When Robots Takeover Art

Five hundred years after Italian Renaissance master Raphael painted a scene of the Madonna, Jesus, Joseph and John the Baptist, AI has uncovered a secret. Someone else likely painted one of the faces in the painting, according to an article on Forbes.

Professor Hassan Ugail developed the AI, from Ugail of the U.K.’s University of Bradford, does that by recognizing the artist’s work through visual elements such as brushstrokes, colour palette and shading. Ugail, director of the school’s Centre for Visual Computing and Intelligent Systems, trained the system on 49 authenticated signature Raphael paintings.

“Madonna della Rosa” (Madonna of the Rose) depicts Mary cradling an infant Jesus, who grasps a scroll. A young Saint John the Baptist, seen at Mary’s feet, reaches up from below to tug on the parchment. And to Mary’s left stands Joseph. It is his face; scientists suggest in a study published in Heritage Science on Thursday. That came from the hand of someone other than Raphael.

Ugail, co-author of the paper on the Raphael-authenticating AI tool, said in an email interview. “I believe this level of accuracy is perhaps much better than any human attempting the same classification without the aid of any tools.” The algorithm is 98% accurate, which, in broad terms, means that if it is shown 100 paintings of Raphael, it can correctly classify 98 of them, and there is a chance it.

Article reference: AI Uncovers Hidden Secret In Painting By Renaissance Master Raphael

Tags: AI