Neuroimaging studies of aesthetic appreciation have shown that activity in the lateral occipital area (LO)-a key node in the object recognition pathway-is modulated by the extent to which visual artworks are liked or found beautiful. However, the available evidence is only correlational. Here we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate the putative causal role of LO in the ae...

In the last few years, researchers from the computer vision and image processing community have joined other research groups in searching for the bases of aesthetic judgment of paintings and photographs. One of the most important issues, which has hampered research in the case of paintings compared to photographs, is the lack of subjective datasets available for public use. This issue has not o...

We show optical evidence that demonstrates artists as early as Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin (c1425) used optical projections as aids for producing their paintings. We also have found optical evidence within works by later artists, including Bermejo (c1475), Lotto (c1525), Caravaggio (c1600), de la Tour (c1650), Chardin (c1750) and Ingres (c1825), demonstrating a continuum in the use of optica...

The present study was conducted to determine the functional neuroanatomical correlates of aesthetic experience using slow cortical potentials (SCPs). Thirty participants without any particular background in the fine arts were presented with various representational (semi-abstract) and abstract paintings dating from the 20th and 21st century in two experimental conditions, i.e. with or without s...

We study the problem of matching photos of a person to paintings of that person, in order to retrieve similar paintings given a query photo. This is challenging as paintings span many media (oil, ink, watercolor) and can vary tremendously in style (caricature, pop art, minimalist). We make the following contributions: (i) we show that, depending on the face representation used, performance can ...

Robust Recognition and Identification of Paintings using Computer Vision Techniques

BACKGROUND The clinic waiting area in Dumfries received the highest score among nine units offering transplant follow-up (p < 0.001 for differences between units) in the recent Quality Improvement Scotland Renal Transplant Survey. DESIGN The purpose of the present study was to determine which aspects of the Dumfries waiting area patients considered important to their outpatient experience. ...

Numerous economic studies have attempted to empirically document the profitability of investment in various collectibles including coins, violins, wine, antique furniture, and paintings. With profitability information, the collector will have some idea of the expected consumption cost of collecting (the residual between alternative financial returns and those of the collectible), and thus be in...