Different strokes: Using artificial intelligence to tell art apart

A team of scientists and art historians at Case Western Reserve University say they have used tools of artificial intelligence (AI) to distinguish the individual brushstrokes of one painter from another. The technique could become a valuable tool to help authorities better identify forgeries of work by famous artists; it could also help art historians tell whether a master, or a student, contributed to a given masterpiece. The researchers said they believe the finding is among first of its kind because of how the researchers used the computer to read and learn from the 3D topography of a painting. Other forms of AI-enhanced analysis rely on visible stylistic differences that a program may detect in historic works, they said. The technology of 3D topography describes a three-dimensional relief map of a surface which reveals any differences in "elevation."