But when math works with art, the results are going to be better.' Richard Taylor, a physics professor who used computers to identify consistent patterns in 14 indisputable Pollock paintings, did not find the same patterns in six small paintings discovered recently and claimed by their owner to be Pollock originals. 'You're not going to replace art connoisseurs with mathematicians. 'The mathematicians can't take over this world,' Arnold said, explaining why artists shouldn't fear number crunchers. A homicide investigator from Virginia asked for math help in deciphering blurred images from a security camera. The institute has hosted a seminar on math and the brain, and it plans a session on math and magic. 'It's exciting that mathematics is getting to the point where it's playing a major role' in such inquiries. 'This kind of 'stylometry,' or the quantification of style in artistic works, applies not only to painting but also to literature, dance and other artistic forms,' said Douglas Arnold, the institute's director. To mix media as well as metaphor, the news was sweet music to people attending a seminar on math's growing role in the arts at the University of Minnesota's Institute for Math and Its Applications.

In literature, cinema and other creative fields, it's increasingly a matter of just doing the math.Ī scholar using computer-assisted math called fractal geometry startled the art world in the past week by using his numbers to question the authenticity of drip paintings attributed to Jackson Pollock.

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