Websites aimed at bringing fine art to the (hopefully art-buying) masses are springing up all over these days. The most interesting of these startups is Art.sy, which cuts down on the intimidation factor by letting users discover new pieces in its cleverly designed virtual gallery. To do this, Art.sy has developed an algorithm and some 800 “genes” or tags that relate the 15,000 works currently viewable on the site to one another. So, for example, if you start by searching for Jean-Michel Basquiat, the famed graffiti artist turned neo-expressionist who died in 1988, the site will pull up a large triptych of his called Six Crimee, which is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. It’s not for sale. But below the Basquiat painting, Art.sy displays work that is for sale by more recent artists who Basquiat inspired, including the British street artist Banksy and the lesser known graffiti and installation artist Miranda Donovan, whose three-dimensional pieces start at around $10,000. Art.sy is still in beta, but you can request an invitation to join. It can take weeks to get access, but it’s worth the wait. The high-resolution images are fantastic, and it’s a fun way to find new artists. But whether Art.sy’s fledgling revenue model will work is another story — which you can read in this week’s print magazine.