12 October 2005
An image processing technique that is used to analyze galaxies might
also have applications in the world of abstract art. Scientists in the
US and Canada have shown that it might be possible to use
"multi-fractal" analysis to distinguish between works by different
artists (Phys. Rev. E72 046101).
The works of the abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock have
already been analyzed with fractal techniques by Richard Taylor of the
University of Oregon and others. This work concentrated on analyzing
actual patterns or "blobs" formed by a specific colour on a canvas. Now
Jonas Mureika of Loyola Marymount University in California and
colleagues at the University of Toronto have gone a step further and
analysed the "edges" of these blobs as well.