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Methodology

Palettes

For each artwork we take the 500 px image, shrink it to at most 160 px on its long side (15,000–25,000 pixels), convert every pixel to CIELAB (D65), and group the pixels into twelve clusters with k-means (k-means++ seeding with a fixed seed per work, up to 30 iterations). A second k-means with four clusters runs on the vivid pixels alone (chroma 30 or more), because twelve clusters fitted to a picture's large areas rarely spend one on a small red or blue accent. Every pixel is then assigned to the nearest of these (up to 16) centres, and each colour is the mean of the pixels it holds: every hex code is measured from the image, never chosen or invented.

The palette is then reduced to six. Specks under 1% of the pixels join their nearest colour, except up to two accents: colours with chroma 30 or more, at least 0.4% of the pixels and at least ΔE 20 from every other colour, which are kept. Then the two closest colours merge until six remain. If they are within ΔE 15 of each other, the merged colour is the mean of their pixels; if they are further apart, the larger keeps its own colour and takes the other's pixels, so no colour appears that is in neither. Each colour's share is the fraction of pixels it ends up with.

Why not simply six clusters? We tried it first. Averaging forces distinct hues together into muddy greys that appear nowhere in the picture: van Gogh's Bedroom lost its red blanket and gained a 39% "warm grey". Our second method (26 to 31 October 2026) over-clustered and always let the larger colour win a merge; it kept the red blanket, but one large grey could swallow a different colour: in Monet's Water Lilies a 25% blue disappeared into a 41% grey. The current method (v2) adds the vivid-pixel pass and the accent rule, and averages only colours that are genuinely close. Checked against the Art Institute's own colour data (below), agreement on the same 1,255 works rose from 92.4% to 93.5% (it is 94.3% on today's larger set).

The palette describes the image as photographed and published by the museum, including old varnish, fading and the photography. It includes the background on photographs, prints and objects (paper tone, the studio backdrop), which is why paper colours appear in print palettes.

Colour names

Each colour gets the nearest name (by CIE76 ΔE) from our own list of 174 names; 166 of them are in use. In October 2026 we added 45 brighter names (fire red, cadmium yellow, electric blue, peacock, orchid and others) for the posters and modern paintings, whose colours the original 128 earth-and-varnish names described badly. Many are traditional colour names (ochre, umber, ultramarine, viridian); they describe how the colour looks on screen, not which pigment the artist used.

Colour families

For browsing, each colour falls into one of 13 families by its lightness, chroma and hue in CIE LCh: red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, purple, pink, brown, gold & ochre, black, grey, white & cream. A work's main colour is the family with the largest share, with black, grey and white counted at 0.6× so that a coloured subject on a pale ground is not filed under "white". A colour page lists every work in which that family covers at least 20% of the palette, or 10% for the vivid families (red, orange, yellow, teal, blue, purple, pink), which rarely cover a fifth of a picture. The hue bands are calibrated on reference colours: in CIE LCh a pure red sits near 40°, not 0°.

Colour balance of the collection

Until October 2026 the collection was very earthy: old varnish, prints on toned paper and early photographs. Of 18,282 palette colours (3,047 works × 6), 89% were grey, gold, brown, black or white, and only 8 were purple. We set an explicit target and added works chosen with this palette pipeline to fill the weak families: first late 19th and early 20th century art (posters, Expressionist, Fauve and early abstract painting), then a second round of strongly coloured posters, prints, paintings and designs. Target: Set on 31 October 2026, before choosing any work: the seven strong families (blue, purple, red, yellow, orange, teal, pink) together at least 20% of palette colours (baseline 5.8%), each of them at least 1.5%, blue and red at least 4% each; grey, gold, brown, black and white together at most 75% (baseline 88.6%). It is a long-term goal: two rounds of additions (October 2026) took the strong families from 5.8% to over 18% and the neutral families under 75%, and the table shows which parts are met.

We added works in two rounds. The first (late 19th and early 20th century art) took the strong families from 5.9% to 11.8%. The second, chosen only among works with at least two strongly coloured palette colours (or a strong colour over a third of the picture), added posters from the Library of Congress and the Rijksmuseum, Japanese woodblock prints, Indian court painting, American modernist painting and textile and wallpaper designs, and brought them to 18.3%. What stops us short of 20%: the open-access collections hold far fewer strongly coloured public-domain works than earthy ones, and we did not pad the set with near-duplicates, sketches, small images on large coloured sheets, photographs that include a colour chart, or works whose licence was in doubt (all rejected by eye or by rule). Many Japanese prints have faded to beige, and purple and teal remain rare in the art itself. Future additions are chosen by the same rule.

Unique hex codes: 17,109 before, 28,578 now. Colour names in use: 121 of 128 before, 166 of 174 now. "Before" was measured with the previous palette method; re-measuring the same 3,047 works with the current method changed the family counts by under 2 percentage points (the collection, not the method, was earthy).

Text contrast

Each palette chip is labelled in whichever of near-black (#111111) or white has the higher WCAG 2 contrast ratio on it; the ratio is shown on the chip.

Similar palettes

The distance between two palettes is, for each colour of one, the ΔE to the nearest colour of the other, weighted by its share, averaged both ways. "Works that share this palette" are the 8 nearest of all 5004 works. The colour search scores every work by how much of its palette lies near the chosen colour (each colour's share weighted by exp(−(ΔE/18)²)).

Lightness and colourfulness

A work's lightness and colourfulness are the share-weighted means of L* and chroma C* over its palette. The charts by period use the median over the paintings in each 25-year span, for spans with at least 8 paintings.

Validation

Public-domain status

Every published work's public-domain flag is recorded with the field name, value and time of the check, and shown on its page. On this build:

Museum field	Value	Works
is_public_domain	true	2751
share_license_status is CC0	true	248
rights statement says no known restrictions	true	235
isPublicDomain	true	704
published_images.openaccess = 1	true	505
rights statement is public domain	true	80
Smithsonian Open Access usage is CC0	true	64
public_domain	true	141
Commons file carries EU and US public-domain templates	true	276

Checks from 2026-10-25 to 2026-11-02. Left out of this build: 11 no image/palette.

Palettes against the Art Institute's own colour data

The Art Institute publishes one dominant colour per artwork, computed by the museum. For the 1518 works here where that colour is clearly chromatic, our palette contains a colour within 30° of its hue for 1431 (94.3%). The two methods differ (the museum picks one colour, we keep six shares), so full agreement is not expected.

Palettes checked by eye

We put 10 works next to their extracted palettes, including hard cases (dark varnished paintings, near-monochrome prints, photographs, a very colourful painting), and judged each by eye:

Work	Result
Vincent van Gogh, The Bedroom (1889)	Good (v2, Oct 31): blue walls 28%, ochre bed and chairs 21%, the greens and the red blanket (1%) all present. v1 first lost the red under plain k=6; over-clustering fixed it, and v2 keeps it.
Katsushika Hokusai, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (c. 1830/33)	Good (v2): paper tone 49%, grey sky, Prussian blue of the wave 14%, pale foam. Unchanged from v1.
Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884)	Acceptable (v2): violet-grey shadows, lawn greens and khaki sunlit grass. The optical mixing of dots averages to quieter colours than the eye sees.
Claude Monet, Water Lilies (1906)	Better in v2: steel blue 56% and teal 28% for the water. v1 let one large grey swallow the blues (41% 'grey'). The pink flowers are under 0.4% and still drop out.
Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day (1877)	Good (v2): grey paving and sky, near-black umbrellas and coats, the pinkish-brown accent.
Julia Margaret Cameron, Julia Jackson (1867)	Good (v2): albumen-print browns from shadow to highlight; 76% dark brown is right for this low-key portrait.
Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait with Saskia (1636), etching	Good (v2): the paper tone dominates and the ink greys and browns follow.
Nicolas de Largillière, Self-Portrait (c. 1711)	Acceptable hard case (v2): a dark, varnished canvas reads 50% near-black and browns. The deep red of the coat is too dark in the photograph to separate from black.
Claude Monet, Stacks of Wheat (Sunset, Snow Effect) (1890/91)	Acceptable (v2): the lavender snow (62%, now filed as purple) and violet shadows are right; the orange sunset sky appears only as tan and salmon (9% + 6%), quieter than it looks.
Edvard Munch, Self-Portrait in Moonlight (1904/06), woodcut	Good (v2): the blue-grey block colour, white paper, black key block.

Artist dates against Wikidata

Artists are matched to Wikidata by identifier where the museum gives one (Getty ULAN, or The Met's own Wikidata link). The Art Institute gives ULAN ids for few artists, so the rest are matched by exact name or alias and birth year within one year and death year within one year; artists that match nothing that tightly get no Wikidata facts.

For the 441 artists matched by identifier, the museum's birth and death years agree with Wikidata's within a year for 386. (The 596 name-matched artists agree by construction.) Twenty identifier-matched artists, picked at random:

Where the museum's years and Wikidata's differ by more than five years, we assume the identifier points at the wrong item and show no Wikidata facts for that artist. This build rejects 63: Andrea Mantegna (museum 1431–1514, Q5681 1431–1506); Andrea di Bartolo (museum 1369–1428, Q390098 1360–1428); Belbello da Pavia (museum 1382–1508, Q1627141 1450–1470); Bernardo Daddi (museum 1320–1348, Q366562 1290–1348); Charles Gifford Dyer (museum 1846–1912, Q21288630 1840–1912); Clara Peeters (museum 1594–1640, Q265398 1597–1668); Cornelis van Poelenburch (museum 1594–1667, Q247183 1586–1667); Dosso Dossi (museum 1492–1542, Q356777 1480–1542); Duccio di Buoninsegna (museum 1278–1318, Q15792 1255–1318); Fra Angelico (museum 1395–1455, Q5664 1387–1455); Fra Carnevale (museum 1395–1510, Q2245140 1420–1484); Frederick Kemmelmeyer (museum 1736–1848, Q3087120 1760–1821); Gideon Saint (museum 1729–1799, Q581537 530–590); Giovanni Baronzio (museum 1320–1350, Q535607 1301–1362); Giovanni Bellini (museum 1424–1516, Q17169 1430–1516); Grifo di Tancredi (museum 1271–1328, Q16135327 1250–1315); Guo Xi (museum 1000–1090, Q536645 1020–1085); Han Gan (museum 742–756, Q561952 706–783); Hans Memling (museum 1445–1494, Q106851 1430–1494); Hercules Segers (museum 1590–1638, Q931846 1589–1630); Hill and Adamson (museum 1843–1848, Q722792 1802–1870); Isaac Sheffield (museum 1807–1845, Q21409329 1798–1845); Jean Cousin the Elder (museum 1485–1565, Q2610648 1500–1560); Joachim Patinir (museum 1515–1524, Q442491 1480–1524); Johann Koerbecke (museum 1420–1491, Q940505 1410–1490); Johann Michael Rottmayr (museum 1654–1730, Q674772 1660–1730); John Bradley (museum 1767–1891, Q16197540 1805–1874); John Durand (museum 1702–1825, Q19894842 1731–1805); John Gould (museum 1804–1898, Q313787 1804–1881); Joseph Blackburn (museum 1697–1812, Q3184614 1730–1778); Juan de Flandes (museum 1476–1519, Q512863 1450–1519); Kaikei (museum 1183–1223, Q3191958 1150–1250); Kishi Ganku (museum 1749–1838, Q555061 1756–1839); Kobayakawa Kiyoshi (museum 1889–1948, Q11460856 1899–1948); Manaku (museum 1715–1770, Q16611568 1700–1760); Masolino da Panicale (museum 1383–1435, Q318117 1383–1447); Master of Heiligenkreuz (museum 1375–1430, Q1918689 1301–1430); Master of Saint Veronica (museum 1340–1455, Q506381 1400–1420); Master of the Washington Coronation (museum 1300–1333, Q1918459 1300–1400); Michael Ostendorfer (museum 1520–1549, Q1928779 1490–1559); Michel Sittow (museum 1469–1525, Q372203 1459–1525); Michele Giambono (museum 1382–1480, Q1361095 1400–1462); Onchi Kōshirō (museum 1871–1955, Q2038322 1891–1955); Paolo Veneziano (museum 1333–1358, Q741062 1300–1365); Paolo di Giovanni Fei (museum 1335–1411, Q1361116 1345–1411); Paul Berthon (museum 1872–1909, Q2178796 1872–1934); Peter Binoit (museum 1600–1699, Q84106 1590–1632); Petrus Christus (museum 1424–1475, Q312616 1415–1475); Piero della Francesca (museum 1416–1492, Q5822 1410–1492); Pietro Lorenzetti (museum 1320–1344, Q309635 1280–1348); Puccio di Simone (museum 1330–1373, Q3410504 1301–1362); Qu Ding (museum 950–1150, Q7268210 1023–1056); Roger Fenton (museum 1819–1819, Q345666 1819–1869); Simone Martini (museum 1315–1344, Q221043 1280–1344); Southworth and Hawes (museum 1843–1863, Q2547380 1811–1894); Stefano da Verona (Stefano di Giovanni d'Arbosio di Francia) (museum 1374–1438, Q724508 1374–1451); Sturtevant J. Hamblin (museum 1776–1897, Q20853498 1817–1884); Ugo da Carpi (museum 1480–1532, Q1967967 1450–1523); Vincenzo Civerchio (museum 1460–1544, Q3559930 1470–1544); Wagguno (museum 1778–1918, Q21498275 1825–1875); Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp (museum 1874–1950, Q41319782 1934–); William Stearns (museum 1760–1900, Q21498280 1808–1845); Wu Bin (museum 1583–1626, Q453832 1543–1626).

All disagreements, including those of a year or two, which usually reflect uncertain early dates ("c. 1440"):

Dates

Work pages show each museum's own date text. For sorting, centuries and charts we use the museum's start year, except where it falls outside the artist's life (often the start of a dynasty, such as 1368 for a Ming painting dated 1538). There we take a year from the museum's date text that fits the artist's life, or leave the work undated. This build adjusts 51 works, for example c. 1485.

Licences: why each work is public domain

The site is commercial, so every work must be free to reproduce for any purpose. The works chosen before October 2026 come from the Art Institute of Chicago and The Met with the museum's own public-domain flag, read and re-checked as described above. For the 1957 works added since (late 19th and early 20th century art in a first round; in a second round, paintings, prints, posters, Japanese woodblock prints and textile designs chosen for strong colour), the rule is stricter. A work qualifies only if it is:

1. public domain in both the United States and the European Union: the artist died before 1956, so the EU's term of life + 70 years has run out by 2026, and the work is public domain in the US: flagged public domain or CC0 by a US holding museum (the Art Institute's is_public_domain, The Met's isPublicDomain, the Cleveland Museum of Art's CC0, the National Gallery of Art's openaccess image flag, Smithsonian Open Access CC0), or dated 1930 or earlier for a European holder (SMK, the Rijksmuseum), a Library of Congress poster that is not a government work, or a Wikimedia Commons file. A work by an unknown maker qualifies only if it was made before 1860, so that its maker certainly died before 1956; or
2. explicitly CC0 from the rights holder; or
3. a US federal government work, such as the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project posters at the Library of Congress, each with the Library's rights statement.

For Commons files we require both an EU template based on the author's death (PD-old-70 or longer, or PD-old-auto-expired with the death year) and a US basis based on publication: PD-US-expired, PD-1996, or one of Commons' combined templates (PD-old-auto-expired, PD-old-100-expired, PD-old-70-expired) that state both the author's death and publication before 1931. "PD-US" alone is not enough, and files whose photograph carries its own CC BY or CC BY-SA licence were left out. We record the artist's death year (from the holder, checked against Wikidata) and the basis on every work page. Artists who died in 1956 or later are not added, however early the work: Picasso, Kupka, Feininger, Rodchenko, Vlaminck, Sonia Delaunay, Severini and Nolde among them. Hilma af Klint (d. 1944) is left out because her abstract works were first published after 1978, which makes their US status unclear. When in doubt, a work was left out.

1 work chosen before October 2026 is public domain in the US by the museum's flag, but by an artist who died in 1956 or later, so the EU term may not have run out: Penny Picture Display, Savannah (Walker Evans, d. 1975). It stays under the museum's CC0 release; new additions follow the stricter rule.

Artists added under the rule, with death years (660)

Artist	Died	Works added
Ghulam 'Ali	—	1
J.A. Jerichau (II)	1916	4
Utagawa Hiroshige II (Shigenobu)	1869	14
Tara 1	—	1
Banavari 1	—	1
Banavari 2	—	1
Master EMR ?	1560	1
Louis Abel-Truchet	1919	1
Nicholas Acampora	1950	1
Mir Sayyid Ali	1580	1
Pierre-Michel Alix	1817	1
Anna Aloisi	1955	1
Edmond Aman-Jean	1936	1
Michael Ancher	1927	2
Fra Angelico	1469	1
Fra Angelico	1455	1
Charlotte Angus	—	1
Aniko	—	1
Blanche L. Anish	—	1
anonymous	—	2
Vilhelm Arnesen	1948	2
Willem Arondeus	1943	1
Unknown artist	—	323
India (Rajasthan, Bikaner or the Deccan) artist	—	1
India, Rajasthan, Mewar artist	—	1
India (Rajasthan, Mewar) artist	—	2
India (Rajasthan, Kota) artist	—	2
India (Rajasthan, Bikaner) artist	—	1
India (Punjab Hills, Kangra) artist	—	1
India, Punjab Hills, kingdom of Mankot artist	—	1
India (Rajasthan, Marwar) artist	—	1
Unidentified artist	—	2
India (Punjab Hills, Basohli) artist	—	1
Western India, Rajasthan, Kota artist	—	1
India (Rajasthan, Jodhpur) artist	—	1
North India, Punjab Hills, Kangra artist	—	1
India, Punjab Hills, Kingdom of Kangra or Guler artist	—	1
India (Rajasthan, Mewar, Nathdwara) artist	—	1
India (Rajasthan, Jodhpur[?]) artist	—	1
India, Guler, Himachal Pradesh artist	—	1
Jan Asselijn	1652	1
Francesco Bacchiacca	1557	1
Ala Bagas	—	1
Léon Bakst	1924	4
Harry Russell Ballinger	1993	1
Ruth M. Barnes	1954	11
Alice Pike Barney	1931	1
Giovanni Baronzio	1350	2
Charles William Bartlett	1940	4
Andrea di Bartolo	1428	3
Domenico di Bartolo	1447	1
Martino di Bartolomeo	1434	2
Basavana	1600	1
Basawan​	1636	1
Frédéric Bazille	1870	1
Max Beckmann	1950	1
Giovanni Bellini	1516	2
Bernardo Bellotto	1780	1
George Bellows	1925	1
Albert M. Bender	—	4
Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant	1902	1
Axel Bentzen	1952	1
Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem	1683	1
Émile Bernard	1941	1
Paul Berthon	1909	3
Paul-Albert Besnard	1934	3
Amar Das Bhatti	—	1
Bhima	—	1
Peter Binoit	1699	1
Rudolf Bissen	1911	1
Joseph Blackburn	1812	1
María Blanchard	1932	1
Dwight Blaney	1944	1
Carl Bloch	1890	1
Oscar Florianus Bluemner	1938	2
Umberto Boccioni	1916	4
Vera Bock	—	5
Giovanni Boldini	1931	1
Rosa Bonheur	1899	1
Pierre Bonnard	1947	7
Louis-Marin Bonnet	1793	2
Paris Bordone	1571	1
Eugène Louis Boudin	1898	1
Sébastien Bourdon	1671	1
Hercules Brabazon Brabazon	1906	1
John Bradley	1891	1
Robert Bolling Brandegee	1922	1
Friedrich Brentel	1651	1
William Mason Brown	1898	1
Patrick Henry Bruce	1936	1
John Buczak	—	2
Bartolomeo Bulgarini	1378	1
Ippitsusai Buncho	1796	2
Duccio di Buoninsegna	1319	1
Leslie Bryan Burroughs	—	2
Vincent Burzy	1948	1
Thomas A. Byrne	—	1
Carel Adolph Lion Cachet	1945	1
Gustave Caillebotte	1894	2
Robert Caney	1911	2
Ernest Capaldo	1942	1
Emil Cardinaux	1936	1
Leon Carlin	—	1
Fra Carnevale	1510	1
Vittore Carpaccio	1526	2
Girolamo da Carpi	1556	1
William Carqueville	1946	1
Johann Georg van Caspel	1928	6
Mary Cassatt	1926	5
Andrea del Castagno	1457	1
Mark Catesby	1749	1
George Catlin	1872	1
Lillian Causey	1949	5
Giuseppe Cesari	1640	1
Oliver Newberry Chaffee	1944	1
Thomas Chambers	1866	1
Alexandre Charpentier	1909	1
William Merritt Chase	1916	3
Chokha	1830	2
Godfred Christensen	1928	1
Poul Simon Christiansen	1933	1
Petrus Christus	1475	2
Jules Chéret	1932	10
Vincenzo Civerchio	1544	1
Majel G. Claflin	1941	6
Gad Frederik Clement	1933	2
Stanley Thomas Clough	—	6
Elias V. Coe	1843	2
Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano	1517	1
Master of the Washington Coronation	1333	1
Piero di Cosimo	1522	2
Giovanni Francesco Costa	1773	1
Janus la Cour	1909	1
Gustave Courbet	1877	1
Kenyon Cox	1919	1
Frederick Crace	1859	1
John Gregory Crace	1889	1
Adolphe Crespin	1944	1
René Crevel	1935	1
Henri-Edmond Cross	1910	15
George Cruikshank	1878	1
Paul Cézanne	1906	5
Bernardo Daddi	1348	1
Louis Dalrymple	1905	2
Dasavanta	1584	2
T. Davies	1887	1
Henry Golden Dearth	1918	1
Joseph Decker	1924	1
Edgar Degas	1917	1
Robert Delaunay	1941	8
Charles Demuth	1935	1
Maurice Denis	1943	7
André Derain	1954	9
Alexandre Desgoffe	1882	1
Henry-Julien Detouche	1913	1
Attributed to Devidasa	1695	1
Byron Dingman	1951	1
Isabella Ruth Doerfler	1954	1
Dosso Dossi	1542	2
Arthur Dove	1946	1
Raoul Dufy	1953	6
Robert Seldon Duncanson	1872	1
Robert Spear Dunning	1905	1
Gainsborough Dupont	1797	1
John Durand	1825	1
Joseph Dusek	—	1
Alexander Dux	—	1
Anthony van Dyck	1641	2
Albrecht Dürer	1528	2
Ralph Earl	1801	1
Joseph Byron Egan	—	1
Halfdan Egedius	1899	1
Jacob Eichholtz	1842	1
Keisai Eisen	1848	6
Kikukawa Eizan	1867	1
Aleksandra Ekster	1949	1
Jan Brueghel the Elder	1625	1
Hans Burgkmair the Elder	1531	1
Lucas Cranach the Elder	1553	1
Jan van Kessel the Elder	1679	1
James Ensor	1949	2
Henri Evenepoel	1899	1
Jay Van Everen	1947	1
Albert Eyth	1955	1
Henri Fantin-Latour	1904	1
John La Farge	1910	2
Fattu	—	1
Fazl	—	1
Paolo di Giovanni Fei	1411	2
Friedrich Fennel	1926	1
Erastus Salisbury Field	1900	1
William B. Finley	—	1
Paul Fischer	1934	1
Vilhelm Theodor Fischer	1928	1
Gustaf Fjæstad	1948	1
Juan de Flandes	1519	2
Richard Floethe	—	3
Jean-Louis Forain	1931	2
Piero della Francesca	1492	1
John F. Francis	1886	1
William Frank	1950	1
Roger de La Fresnaye	1925	1
Caspar David Friedrich	1840	1
Frederick Carl Frieseke	1939	1
Othon Friesz	1949	4
Thomas Gainsborough	1788	1
Yashima Gakutei	1868	9
Akseli Gallen-Kallela	1931	6
Garofalo	1559	1
Paul Gauguin	1903	26
Josef Geis	1952	1
Ōgata Gekkō	1920	1
Ghasi	—	2
Domenico Ghirlandaio	1494	1
Michele Giambono	1480	1
Corrado Giaquinto	1766	1
Pearl Gibbo	1949	2
Harald Giersing	1927	7
Sanford Robinson Gifford	1880	1
Bernard Gillam	1896	1
Harold Gilman	1919	1
Robert Gilson	1942	1
Giorgione	1510	1
Palma il Giovane	1628	1
Benvenuto di Giovanni	1517	4
Vincent van Gogh	1890	11
George Goldschmidt	—	1
Attributed to Golu	—	1
Jan Gossaert	1532	1
John Gould	1898	1
Benozzo Gozzoli	1497	2
Walter Gramatté	1929	3
Eugène Grasset	1917	5
El Greco	1614	1
Arlington Gregg	—	4
Juan Gris	1927	8
Jules-Alexandre Grün	1934	1
Armand Guillaumin	1927	1
Charles Guilloux	1946	1
Laurent Guyot	1808	1
Henri Guérard	1897	1
Kawabata Gyokushō	1913	1
Jean-Léon Gérôme	1904	1
Bilal Habshi	—	1
Albert Hahn	1918	1
George Henry Hall	1913	2
Richard Halls	—	2
Sturtevant J. Hamblin	1897	2
Marius Hammann	1936	1
Peter Hansen	1928	2
Marsden Hartley	1943	3
Suzuki Harunobu	1770	2
A. Hashagen	1907	1
Ernest Haskell	1925	1
Otto Carl Bentzon Haslund	1917	1
Childe Hassam	1935	1
Florence Hastings	1951	1
Robert Havell	1878	1
Martin Johnson Heade	1904	1
Jacoba van Heemskerck	1923	3
Maarten van Heemskerck	1574	1
Master of Heiligenkreuz	1430	1
Einar Hein	1931	1
Otto Heinigke	1915	1
William Penhallow Henderson	1943	2
Daniel Hendrickson	1788	1
Jean-Jacques Henner	1905	1
Hermann-Paul	1940	1
Harry Herzog	—	2
Gosōtei Hirosada	—	2
Utagawa Hiroshige	1858	35
Louis Hirshman	—	1
Karl Hofer	1955	1
Totoya Hokkei	1858	5
Hokkei	1850	3
Shunshosai Hokuchō	—	1
Katsushika Hokusai	1849	35
Astrid Holm	1937	1
Richard Roland Holst	1938	1
Winslow Homer	1910	3
Pieter de Hooch	1684	1
Edna Boies Hopkins	1937	1
Elizabeth Howitt	1830	1
Helen Hyde	1919	1
Jakob Wilhelm Hüber	1871	1
Utagawa Toyokuni I	1825	2
Henri Gabriel Ibels	1936	6
Torii Kiyomasu II	1763	2
Utagawa Kunihisa II	1891	1
Chitarman II	1750	1
Utagawa Hiroshige II	1869	8
Utagawa Toyokuni II	1835	1
Utagawa Kunisada II	1880	1
Utagawa Kuniteru II (Kunitsuna II)	1874	1
Utagawa Toyoshige (Toyokuni II)	1835	1
Utagawa Hiroshige III	1894	3
Utagawa Kunisada I (Toyokuni III)	1865	6
John O'Brien Inman	1896	1
George Inness	1894	1
Karl Isakson	1922	9
Utagawa Kunisada II (Kunimasa III, Toyokuni IV)	1880	2
Alexej von Jawlensky	1941	11
Walter W. Jennings	1945	1
Fridolin Johansen	1908	1
Gwen John	1939	1
Robert Jones	—	1
Wassily Kandinsky	1944	9
Ludvig Karsten	1926	4
Haidar Kashmiri	—	1
Morris Katz	—	1
Frank M. Keane	1941	1
Frederick Kemmelmeyer	1848	1
William Sergeant Kendall	1938	1
Joseph Keppler	1894	1
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner	1938	22
Kobayashi Kiyochika	1915	4
Torii Kiyonaga	1815	9
Torii Kiyonobu	1729	2
Kobayakawa Kiyoshi	1948	1
Paul Klee	1940	12
Gustav Klimt	1918	9
Julius Klinger	1942	1
Eileen Knox	1946	1
Franz Innocenz Josef Kobell	1822	1
Johann Koerbecke	1491	1
Utagawa Kokunimasa	1944	1
Isoda Koryūsai	1790	4
Ohara Koson	1945	1
Russell W. Kraus	—	1
Erik Hans Krause	1990	5
Erik Hans Krause	—	1
Peder Severin Krøyer	1909	2
Toyohara Kunichika	1900	20
Utagawa Kunimasu	—	1
Utagawa Kunisada	1864	8
Utagawa Kunisada	1865	4
Utagawa Kuniyoshi	1861	35
Anton Kurvers	1940	2
Kushala	—	1
Boris Kustodiev	1927	4
Vilhelm Kyhn	1903	1
Carl Kylberg	1952	1
Kawanabe Kyôsai	1889	1
Santō Kyōden	1816	1
Tsukioka Kôgyo	1927	24
Tsuchiya Kōitsu	1949	1
Onchi Kōshirō	1955	1
Robert Lachenmann	—	1
Lal	—	1
Lalu	—	4
Eugène Lami	1890	1
Neroccio di Bartolomeo de' Landi	1500	1
Edwin Landseer	1873	1
Fitz Henry Lane	1865	1
John LaQuatra	—	1
Adolph Larsen	1942	1
Carl Larsson	1919	1
Ben Lassen	—	1
Edward Lear	1888	1
Henri Lehmann	1882	1
Hans Lendorff	1946	1
Aristarkh Lentulov	1943	3
Estelle Levine	—	2
Georg Emil Libert	1908	1
Bruno Liljefors	1939	1
The Denison Limner	1850	2
Rikard Lindström	1943	1
Filippino Lippi	1504	3
Filippo Lippi	1469	1
El Lissitzky	1941	3
Charles Raymond Long	1976	1
Lorenzo Lotto	1557	1
Mina Lowry	1942	5
George Luks	1933	2
Vilhelm Lundstrøm	1950	8
Alexandre Lunois	1916	6
Henry Lørup	1898	1
August Macke	1914	9
Edith Magnette	1947	6
Kazimir Malevich	1935	9
Manaku	1770	1
Attributed to Manaku	1760	1
Édouard Manet	1883	1
Henri Manguin	1949	3
Attributed to the Master of the Court of Mankot	—	1
Andrea Mantegna	1514	1
Arsen Maralian	1948	1
Franz Marc	1916	11
Albert Marquet	1947	5
Charles Martin	1934	1
Simone Martini	1344	1
Kitao Masayoshi	1824	1
Stipple Master	1725	1
Attributed to the Sirohi Master	1690	1
Henri Matisse	1954	18
Maxime Maufra	1918	1
Frederick W. Mayhew	1854	1
McKay	1851	1
Aida McKenzie	—	1
Hans Memling	1494	1
Mortimer Menpes	1938	1
Antonello da Messina	1479	1
Willard Metcalf	1925	1
Henri Georges J. I. Meunier	1922	1
Henri Meunier	1922	1
Katherine Milhous	1977	4
William Rickarby Miller	1893	1
Lilian May Miller	1943	1
Miskin	—	1
Toshikata Mizuno	1908	2
Paula Modersohn-Becker	1907	5
Amedeo Modigliani	1920	12
Urushibara Mokuchu	1953	1
N.P. Mols	1921	1
Lorenzo Monaco	1425	1
Piet Mondrian	1944	9
Claude Monet	1926	4
Martin Monnickendam	1943	1
Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli	1886	1
Adrien Montigny	1600	1
Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel	1913	1
Thomas Moran	1926	1
Berthe Morisot	1895	1
Giovanni Battista Moroni	1578	1
Koloman (Kolo) Moser	1918	1
Koloman Moser	1918	3
Alphonse Mucha	1939	7
Robert Muchley	—	3
Otto Mueller	1930	3
Edvard Munch	1944	16
Gerhard Morgenstjerne Munthe	1927	1
Ustad Murad	—	1
Valdemar Schønheyder Møller	1905	1
Ben Nason	—	3
Carl Newman	1932	2
Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig	1915	2
William Nicholson	1949	2
Frank S. Nicholson	—	2
Ville Jais Nielsen	1949	1
Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp	1950	1
Isaac Lodewijk de la Fargue van Nieuwland	1805	1
Thorvald Niss	1905	1
Watanabe Nobukazu	1944	1
Prince Eugen, Duke of Närke	1947	2
Bernard van Orley	1541	2
Erel Osborn	—	1
Jacques J. Ottens	1930	1
Jean-Baptiste Oudry	1755	1
Gian Paolo Pace	1560	1
Mary E. Palmer	—	1
Masolino da Panicale	1435	1
Giovanni di Paolo	1482	1
Linton Park	1906	1
Margaret Jordan Patterson	1950	3
Julius Paulsen	1940	1
Belbello da Pavia	1508	1
Edgar Alwin Payne	1947	1
Raphaelle Peale	1825	1
Rembrandt Peale	1860	1
Glenn Stuart Pearce	—	1
Max Pechstein	1955	6
Clara Peeters	1640	1
Edward Penfield	1925	2
Jean Perréal	1530	1
Pietro Perugino	1523	1
Jan Mirosław Peszke	1949	1
Robert (Storm P.) Storm Petersen	1949	1
Hippolyte Petitjean	1929	1
John F. Peto	1907	2
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin	1939	4
Theodor Philipsen	1920	3
Ammi Phillips	1865	1
Phil von Phul	—	1
William L. Picknell	1897	1
Sano di Pietro	1481	2
Eunice Pinney	1849	1
Sebastiano del Piombo	1547	1
Camille Pissarro	1903	1
Teresa del Po	1713	1
Cornelis van Poelenburch	1667	1
Armand Point	1932	1
Lyubov Popova	1924	7
Isadore Posoff	—	1
Nicolas Poussin	1665	1
C. Don Powell	—	3
Cyril Power	1951	1
Herbert W. Pratt	—	1
Maurice Prendergast	1924	3
Julius Mendes Price	1924	1
William Matthew Prior	1873	1
Henri Privat-Livemont	1936	1
Purkhu	1860	1
Alphonse Quizet	1955	1
Henry Raeburn	1823	1
Jean-François Raffaëlli	1924	1
Henry Patrick Raleigh	1945	1
Jai Ram	—	1
Sahib Ram	—	1
Attributed to the Master of Style II of the ‘Shangri’ Ramayana	—	1
Henry Ward Ranger	1916	1
Sri Prathi Singh of Ratlam	—	1
Eric Ravilious	1942	1
Odilon Redon	1916	5
Pierre-Joseph Redouté	1840	1
Pierre-Auguste Renoir	1919	6
William Clarke Rice	1928	1
Laurits Andersen Ring	1933	3
Jozseph Rippl-Rónaï	1927	1
Ercole de' Roberti	1496	2
Miguel A. Rodrídguez	—	1
Nicholas Roerich	1947	6
Arnold van Roessel	1947	10
Christian Rohlfs	1938	2
George Romney	1802	2
Guy Rose	1925	1
Ivar Rosenberg	1924	1
Jerome Henry Rothstein	—	2
Théodore Roussel	1926	2
Louis Roux	1899	1
Thomas Rowlandson	1827	12
Olga Rozanova	1918	7
Peter Paul Rubens	1640	1
Théo van Rysselberghe	1926	5
Utagawa Sadahide	1873	7
Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin	1852	2
Geskel Saloman	1902	1
Joseph Ernest Sampson	1946	1
Sanju	—	1
Cleo Sara	—	2
John Singer Sargent	1925	5
Emily Sargent	1929	1
Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo	1548	1
Henry Lyman Saÿen	1918	10
Lodewijk Schelfhout	1943	1
Egon Schiele	1918	10
Joseph Schillinger	1943	2
Christjern Schobius	1900	1
Prior-Hamblin School	1910	1
Earl Schuler	—	1
Kamisaka Sekka	1942	14
Jacopo da Sellaio	1493	1
Georges Seurat	1891	5
James Sharples	1811	1
Isaac Sheffield	1845	1
Nathan Sherman	—	2
Ryūsai Shigeharu	1852	1
Kitao Shigemasa	1820	1
Shravana	—	1
Katsukawa Shun'ei	1819	1
Katsukawa Shunjо̄	1787	2
Katsukawa Shunkо̄	1812	1
Kubo Shunman	1820	1
Katsukawa Shunshō	1792	11
Paul Signac	1935	11
Luca Signorelli	1523	1
Puccio di Simone	1373	1
Alfred Sisley	1899	1
Sitaram	—	1
Michel Sittow	1525	1
Hannah Brown Skeele	1901	1
Niels Skovgaard	1938	4
Joakim Skovgaard	1933	1
Thomas Skynner	1900	1
Agnes Slott-Møller	1937	1
George Vander Sluis	1984	1
Jan Willem Sluiter	1949	7
Hans Smidth	1917	1
Pamela Colman Smith	1951	1
Joaquín Sorolla	1923	5
Chaïm Soutine	1943	1
Johannes Ernst Spangenberg	1814	1
Sravana	—	2
William Stearns	1900	1
Bernd Steiner	1933	1
Théophile-Alexandre Pierre Steinlen	1923	4
Théophile Steinlen	1923	3
Niels Larsen Stevns	1941	5
Joseph Whiting Stock	1855	1
Bernhard Strigel	1528	2
Zanobi Strozzi	1468	1
Gilbert Stuart	1828	1
Thomas Sully	1872	1
Suraju	—	1
Fritz Syberg	1939	4
Paul Sérusier	1927	4
George Marinus Tamson	1939	1
Grifo di Tancredi	1328	1
William Tasker	—	1
Horace Christopher Taylor	1934	3
Hans Michael Therkildsen	1925	1
Ellen Thesleff	1954	1
Jan Philip van Thielen	1667	1
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo	1770	2
Jacopo Tintoretto	1594	1
Georg Tippel	1915	1
Niwa Tokei	1822	1
Migita Toshihide	1925	1
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec	1901	26
Master of the Starck Triptych	1540	1
John Trumbull	1843	1
Monroe Tsatoke	1937	1
Kōgyo Tsukioka	1927	3
William Turner	1862	1
J. M. W. Turner	1851	1
Ludwig of Ulm	1510	1
unknown	—	13
Kitagawa Utamaro	1806	8
Maurice Utrillo	1955	4
Utagawa Kunimasa V	1944	1
Félix Vallotton	1925	11
Louis Valtat	1952	1
Andrea Vanni	1413	1
Tanzio da Varallo	1633	1
Master VCD	1899	1
Anthony Velonis	1997	1
Paolo Veneziano	1358	1
Domenico Veneziano	1461	1
Jan Verkade	1946	1
Master of Saint Veronica	1455	1
Charles Verschuuren	—	2
Charles Verschuuren	1955	2
Eugenio Lucas Villaamil	1918	1
Alvise Vivarini	1505	1
Ambroise Vollard	1940	2
Simon Vouet	1649	1
Édouard Jean Vuillard	1940	2
Édouard Vuillard	1940	3
Edouard Vuillard	1940	2
Aloys Wach	1940	1
Wagguno	1918	1
Mary Vaux Walcott	1940	2
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller	1865	1
Mildred Waltrip	—	2
Andrew John Henry Way	1888	1
Edvard Weie	1943	7
J. Alden Weir	1919	2
Shari Weisberg	—	1
Martin Weitzman	—	3
Marianne von Werefkin	1938	6
Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller	1811	1
Russell W. West	—	1
Benjamin West	1820	1
Harry J. Weston	1938	1
Berend Wolter Weyers	1949	1
James McNeill Whistler	1903	1
Beatrice Whistler	1896	1
Florence Standish Whiting	1947	1
Kenneth Whitley	—	2
Raymond Willcox	—	1
Michael Wolgemut	1519	1
Philips Wouwerman	1668	1
Utagawa Yoshifuji	1887	1
Utagawa Yoshiharu	1888	1
Utagawa Yoshiiku	1904	3
Yoshitoshi	1892	24
Ichiryūsai Yoshitoyo	1866	1
Ayaoka Yûshin	1910	2
Max Zachmann	1917	1
Kristian Zahrtmann	1917	1
Marco Zoppo	1478	2

Search

The search runs in your browser from a compact index built with the site (5,004 works; 1189 KB, 538 KB compressed): each work's title, artist and six palette colours in CIELAB with their shares.

• Words match titles and artists after removing accents and case. A word may be the start of a name, and up to one wrong letter (words of 4–6 letters) or two (7 or more) is forgiven, after folding common transliteration variants (w/v, j/y, -ij/-y, doubled letters), so “Kandinskij” and “Wassily” find Vasily Kandinsky.
• Colour names (174 of ours, plus the family words) search for the name's colour.
• Hex codes: each work gets a score from 0 to 100%. For every query colour, similarity to a palette colour is exp(−(ΔE₀₀/14)²) using the CIEDE2000 difference, multiplied by √(share/15%) for colours covering less than 15% of the image (so a matching speck counts less than a matching field). Each query colour is paired with a different palette colour, choosing the pairing with the highest total (an optimal assignment, by dynamic programming over the six palette colours); the score is the mean over the query colours. Ties go to the work whose matched colours cover more of the image.
• Words with colours keep the works that match the words, then rank them by palette.

Every build runs these test queries with the same code the browser runs, and is not published if one fails. This build: 16 of 16 passed. A further check queries the largest palette colour of 200 works picked at random: 195 ranked first and 5 tied with a work that has the same colour at a share at least as large. Timing in Node v20.19.2 on the build server: median 12.5 ms for a one-colour query (95th percentile 16.6 ms); building the index takes 154 ms. Expect two to four times longer on a phone.

Themes, periods and collections

Themes group works by the museums' own subject tags and by titles that name the subject outright ("Still Life with…", "Snow at…"). Movements come from the Art Institute's style field and the Met's period field. Collections are rules on the measured palettes, stated on each collection page. No theme, colour, period or collection page is published with fewer than 8 works, and artists get their own page from 6 works.

Artwork of the day

Chosen at random each day, seeded by the date, from paintings with an image at least 1000 px on its long side and some colour (chroma ≥ 12), and not shown in the past 365 days.