Barthélémy Jobert was so focused in the 19th century that he had a wide view of it: for him it began in the 1760s and in the 1920s. He was the leading art historian in Paris and now the former president of the Sorbonne University, the work of Eugène Delacroix, a French romantic artist known for his 1830 painting “Free Leading the People”, a powerful anti-royal work that portrays citizens of the opposition to the rebels. Now, Jobert will greatly enhance his ability to use artificial intelligence and other 21st century technologies over the years and solve the mysteries of its belongings.
This week, Schmidt Sciences, a nonprofit founded by former Google CEO Eric Schhmidt and his wife Wendy Schmidt, announced a new grant program to fund Jobert’s project, known as Digital Delacroix, and is considered the top six figures. Jobert’s goal is to digitize and analyze many things about Delacroix – his letters and journals, murals he painted in the second half of his career, even contemporary human reports, coverage of men and their works – and cross-references for academic purposes while placing them online for others to explore. Schmidt’s grant will allow him to gain more computing power by hiring several researchers trained in art history and artificial intelligence (even in the rare breeds in France) and enhance the current group of six.
Digital Delacroix is the first of 10 to 15 grant recipients to receive $10 million in humanities research applications for Schmidt Sciences. Expected spending prices range from less than $100,000 to $1.5 million. (Schmidt Sciences does not provide exact figures for support for digital Delacroix.) Sorbonne University briefly announced the organization’s participation shortly after the international AI summit in Paris, but has not been detailed until now.
