Indeterminate art invokes a perceptual dilemma in which apparently detailed and vivid images resist identification. We used event-related fMRI to study visual perception of representational, indeterminate and abstract paintings. We hypothesized increased activation along a gradient of posterior-to-anterior ventral visual areas with increased object resolution, and postulated that object resolut...

We compare the properties of intensity and color edges in photographs of real scenes and paintings. We demonstrate that paintings contain significantly more color-only edges, whereas the amount of intensity-only edges does not differ significantly between the two classes. In addition, color edge strength is significantly higher for paintings. The differences between paintings and photographs ar...

Archaeologists often argue whether Paleolithic works of art, cave paintings in particular, constitute reflections of the natural environment of humans at the time. They also debate the extent to which these paintings actually contain creative artistic expression, reflect the phenotypic variation of the surrounding environment, or focus on rare phenotypes. The famous paintings "The Dappled Horse...

Ron Terada is a Vancouver-based artist who sometimes makes paintings (he is equally recognized for making sculptural installations and photo-based conceptual projects.) The “Jeopardy” series of paintings he executed in the years 1999–2000 have meticulously crafted coloured surfaces built up of many layers of pigment. Terada’s paintings are often referred to as “monochromes,” as if they were sin...

This article illustrates how the paintings of visual artists activate multiple brain processes that contribute to their conscious perception. Paintings of different artists may activate different combinations of brain processes to achieve their artist’s aesthetic goals. Neural models of how advanced brains see have characterized various of these processes. These models are used to explain how p...

Abstract A scanner for digital radiography of large paintings has been designed and developed, aimed to in situ performances. We report here the application “Paolo Francesca” ( $$260 \times 230 \,\hbox {cm}^{2}$$ 260 × 230 cm <m...

F ore-edge decorations on manuscripts date back to the 10th century. Decorations can be seen when the book is lying on its side, a custom of the 15th and 16th centuries, and should not be confused with fore-edge paintings. Fore-edge paintings are not visible when the book is closed, but when the leaves are slanted or fanned, a beautiful miniature landscape appears. Fore-edge paintings are usual...

We addressed the problem of automatically differentiating photographs of real scenes from photographs of paintings. We found that photographs differ from paintings in their color, edge, and texture properties. Based on these features, we trained and tested a classifier on a database of 6000 paintings and 6000 photographs. Using single features results in 70–80% correct discrimination performanc...