A visual language for color-based painting retrieval

The availability of large image databases is emphasizing the relevance of filters, which permit one to focus on a small subset of data. Visual specification of such filters provides a natural way to express content-oriented queries. To support a high power of expression, an original visual language is proposed for the symbolic representation of the semantics induced by the color quality and arrangement over a painting. The proposed language is based on the theory of color semantics introduced by artists in the 20th Century, and is developed to support a visual querying paradigm. This paper formalizes the grammar of the language in its visual form and describes it implementation in a prototype system of painting retrieval by color content.