Inspiration for this post

Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe (DE) features an exhibition with an intriguing title: 'Déjà-vu? Die Kunst der Wiederholung von Dürer bis YouTube' . This exhibition (1), about the comparison between 'original' artworks and their multiple copies or imitations, is inspiration for this post, a sequel to my earlier post of March 13, 2012 'Mapping the relationship between artworks and weighing masterworks' (2). But inspiration is also found in the realm of the quantitative approach in art history, with emerging developments *Complex Networks in Art History and Archeology at the Center for Complex Network Research, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA and *Socio-spatial history of arts and literature atEcole Normale Supérieure (ENS), Paris.

Comparison and basic data of artworks

For each selected theme, with its specific iconography or composition, artworks can be compared to the 'original': is it a 'replica' by the same artist or by workshop of the artist? or a full-sized copy or imitation by another artist? A particular part of the composition may be copied; more or less similar compositions could be created by the same artist or followers, or the other artist was simply 'inspired' by the original work or its copy.

The basic data of the artwork (3).

A. The authorship of the artwork: is the creator of the 'original' work 'certified' with or without a signature or otherwise authenticated? or is the artwork 'attributed' or made by the artist's 'workshop' or 'studio'? Other terms of authorship include 'circle', 'school', 'follower', 'manner'... of the artist of the original. Definition of these terms and their use are part of the scholarship.
B. Title of the artwork (or given alternative titles and connective meanings)

C. Date of creation of the artwork (also period, style, art movement).
D. The types of artworks:
*drawings, sketches, cartons, often preparatory to final works
*paintings, aquarelles, pastels, miniatures, illuminations, ... or frescos on a wall or ceiling
*prints of many different techniques (woodcut, engraving, etching, ....), illustrations
*photographs as artwork (and not mere reproduction)
*sculptures and modellos or bozzettos preparatory to final work
*reliefs and engravings in different materials
*tapestries and other types of decorations
*assemblages or installations
*digital creations.

E. Media and support materials: all the above types of artworks are executed in one of themany different media (pencil, charcoal, ink, oil, tempera, acrylic, gouache, watercolour,...mixed media) for which a multitude of support materials are available(paper, cardboard, canvas, wood or panel, copper, parchment, glass, faïence, porcelain... or plaster, terracotta, marble, stone, concrete, ivory, alabaster, mosaic, glass, bronze, iron, silver...) and one could envisage another list for tapestries, decorations, installations or digital creations.
F. The dimension of the artwork and the multiples made are also basic data when comparing artworks.

The historical and geographical data: place of creation, patrons or commissioners, publishers, dealers, ownerships or sales and whereabouts (collections, exhibitions) in time and space, present ownership or geographical location of the works.

Finally: information sources about the artworks (not exclusively bibliographical sources).

A complex network of data

These collected multidimensional data can be entered in a relational database system, such as ACCESS, or in any special developed system like all museums or collections possess, with appropriate application programmes for retrieval of data and presentation.

An example is the database ArtWorks used for managing the digital thematic research collection 'The Iconography of Venus from the Middle Ages to Modern Times' with its Topical Catalogues of artworks by artists from Italy, France and the Low Countries: presently a total data set of 7473 works from 2374 artists over a period of more than 500 years (4).

Example of data analysis from Research Paper 5:
popularity of 'Venus and Adonis'
in Italy, France and the Low Countries
from 1500 to 1899.

The data are analysed in a series of Research Papers (5).

Problems arise when data must be retrieved from different database management systems, analysed and visualized in a dynamic way. At this stage, it is appropriate to refer to complex networks of art historical data, a young area of scientific research.

To learn more, read

Arts, Humanities, and Complex Networks a Kindle e-book (6) published in partnership with Leonardo/International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology and MIT Press. It documents the work of 45 leading researchers whose work explores the meaning and application of the science of complex networks to art history, archaeology, visual arts, the art market, and other areas of cultural importance. The Preface and Introduction can be viewed. The chapter II Networks in Art features the article Sustaining a Global Community: Art and Religion in the Network of Baroque Hispanic-American Paintings showing the connections in a dataset of over 11,500 paintings.

Another interesting article in this chapter is about the epic project (1924-29) The Mnemosyne Atlas of Aby Warburg, an attempt to combine the philosophical with the image-historical approach in the non-digital age. Throughout the years since 1924, Warburg collected circa 2,000 reproductions and arranged configurations in such a way that they illustrate a thematic area. At the end the series consisted of 63 tableaux. Today we call it 'visual clusters'.

A promising development for visualization of data from

complex networks is
web atlas of Western Art of the 19th and 20th century,
called ARTLAS

From the "Geography of arts"

to a socio-spatial history of arts

The project envisages to analyse spatial logics throughout the history of the arts: various analytical scales ( international, regional, national, local, as well as various art historical issues); the mapping of artistic movements, protagonists involved (such as artists, collectors, dealers, critics, museum personnel, and other intermediaries), institutions, and the works themselves; their means of diffusion via exhibitions, textual forms (such as books or articles), brochures, among other means, in connection with the socio-historical and economic cartography of each period studied. Interactive GIS-based maps allow for chronological studies or for exploring 'place, school and style' within an historic perspective (7).

NOTES

(1) The exhibition 'Déjà-vu? Die Kunst der Wiederholung von Dürer bis YouTube' (Theart ofrepetitionfrom Dürer toYouTube) shows the many ways in which 'copies' were created since the late Middle-Ages till the present time, through paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, photographs, installations and digital images. 120 masterworks of Albrecht Dürer, David Teniers d. J., Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, Giorgio de Chirico, Cindy Sherman, and others are on display. Do not miss the YouTube-clip (only in German).

(2) My post of March 13, 2012 'Mapping the relationship between artworks and weighing masterworks' introduced a simple mapping tool, allowing for a node-link presentation of most of the basic data, including a time-line, of the related artworks.

One of three 'Connectivity Maps'

More can be found on my web page Connectivity Maps.

(3) The terms to describe the basic data which follow are only given as illustration for the multidimensional characteristics of an artwork and are not at all meant to be comprehensive. There are many dictionaries of art terms online.

(4) In preparation are Volume 4.1 'The German-Swiss and Central-European Venus' and Volume 5.1 'The Venus of the Eastern-, Southern-, Western- and Northern-European Regions'.

(5)The thematic collection is essentially composed of samples of the indefinite number of artworks depicting 'Venus' created by an unknown number of artists. These samples are not 'random' samples, but are biased by the information available. The data analysis applied in the Research Papers recognizes this fact which can only be countered byan expansion of the data set, an ongoing effort.

(6) The editors of the book organize enthusiastically Arts, Humanities, and Complex Networks– 3rd Leonardo satellite symposium at NetSci2012 on June 19, 2012 in Northwestern University, near Chicago. Attending the symposium is free of charge.

(7) A colloquium to present the project is held in Paris, Ecole Normale Supérieure on June 7, 2012.
A conference The Spaces of Arts: Thinking the National and Transnational in a Global Perspective is scheduled for September 27-29, 2012 at Purdue University, Indiana, USA.

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