Simple Art as Abstractions of Photographs

Abstract

This paper shows that it is possible to semi-automatically process photographs into Simple Art. Simple Art is a term that we use to refer to a group of artistic styles such a child art, cave art, and Fine Artists as exemplified by Joan Mir´o. None of these styles has been previously studied by the NPR community. Our contribution is to provide a process that makes them accessible. We describe a method that automatically constructs a hierarchical model of an input photograph, and asks a user to identify objects inside it. Each object is a sub-tree, which can be rendered under user control. The method is demonstrated using emulations of Simple Art. We include an assessment of our results against a set of norms recommended by a Cultural Historian. We conclude that producing Simple Art raises important technical questions, especially surrounding the interplay between computational modelling and human abstractions.