Google has bought up the UK firm Plink, the makers of the Plink Art Android application.

The Plink Art app is the painting world’s answer to Shazam, or to put it the posh way, it’s a visual search engine.

So, what does this Plink application do?

Take a snap of any painting, and the service will identify it for your edification, whether it’s Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Frans Hals’ Laughing Cavalier, or a vandalised paint splattered wall which it will probably tag as a Jackson Pollock.

Plink has only been going four short months, and apparently hit 50,000 users in just four weeks.

The Plink team will be scaling their algorithms up and working with Google Goggles.

A statement from the company said:

“We started Plink to bring the power of visual search to everyone, and we’re delighted to be taking a big step towards that goal today. Google has already shown that it’s serious about investing in this space with Google Goggles, and for the Plink team the opportunity to take our algorithms to Google-scale was just too exciting to pass up. The visual search engines of today can do some pretty cool things, but they still have a long long way to go.”

“We’re looking forward to helping the Goggles team build a visual search engine that works not just for paintings or book covers, but for everything you see around you.”

Google will doubtless be celebrating the acquisition of Plink with lots of plonk, and hoping the purchase works out, so they don’t look like planks. Read more about this news at the Plink Blog.