My statistician could have painted that! A statistical inquiry into modern art

摘要

How good are modern artists? Is great abstract art by modern masters a true expression of genius, or could a child, or a chimpanzee—or a statistician—do better? Mikhail Simkin makes a statistical inquiry into masterpieces and doodles to find out. Are the sleepless artists really great, or merely properly administered? To try to find out I wrote the "True art or a fake?" quiz. It consists of a dozen pictures. Some of them are true masterpieces of abstract art, created by immortal artists. The rest are ridiculous fakes, produced by me. The quiz-takers are to tell which is which. If you want to try it yourself, it is reproduced here.