Nine Things You Need To Know....The Next Rembrandt
The morning of April 5th saw the unveiling of The Next Rembrandt in Amsterdam. A 3D printed painting, made solely from data of Rembrandt’s body of work. Thus bringing the Master of Light and Shadow back to life to create one more painting.
Gary Schwartz, Art Historian, author of a.o. ‘Rembrandt’s Universe’ says
“The Next Rembrandt is a fascinating exercise in connoisseurship. The developers deserve credit for setting themselves to identify the features that make a Rembrandt a Rembrandt. That the application of computer technology allows the results of their research to be digitized, printed in 3D and further refined adds a new tool to the instruments of the connoisseur. While no one will claim that Rembrandt can be reduced to an algorithm, this technique offers an opportunity to test your own ideas about his paintings in concrete, visual form.”
Here's nine things you need to know about this groundbreaking project.
1 - Rembrandt (15 July 1606 - 4 October 1669) is considered one of the world’s greatest painters and a key figure in Dutch history, representing the Golden Age of painting in the Netherlands. He produced 346 paintings that we know of, as well as numerous drawings and etchings. Rembrandt continued creating art right up to his death in 1669.
2 - Blurring the boundaries between art and technology, the New Rembrandt is intended to fuel the conversation about the relationship between art and algorithms, between data and human design and between technology and emotion.
3 - The portrait was created through a highly detailed and complex process (involving a team of data scientists, developers, engineers and Rembrandt experts), which took over 18 months and resulted in 150 gigabytes of digitally rendered graphics.
4 - The first step to making The Next Rembrandt, was analyzing all 346 of Rembrandt’s paintings using high resolution 3D scans and digital files, which were upscaled by a deep learning algorithm. Supporting partner Microsoft contributed their cloud platform Azure to host and analyze this data, which formed the basis for The Next Rembrandt.
5 - Then came determining the subject. The majority of Rembrandt’s entire collection is made up of portraits, which is also the most consistent subject. Together with Rembrandt experts the demographic segmentation of the people in these portraits was defined. Ending up with the subject: a portrait of a Caucasian male between the age of thirty and forty, with facial hair, wearing black clothes with a white collar and a hat, facing to the right.
6 - After this, the subject’s features were generated in the style of Rembrandt. A software system was designed that could understand Rembrandt based on his use of geometry, composition, and painting materials. A facial recognition algorithm identified and classified the most typical geometric patterns used by Rembrandt to paint human features. It then used the learned principles to replicate the style and generate new facial features for the painting.
7 - Next, these individual features were assembled into a fully formed face and bust according to Rembrandt’s use of proportions. When the 2D version of the painting was ready depth and texture were added. With the help of TU Delft, a height map was created to identify patterns on the surface of canvases. By transforming pixel data into height data, the computer could mimic the brushstrokes used by Rembrandt.
8 - Finally, to bring the painting to life, an advanced 3D printer that is specially designed to make high end reproductions of existing artwork was used. In the end, 13 layers of UV-ink were printed, one on top of the other, to create a realistic painting texture. All this has resulted in a work of art that portrays the power and the beauty of data and technology and that will fuel the conversation about where innovation can take us.
9 - The project is a cooperation between presenting partner ING Bank, advertising agency J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam, supporting partner Microsoft and advisors from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), The Mauritshuis and Museum Het Rembrandthuis.
Find out more about the project at www.nextrembrandt.com
