Has A.I. Solved the Mystery of This El Greco Painting?
A new artificial-intelligence analysis suggests El Greco, not primarily his son Jorge Manuel, painted most of The Baptism of Christ, installed as an altarpiece at Hospital Tavera in Toledo in 1624, a decade after El Greco’s death. Researchers from Western Reserve University in Ohio published the findings in Science Advances on April 17, using a machine-learning model called Patch that compares high-resolution 3D scans of brushstroke texture. After training Patch on 25 paintings by nine student artists, the team tested it on El Greco’s Christ on the Cross (1600–10), which the model identified as the work of a single artist. Patch then found strong textural continuity across much of The Baptism of Christ, indicating El Greco’s hand, while also identifying a lower section as later work by other hands.
From This Briefing
This story was covered in Biennales Under Fire, A.I. Rewrites the Canon