Painting Retrieval Based on Color Semantics

The availability of large image databases is emphasizing the relevance of visual filters, which permit to focus search on a small subset of data with characterizing visual features. Visual specification of such filters provides a natural way to express content-oriented queries. An original visual language is proposed for the symbolic representation of the semantics induced by the color quality and arrangement over a painting. The proposed language is based on the theory of color semantics introduced by artists in the twentieth century and is developed so as to permit visual querying. The grammar and the visual representation of the language are presented, and its implementation is discussed with reference to a prototype system supporting retrieval by color contents of artistic paintings.