This document summarizes a symposium honoring James Watrous that included discussions on using computer vision in art historical investigation and image similarity analysis to study woodblock prints. It describes how image analysis can help identify similar images across different collections and merging photo archives to create a large international image database for researchers.

1. PAPER: THE PLACE OF DISCOVERY
a symposium in honor of James Watrous

2. Computer
Vision as Art
Historical
Investigation
John Resig
Chazen Museum: 1980.2386

3. Chazen Museum
1980.2569

4. Chazen Museum
1980.667

5. Chazen Museum
1980.2573

6. Chazen Museum
1980.2682

7. Chazen Museum
1980.641

8. Chazen Museum
1980.612

9. Chazen Museum
1980.613

10. Chazen Museum
1984.877

11. Chazen Museum
1980.1983

12. Chazen Museum
1980.2650

13. Chazen Museum
1980.2376

14. Chazen Museum
1980.2204a-c

15. Chazen Museum
1980.2204a-c

16. Chazen Museum
1980.2204a-c

21. How do you learn more?

22. Step 1: Acquire and read tons of expensive books.

23. Step 2: Learn to read Japanese. *
Japanese from the 17th to 19th century. *
You’re not going to learn this from Rosetta Stone.

24. Step 3: Look at lots and lots of prints.
(virtually and in person)

25. Solution: A fast-loading, responsive, international,
web site: ukiyo-e.org

30. Image Similarity

39. https://services.tineye.com/MatchEngine

40. http://pastec.io/

41. Image Similarity Search

48. Idyll: Offline Image Cropping
• Crop and annotate images offline and on
a mobile device.
• Saves the selections back to a server.

51. http://www.ersatzlabs.com/

52. Aiding Woodblock Print
Studies with Image Analysis

63. What about other art forms?

64. Yes! But works best with “multiples”
(this can include photographs!)

65. Sources of “multiples”
• Collaborating with the Frick Art Reference Library
• Analyzing their Anonymous Italian Art Photo Archive
• Also working with the Zeri Foundation at the University
of Bologna in Italy
• Analyzing their Italian Art Archives

66. Similar Images
Different photo, same work of art.

67. Similar Images
Different photo, slightly different cropping.

68. Similar Images
Different photo, dramatically different lighting.

69. Alternate Images
Partial Image vs. Full Image

70. Alternate Images
Color vs. Black-and-White

71. Alternate Images
Partial Image vs. Much Larger Image

72. Conservation

73. Conservation
Repairs and possibly removal of later additions.

74. Conservation
Analysis even spots dramatic conservation work.

75. Copies

76. Copies

77. Copies

78. Copies

79. Graph Analysis and
Merging Collections

80. Frick 420
420
Zeri 1583642090
Frick 417
417
?

82. 8132a 8132
57129
57134
57130
57138
8131a 8131
?

86. PHAROS: An International Consortium of Photo Archives
• Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome (1,065,000)
• Bildarchiv Foto Marburg, Germany (2,000,000)
• Courtauld Institute of Art, London (4,173,500)
• Fondazione Federico Zeri, Bologna (290,000)
• Frick Art Reference Library, New York (1,346,000)
• Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2,086,000)
• Villa I Tatti, Florence (239,000)
• Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, Paris (750,000)
• Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence (650,000)
• National Gallery of Art, Washington (7,600,000)
• Paul Mellon Centre, London (185,000)
• Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague (7,000,000)
• Warburg Institute, London (3,500,000)
• Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (132,000)

88. PHAROS Images: Coming June 2016

89. • http://ejohn.org/research/
• http://ukiyo-e.org/
• https://github.com/jeresig