Question 1

What am I looking at?

Accepted Answer

261 abstract paintings, and the mark read from each one. The mark is an ArtGram: five dimensions of the painting plotted as a pentagon, with the sixth, its palette, filling the shape. Flip the wall to see the marks instead of the paintings.

Question 2

What are the thirteen shapes?

Accepted Answer

Bud, Spur, Wing, Fork, Samara, Frond, Sprig, Trillium, Sheaf, Spray, Quatrefoil, Corona, Bloom. They are silhouettes that recur once enough paintings have been read, and they are named regions of a continuum rather than categories with edges. Nobody designed them; the thresholds between them were chosen so the regions could be recognised on sight.

Question 3

Who read these paintings?

Accepted Answer

The painter, Ritu Raj, scored every work. A language model scored 224 of them a second time without being told the title, the subject or the first reading. Both columns are published, including where they disagree.

Question 4

Are the paintings for sale?

Accepted Answer

Not here. This site is the language and the readings. Paintings are at rituart.com, which is the same person and a different conversation.

The Field