Art

Turtle Pond (2019)

Turtle pond is a piece produced with style transfer in PyTorch, blending a photo of familiar Caltech scenery with the style of pioneering Brazilian modernist artist Tarsila do Amaral. One of our current research projects is concerned with characterizing visual artwork with computer vision methods – of which style transfer is an important example. Style transfer is a computer vision technique which employs convolutional neural networks to learn local and global patterns from a style guide image, and applies this style onto any other figure. Tarsila’s work is known for representing elements of Brazilian folklore and nature. Her piece “A Cuca” (1924) was chosen as a style guide, and it infuses our beloved turtle pond with vibrant colors and lush vegetation. For more information on style transfer algorithms see Gatys et al. (2015). This piece was selected to be displayed at the 2019 Caltech Art of Science exhibit and featured by Caltech Magazine.