how do i find out about a painting i have

If nosotros look at fine art history, we will discover many stories regarding lost masterpieces and fantabulous works which have been forgotten by the spotlight, have been racking up dust in someone'south attic earlier being rediscovered, or that accept only gone into the oblivion of fourth dimension. At the aforementioned time, it often happens to find ourselves driven towards a piece of work, which is non necessarily a masterpiece, and even more than, it doesn't even specify its provenance or the name of the artist.

Related articles: How digital is creating new smart ways to collect - A crash into the latest digital art frontiers In Seoul - How the blockchain works on the art marketplace

A glance of greatness can often be seen in many paintings, even when the viewer is not well informed about the hand that produced such dazzler, just nowadays, thanks to mod technology, information technology becomes much easier to accept access to these types of information, and to quickly notice the name of the artist behind a pleasing painting.

Besides all the famous stories that can be institute if looking back into the by, it tin can be said that sometimes, when we discover ourselves wandering around a museum, a gallery, or fifty-fifty a private flat, we feel strongly engaged towards a brilliant piece of art. In that moment, our heart is attracted towards something beautiful, yet to usa anonymous, and that particular fact oft triggers our hunger for noesis. This specific instantis subject to a series of mixed feelings; on i hand nosotros experience invested past the strength of something enigmatic and dubious, such as a painting with no painter, but at the same time our need to sympathise drives us to enquiry and dig into art history until the name of the artist is finally unveiled.

It goes without saying, that a good centre tin can spot a practiced painting. Therefore, a well-prepared observer already has the instruments he needs to chronicle a pieceof art to a specific time period, making it easier for a knowledgeable viewer to find the name of the creative person who made it, compared to any random occasional visitor.

The Shazam effect

In contemporary times in that location is no place for discomfort, making it foregone that: to every problem, technology brings solutions. A expert case of what has just been said can be given past taking a look at what "Shazam" did for music listeners; a simple notwithstanding highly technological app, which created a service, and a solution, for all of those who felt the need to know the proper name of the producer backside a song that they heard in a bar, a nightclub or a music festival. It becomes spontaneous, for an art world that is moving more than and more into the void of the digital era, to effort to satisfy its viewers' need to know the proper noun of the artist behind a painting, without engaging a stressful and oftentimes frustrating inquiry, and to practise so by using high quality technological services. At that place are apps to identify vino bottles, there is Shazam for plants, apparel and songs, and at present, finally, there is a similar service for art.

Magnus, Smartify and Google Lens: art within achieve

These three examples of art-oriented apps serve themselves of paradigm recognitiontechnology and big-data sciences, to provide the viewer with immediate responses to their questions, each of them coming with an own twist.

For instance, if we accept a closer look at Magnus, developed by Magnus Resch, we will find an app that is completely user-based, and is providing quick responses for the everyday viewer who wants to find the name of the artist of a painting. The observer gains piece of cake admission to a crowdsourced database of more than ten million images, and therefore is put in contact with galleries and art fairs that he or she usually don't know about.

On the other side, other apps are based on what we call "museumgoers", hence people who are more than into the fine art world and are keener to visit past themselves cultural spaces and galleries. Smartify, for example, besides takes a more educational approach, establishing collaborations and connections with museums, to create, and upload, digital formats of their collections and exhibitions, providing them of their wall texts and information, but by doing and so information technology occurs that it allows people to get in close contact only with those realities that are linked to the app, limiting in some way its potential.

Google Lens, Google's latest and nigh advanced epitome recognition technology, is instead all about getting close to the people; a mindset that makes this company in all aspects unique. What this app wants to reach, is to requite the consumer open access to information regarding artworks, design objects, local and public fine art, by creating partnerships with museums like the Young Museum in San Francisco, and by displaying their collections online. It is an firsthand assumption that an app that is developed by Google, aims to communicate to the widest possible target, and therefore it was created for the everyday worker, who is not a habitual art affectionate, and who wants to learn during his time at the café or at the Co-Working infinite he is used to get.

From left to right:Ms. Cohen scanning works by Helen Frankenthaler at the Parrish Art Museum: at left, "Provincetown Window" (1963-64); meridian correct, "Provincetown" (1964); and bottom right, "Summertime Scene: Provincetown" (1961), Credit...Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Vincent Tullo for The New York Times ; Magnus has built a database of more than than 10 one thousand thousand images of art. Ms. Cohen uses the app on other Frankenthaler works at the Parrish, at left, "Beach Scene" (1961), and correct, "Square Figure" (1961) Credit...Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Order (ARS), New York; Vincent Tullo for The New York Times.

Problems and barriers of fine art-related data technologies

When big information sciences confront themselves with a delicate and complex statement like the one of painting and artistic product, information technology happens to be a much more difficult challenge that it might seem. It is interesting to spend some time understanding what the problematics are, when engaging in a service of that sort.

A starting betoken comes in one case again from Magnus Resch himself, whom once stated that "there is a lot more art than at that place are songs". This statement can be taken as well-nigh totally truthful, for the fact that: information technology might exist true that the procedure of cataloging individual artworks based in unique locations, is harder than cataloging entire albums and discographies under a unmarried digital "place". Merely information technology is also true, that hugger-mugger music is not driven by the same desire towards mainstream, which is instead a general necessity of nigh of the artistic and painterly productions, even when coming from the well-nigh hidden meanders, hence the higher amount of museums and galleries that respond to that specific demand.

Besides the most obvious problems linked to copyright infringement, which is a very thin and subtle argument in a user based online world and has already been regulated by the Digital Millenial Copyright Deed, in that location are other problematic aspects that deserve to be analized. How can 3D objects and sculptures be loyally reproduced in an abstract and illusive dimension like the 1 offered past digital platforms? What happens to the viewer's experience of the "aura", the presence, of an artwork, when the experience is transposed online, where infinite and time are subject to various mutations?

For what concerns multi-dimensional objects, it comes naturally to believe that, while nowadays image recognition technologies are nonetheless baffled past 3D artifacts, someday soon the fast-moving development of augmented reality services might be able to respond to this request, and right the currently existing "lags".

If we dig into the bug regarding "aura", nosotros volition immediately understand that engaging in such a deep analysis would be frustrating and timeless, and it is therefore a problem that today has no solution. It is smart and forrard looking to keep count of the positive aspects that are being achieved and accept all of the imperfections that with due time might equally well be solved.

As Magnus Resch suggested, there are some key aspects to exist seen about the "transparency" that online services are able to give to the viewer, who might be searching for the artist that made a particular painting. With the term "transparency" Mr. Resch defines the amount of details regarding price and information about the provenance of the displayed piece of work, which are often left apart by galleries and collections. The viewer ordinarily has to ask in order to know the name of the artist, and apps similar Magnus give an firsthand response to that frequent question.

Magnus, discover the proper noun of the artist of a painting, and much more!.

Conclusions: how do I find the artist of a painting?

As vastly explained througout the commodity, we are lucky to live into a forward moving, digital and technological society, in which big data sciences enable u.s. to become access to bodyless and elementary cataloging methods, allowing a quick and well displayed response to our need-to-know. Learning how to read a gesture, an aesthetic tendency and to recognize it into a painting who's provenance is notwithstanding unknown, is a form of noesis that is probably condign more and more unnecessary, cheers to apps like Magnus, Smartify, Google Lens and others that are being developed as we speak. It tin be said, to the well informed reader, that these type of technologies must be used with judgement, meaning that, although it is interesting and extremely useful to have access to these instant informations, we shall non use these apps as our only form of understanding, merely instead, we should utilise their incredible potential by combining them with our background and enquiry in order to develop a more consummate class of knowledge.