#HTE

Experimental Google Tool Lets You Search Art by Palette

This is pretty wicked: Google’s Arts & Culture Experiments team has created Art Palette, a free, online tool that lets you plug in a palette–or upload an image–and it then shows you every piece of artwork in their massive database that has a similar palette.

To test it out I selected several pieces of fine art, then uploaded them. I started off with “The Great Wave off Kanagawa:”

Input:

Output:

Then moved on to a screencap of the Core77 homepage:

Input:

Output:

Then this still from the Netflix series “Altered Carbon:”

Input:

Output:

And finally, a bootleg overseas movie poster from the last “Fast & Furious” movie:

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Output:

From web to interior design, color schemes play a fundamental role in creating cohesive user experiences, establishing brand identities and communicating moods or emotions. So we thought – why not investigate color palettes in art?

Art Palette works as a search engine that finds artworks based on your chosen color palette. Using this tool, you can explore how the same five colors from Van Gogh’s Irises can be related to a 16th century Iranian folio or Monet’s water lilies.

Art Palette can help creative experts in art, design and beyond to make informed choices regarding color palettes, understanding the context and history behind each one.

The tool is pretty addictive, and beyond my silly trials could actually be useful to some of you in your work. Try it out here.