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Computer Method Catches Fakes by Recreating Famous Works of Art

by Caleb Johnson on January 7, 2010 at 08:10 AM

There's big money to be made from creating and selling imitations of famous paintings. And while counterfeiters are working hard to make the fake indistinguishable from the real thing, researchers are doing just as much to discover new ways to spot a fraud.

According to the BBC News, a team of scientists at Dartmouth have created a new computer method that could strike a major blow to the imitation art market. It's called "sparse coding," and while it might sound complicated, the goal is to break down the artwork to its most simple parts. Using a computer, researchers divide a digital version of the work into 144 squares that line up in 12 columns of 12 rows each. Next, the computer modifies and rearranges the pieces until it finds a way to recreate the work using the most basic -- or "sparsest" -- parts. Yes, it's complex (despite its name), but basically, if a work is a fake, the computer won't be able to recreate it. According to the report that Daniel Rockmore and his team published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the method worked in trials that used paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a 16th century Flemish painter (shown above).

Good thing it isn't up to us to spot fakes. We wouldn't recognize a work by Pieter Bruegel the Elder if it was hanging on the wall of our office -- much less tell whether or not it's genuine. [From: the BBC News]

Tags: art, computer, fake, research, thief, top

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