Toward Discovery of the Artist´s Style: Learning to recognize artists by their artworks

Author attribution through the recognition of visual characteristics is a commonly used approach by art experts. By studying a vast number of artworks, art experts acquire the ability to recognize the unique characteristics of artists. In this article, we present an approach that uses the same principles to discover the characteristic features that determine an artist´s touch. By training a convolutional neural network (PigeoNET) on a large collection of digitized artworks to perform the task of automatic artist attribution, the network is encouraged to discover artist-specific visual features. The trained network is shown to be capable of attributing previously unseen artworks to the actual artists with an accuracy of more than 70%. In addition, the trained network provides fine-grained information about the artist-specific characteristics of spatial regions within the artworks. We demonstrate this ability by means of a single artwork that combines characteristics of two closely collaborating artists. PigeoNET generates a visualization that indicates for each location on the artwork who is the most likely artist to have contributed to the visual characteristics at that location. We conclude that PigeoNET represents a fruitful approach for the future of computer-supported examination of artworks.