Artificial intelligence has so far Drawn as Bogeyman In cultural circles: the software will take up the work of writers and translators, and the images generated by AI call the number of fatalities for illustrators and graphic designers.
However, there is a corner of a high culture, in which AI plays the main role as a hero, without displacing established heroes – experts and conservators – but by adding a powerful, convincing weapon to his arsenal when it comes to fighting falsehood and erroneous attractions. And it is already exceptionally good in recognizing and authenticating the artist’s work based on the analysis of the digital image of the image himself.
AI objective analysis has uploaded the key to this established hierarchy. If the algorithm can determine the authorship of a work of art with a statistical probability, where it leaves the ancient people of art historians whose reputations were built on their subjective knowledge? In fact, artificial intelligence will never replace connoisseurs, as well as the utilize of x -rays and coal dating decades ago not. It is simply the latest technologically advanced tools that will support in authentication.
Good artificial intelligence must be “fed” with a selected set of data by human art historians to build knowledge about the artist’s style, and human art historians must interpret the results. This was the case in November 2024, when the leading company AI, Art recognitionpublished his analysis of Rembrandt Polish rider– Painting, which famously disturbed scholars and led to many arguments, how much, if any of them, was painted by Rembrandt himself. Ai suited exactly what most connoisseurs stated which parts of the picture were by the master, which were his students, and who covered the hand of excessively enthusiastic reconstruction. This is particularly convincing when the scientific approach confirms the expert’s opinion.
We people find strenuous scientific data more convincing than personal opinionEven when this opinion comes from someone who seems to be an expert. So -called “CSI effect“He describes how the jurors perceive DNA evidence as even more convincing than even the testimonies of eyewitnesses. But when the opinion of experts (eyewitnesses), origin and scientific tests (CSI) agree on the same conclusion? It is as close to the final answer as possible.
But what happens when the owner of the work, which at first glance looks completely inactic to such an extent that he is entertaining, recruits a skillful company with the task of gathering forensic evidence to support the preferred assignment?
Lost and found
In 2016, the oil painting appeared at the flea market in Minnesota and was bought for less than USD 50. Now its owners suggest this It can be lost van goghAnd that’s why it would be worth millions. (One respect suggests $ 15 million.) Answer – at least for anyone who has functioning eyeballs and passing knowledge of art history – was a raucous “no”. The image is stiff, clumsy, completely devoid of feverish impastation and rhythmic brushes that determine the work of a Dutch artist. Even worse, he has the signature: Elimin. And yet this dubious image has become a high -rate battle center for authenticity, in which scientific analyzes, market forces and wishful thinking interfere.
The owners of “eliminat van gogh” because he has become sneered in art circles, they are now Artistic Advisory Group called LMI International. Are Investing hard By leading experts to say what they want to hear: in fact it is a real Van Gogh. Things become overcast here. The world of art authentication is not a plain matter. Unlike Strenuous Sciences, the history of art deals with probabilities, connoisseurs and competitive opinions of experts. It is also, most importantly, a financial incentive industry. If the image is considered true, its value crosses. If he is considered false, or rather in this case a work derived by someone named Eliga, who slightly passed on canvas, perhaps inspired by Van Gogh, but without his talents, is practically worthless – as valuable as you can expect a flea market in Minnesota for below 50 bucks. This imbalance in rates led to a perilous trend: employing experts not to determine authenticity, but to confirm it.