Page 305 - The Black Box Book

However, their shared characteristics are typically discernible and com-
prehensible, they can be investigated further, and (hopefully) some can
provide curators, scholars, art historians, and other art historians with
intriguing suggestions. It is unclear, though, how much of this is attribut-
able to the classification pre-selection (the inclusion of paintings that fit
the Rudolphine model) and how much of this significance comes from
the arrangement itself. Is the initial classification stage required? Would
we achieve similar results if we compiled the atlas from a sizable collection
of random works?
Despite the fact that the classification algorithm seeking to extract
“curatorial taste” demonstrated a good ability to differentiate between
“Rudolphine” and “non-Rudolphine” paintings, we should note this ca-
pability is primarily dependent on the definition of the negative group.
The neural network de facto learned to discriminate late Renaissance or
Mannerist pieces from earlier Middle Ages works. Clearly, there are aes-
thetic variations between these groupings, but to what extent are they
indicative of the collections under study?
As an alternate approach to building these “taste classifiers,” a dif-
ferent concept of negative set is presented. Works from other artistic
centers of the time could be arranged in juxtaposition to those from earlier
eras. Rudolph’s Kunstkammer’s artwork can be compared to Mannerist
works from Florence, Rome, Haarlem, and Antwerp. It’s possible that
undertaking this approach might lead to the emergence of a neural net-
work that is better equipped to grasp the visual essence of a specific
circle or to question the existence of different stylistic variations.

Figure 10: 1,640 paintings from 1612-1812
arranged according to an algorithm with the extracted
taste of the court painters of Rudolf II. The horizontal
direction represents the timeline, the vertical directi-
on the affinity of style. The higher up a given work is,
the greater the correspondence with “Rudolf’s taste”.
Author: Lukáš Pilka
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