessarily agreed by all, it can be imposed by a standard issuing authority. Ask any child taking a standardised exam, most of them don’t agree with that way of doing things! A standard may specify interoperability rather than uniformity: so that distinct elements work together. The size of your mattress and a fitted sheet is an important standardisation for life. The CEN define a standard as ‘a technical document designed to be used as a rule, guideline or definition’. They claim it as a ‘consensus built, repeatable way of doing things’. I think the idea of standards is one of those ontological uncertainties, people don’t realise that they have different conceptions when they use the same word. Where precision matters it may be useful to frame any discussion on standards with an exploration of their meaning and purpose which may usefully expose distinctions and prevent future confusion