Thursday, February 11, 2010

Using math & computers to find fake art

This is a fun story - Math Professor Helps Uncover Art Fakes:

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Determining what is real and what is fake has long been a problem for art curators. It is estimated that 20 percent of the worldwide art market is made up of forgeries. But art lover and Dartmouth College mathematics department Chairman Daniel Rockmore has developed a technique that is helping to determine the difference between excellent copy and the real McCoy.
"I joke a lot that I am a mathematician by mistake," says Rockmore. "It was something that I had an aptitude at, but I've always had lots of interests."
One thing Rockmore is particularly interested in is art. And a few years ago, his professional skills and personal interest collided.

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the article continues later with:

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He realized that if he had digital images of the drawings, he could use his math skills to design a computer program that would analyze the pen strokes and characterize which were Bruegel-like and which weren't. So he and some colleagues got hold of the digital images, and wrote the program.
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Pretty cool!

(Hat tip: reddit)


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Technorati tags: fake, art

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