Skip to main content

A computer painted this Rembrandt


What you see here is a new Rembrandt painting that was unveiled on Tuesday in Amsterdam. No, the portrait is not a lost work by the famous artist; it was created with 3D printers by a group of art historians, along with data analysts, software developers, scientists and engineers.

The project, called The Next Rembrandt, is made up of 148 million pixels based on more than 160,000 fragments from Rembrandt's 300+ paintings. The team used high resolution 3D scans to capture every little detail and create an algorithm that would eventually be able to accurately recreate the Dutch master's style. To bring the painting to life, a state-of-the-art 3D printer specially designed to make high-end reproductions of existing artwork was used.

"Our goal was to make a machine that works like Rembrandt," Emmanuel Flores, director of technology for the project, told the BBC. "We will understand better what makes a masterpiece a masterpiece." However, he added, "I don't think we can substitute Rembrandt - Rembrandt is unique."

Netherlands bank ING, ad agency J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam and Microsoft took part in the project, which took 18 months to create.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Art of Nicola Samori

Does Nicola Samori ever underwhelm? The Italian painter and sculptor caught my attention some two years ago, when I stumbled upon his work on Artsy . Samori creates dark, Baroque-inspired oil paintings by layering and fusing images on canvas, wood or other objects. His work stems from fear, and his process involves "skinning" his painted figures with a palette knife or thinner and painting over the surfaces multiple times to achieve deep-seated results. "Peeling off the faces make it possible for all the neglected parts of a representation to come to light and, as far as I am concerned, they all work even better without any kind of control," Samori explained in a  2012 interview . "I don't know what it is that gives a person their identity, it's such complex matter. I definitely don't think a portrait can eventually give it back because you can always perceive its author behind its eyes; well, maybe others' portraits (even their removal,...

If you're into vintage erotic art, follow Cold Meat

It's not just the pictures of celebrities in skimpy outfits that makes Instagram interesting. But if those are the only people you follow, then you are missing out. The social media platform is full of some of the most talented artists of the moment, but one account that truly caught my eye is cold___meat , which is dedicated to vintage pictures of BDSM art and erotica.  The account has been cancelled several times, but it's alive and kicking and is showing no sign of slowing down. Dazed recently interviewed Daryl, the mysterious founder of Cold Meat, to learn more about his background, his fear of another shutdown, and his mission to make "formerly clandestine and underground erotica available to a wider audience." A photo posted by Darryl (@cold___meat) on Oct 31, 2015 at 1:11pm PDT A photo posted by Darryl (@cold___meat) on Nov 6, 2015 at 8:35am PST A photo posted by Darryl (@cold___meat) on Jul 22, 2015 at 7:17pm PDT ...

New Davis Guggenheim documentary examines the mind of Bill Gates

The trailer for a three-part docuseries examining the life of Bill Gates in all of its complexity has just been released. Directed by Davis Guggenheim ( An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get Loud ), Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates will focus on the tech visionary's post-Microsoft life as he pursues unique solutions to some of the world's most persistent problems. It comes to Netflix on September 20.