Computer Vision and Image Analysis of Art 2024

Conference keywords: computer image analysis of art, paintings, prints, drawings: multi-spectral imaging, computer vision, fractal analysis; cultural heritage and conservation applications: perspective analysis, color analysis, lighting analysis, brush stroke analysis, artist identification, forgery detection, pattern recognition

Conference Overview

This conference is the descendent of the world's first conference specifically devoted to the application of rigorous computer vision, image analysis, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to problems in the history and interpretation of fine art. The work will be of interest to art historians, curators, and conservators, as well as researchers in fundamental AI and computer vision.

A number of recent questions and controversies have highlighted the value of rigorous image analysis in the service of the analysis of art, particularly painting. Consider these examples: the fractal image analysis for the authentication of drip paintings possibly by Jackson Pollock; sophisticated perspective, shading and form analysis to address claims that early Renaissance masters such as Jan van Eyck or Baroque masters such as Georges de la Tour traced optically projected images; automatic multi-scale analysis of brushstrokes for the attribution of portraits within a painting by Perugino; and multi-spectral, x-ray and infra-red scanning and image analysis of the Mona Lisa to reveal the painting techniques of Leonardo. The value of image analysis to these and other questions strongly suggests that current and future computer methods will play an ever larger role in the scholarship of visual arts.

The conference chairs and program committee invite high-quality submissions of papers discussing new results in the following and related topics: image analysis of perspective, brushstrokes, form color and multi-spectral images for attribution and dating; color modeling and manipulation for predicting the effects of conservation treatments; image de-warping to reveal undistorted images from anamorphic art or depictions of reflections in curved mirrors. This conference will focus on analysis, rather than on image acquisition or digital archiving of artistic works. A key goal of this conference is to foster dialog and collaboration between image scientists and humanists; as such, interdisciplinary teams of authors (scientists and art specialists) are especially encouraged to submit papers.

2024 Conference Topics

Computer Methods

• Multi-spectral imaging and color transformations
• Perspective analysis
• Brushstroke analysis
• Style analysis
• Shape from shading
• Three-dimensional reconstruction of spaces from multiple images
• Wavelet and multiscale analysis
• Fractal analysis
• Deep learning
• Pattern classification
• Inferring illumination within depicted scenes
• Inferring artist ('camera') models
• Semantic analysis and the extraction of meaning in artworks
• Shape analysis

Art History Questions

• Authentication and detection of forgeries
• Dating of artwork
• 'Reverse aging' of faded artworks such as tapestries to recover original colors
• Predicting color changes of paintings due to conservation treatment
• Reconstructing spaces depicted in artworks
• Separation and enhancement of overlaid images as in paintings with underdrawings and in palimpsests
• Inferring artists' techniques, aids, and praxis based on image evidence
• De-warping anamorphic, distorted, or panoramic artwork
• De-warping of distorted passages depicted within artwork
• Geometrical transformations for re-presenting curved art
• Completing missing or damaged passages in paintings
• Image understanding in realist paintings
• Metrology in artistic imagery
• Semantic interpretation of artworks
• Quantifying trends in artistic images throughout movements or an artist's career

2024 Special Sessions

The following Special Sessions are planned for 2024.

• Evaluating “Tim’s Vermeer” (proposal for Vermeer’s working methods”
• The Future of “Traditional” Connoisseurship in the Computer Age
• From Imaging to Image ANALYSIS
• Grand Challenges in Computational Art Analysis

Awards

Best Paper Award

Past winners

2024 Committee

Conference Chairs

Emily L. Spratt, Cooper Union (US)
David G. Stork, consultant (US)

Program Committee

Ahmed Elgamal, Rutgers University (US)
Nica Gutman Rieppi, Art Analysis and Research, LLC (US)
Emily L. Spratt, Columbia University (US)
Christopher W. Tyler, Smith Kettlewell Eye Institute (US)
Hassan Ugail, Bradford University (UK)