Painting identifier app for Android

What the app shows for a painting

You get suggestions for style, medium, era and composition. They are suggestions for you to review. The app is not a museum guide. It does not judge authenticity or value and does not give a price.

The suggestions answer the question of style, medium and era even when you do not know who made the painting. The sections below help you check a suggestion.

How to use it

1. Photograph the painting straight on, without glare, with the whole frame.
2. Photograph the back as well, and any signature or label you find.
3. Read the suggestions for style, medium and era.
4. Save the painting with notes to your collection, next to your rocks and minerals.

How to work out the style and era yourself

The years are rough guides, because styles overlap and sources draw their edges differently. Combine several clues instead of relying on one.

Oil, acrylic, watercolor or print: reading the medium

Oil paint often sits in visible layers on the canvas, and brushstrokes leave relief. Watercolor is translucent and usually sits on paper. Acrylic is a water-based, fast-drying paint that artists have used widely since the 1960s. Depending on how much it is thinned, it can look like watercolor or like oil, as Tate describes it. A painting that looks like watercolor or oil can therefore be acrylic.

Acrylic paint was first made in the 1950s, so a painting in acrylic cannot be older than that.

Printed images are built from dots of different sizes. Look at a patch of even color with a magnifier: dots point to a print. A photo cannot prove it either way.

Finding and reading a signature

Look in the corners of the front, on the back of the canvas or frame, and on labels. Write down what you see, even if you cannot read it. A signature gives a name. It is a clue to the painter, not proof, and a missing signature does not prove anything either.

With the name you can keep searching in artist directories and museum databases. Whether you find a match depends on how well known the painter is.

Original or print?

A photo cannot settle this question. Someone has to hold the painting. Keep the photos of the front and back together with your notes, so an appraiser can later see what you found.

1. Look at an evenly colored patch with a magnifier and search for dots.
2. Hold the painting so light skims the surface. Brushstrokes and raised paint point to a painted work, a completely flat surface to a print.
3. Check the back: canvas on a stretcher, paper and cardboard look different.
4. Do not trust cracks in the varnish blindly. According to Wikipedia, forgers of old paintings create artificial craquelure, so cracks do not prove age.

When a photo is not enough

A signature, the back of the canvas, the material and the provenance cannot be read from a photo. If you want to sell or insure a painting, you need an appraisal. Until then the suggestions and your notes help you document the find.

App for your own finds or museum guide?

Museum apps and art apps work differently. Smartify, for example, compares a photo with artworks in its database and returns a name and a description when it finds a match. That fits when you are looking for a known work.

LithoCanvas suggests style, medium, era and composition and keeps your finds, in one collection next to rocks and minerals. It is not a museum guide. Which one you need depends on your question.

Price and privacy

LithoCanvas is free to download and shows no ads. Every account includes 5 free identifications; more come with a subscription through Google Play, and you see the price and what is included before you buy. The selected image is sent to the recognition provider only after you agree. Identification needs an internet connection. Your account, entries and photos are stored in the EU. More about the app is on the LithoCanvas home page.