Van Gogh pie-charts

This is Arthur Buxton's set of Van Gogh pie-charts; each one represents the color-distribution in a famous Van Gogh painting (can you guess which is which?)

He sez, "I know you lot are fans of new ways of visualizing data. As far as I know, I've come up with a novel way of looking at colour schemes. The pie charts are designed to be visually pleasing but also fuction as a colour trend visualization tool. They represent famous paintings, portraying the five most prominent colours in each as a percentage. I'm having a show at The Arts House in Bristol with a drinks reception at 7pm on Friday the 18th of February. Mutants welcome!"

Van Gogh Visualisation (Thanks, Arthur!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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notavegan

Just so we can all check ourselves for a Pas/Fail rating, is there a list of paintings to go with this?
(I am only really sure of about 3 and not willing to commit myself in public.)

I think the pie charts are lovely in their own right, but the colour choices come from a master.
spincycle

These palettes reminded me instantly of the many sets gathered at http://kuler.adobe.com/.
franko

back again. i think the bottom left one is the potato eaters. http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/f05/dtso/images/van-gogh-potato-eaters.jpg
Anonymous

Yay for 2D pie charts! I hate when 3D is used for 2D data.
- AnthonyC
  
  I recently watched a lecture about giving scientific talks, and this was one of the insights: There are tools in office software (like powerpoint) which are designed to help you obscure information. 3D bar graphs were the example he gave. Remember, not everyone making graphs wants their audience to draw the proper conclusion.
Anonymous

I swear Van Gogh didn’t use the computer.
Anonymous

The most directly similar prior work of which I am aware is “Flags by Colours” by Shahee Ilyas (2007), in which the artist computed similar pie charts for the flags of all the world’s nations: http://shaheeilyas.com/flags/.

Buxton’s work demands that the colors of Van Gogh’s paintings colors be quantized or clustered into bins. It looks like Buxton arbitrarily chose 5 as the number of bins for each painting’s colors. Obviously, though, there are more than 5 colors in a Van Gogh painting. Ilyas’ project, by contrast, is a direct transduction of the flag’s colors into pie charts, without an arbitrary data-reduction step.
chgoliz

Count me as another who hopes he’ll divulge the answers soon.

There’s even less info on his blog.

Bah.
Arthur Buxton

Limited edition prints available of this, and two more new editions; Monet and Matisse visualizations. Answers will be revealed at the show, and on my blog shortly after that!
Quasimondo

Reading the headline I had already hopes that you were referring to this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quasimondo/4655584147
irksome

This makes me think of Readers Digest Condensed Books. Or Cliff Notes.
dross1260

My display is off, is that hex or pms?
Anonymous

Shouldn’t one of them be missing a slice on one side?
kmoser

Hmmm, those look like unauthorized derivative works.
Anonymous

I did the exact thing with one of my favorite artists, Pontormo, in the early 80′s.

http://rolfgross.dreamhosters.com/Tuscany-Web/Potormo/Jacopo%20Pontormo.htm
Anonymous

They are all hay stacks.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Nonsense.
  
  There is but one haystacks:
  
  http://www.onlineworldofwrestling.com/profiles/h/haystacks-calhoun.html
  
  There will never be another.
Anonymous

Me too Quasimondo. I had just copied your url to paste it here. BTW, I thought your circle pack treatment of Madame X and Alexander Sakharoff were particularly nice. And your Mondrian made me laugh quite a bit — brilliant.
nas097

I don’t see any copying of expression from the artwork, just some unprotectable ideas. :)
franko

i submit that the first one on the top/left is Starry Night, and the second one in from the left is this portrait, from when he lived in paris: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gogh/self/gogh.self-orsay.jpg

after that, i’m a bit stumped. LOVE THIS.
Anonymous

reminds me of brian piana’s work: http://spillsomepaint.com/
SamSam

Aw man, I just assumed that I’d be able to click on the pie charts and find out which painting each represents. Why doesn’t everything instantly work the way I think it will?

The only one I’m going to guess at is Starry Night, second row, two from the left. Although interestingly, Google Imaging to confirm my hunch, I see that the blues in the painting can vary wildly depending on who’s taking the photo and how, going from a deep royal blue for the night sky all the way to an odd turquoise. I wonder which versions of images were chosen to make this pie chart.