BBC Knowledge Asia Edition 3

PHOTOS: ROBERT HARRISON/J WALTER THOMPSON LONDON

From the earthy colours and

theatrical play of light and

shadow to the thick layering of

paint, all signs point to this

portrait being painted by the

Dutch master Rembrandt.

However, it was actually

created by a computer

following a two-year

collaboration between the

Technical University of Delft,

Microsoft and the Mauritshuis

and Rembrandthuis museums.

The project has been dubbed

‘The Next Rembrandt’.

The portrait was

created using data

from high-res 3D

scans of 346

of Rembrandt’s portraits.

“There’s a lot of Rembrandt

data available,” said the

Technical University of Delft’s

Joris Dik. “But can we actually

create something out of it that

looks like Rembrandt? That

was an appealing question.”

The chosen works were all

painted between 1632 and

1642 and featured Caucasian

males aged between 30 and 40

wearing black clothes and

sporting facial hair in order to

limit the number of variables.

The data from the scans

was fed into facial

recognition software

to identify the most

typical geometric patterns

Rembrandt used to paint

human features. A deep

learning algorithm was then

used to assemble these

findings into an original portrait.

“We looked at a number of

Rembrandt paintings, and we

scanned their surface texture,

their elemental composition,

and what kinds of pigments

were used,” said Dik.

To add a layer of detail, the

team used the 3D scans to

analyse the texture of

Rembrandt’s brushstrokes and

3D printed the final portrait

using 13 layers of ink to create a

realistic effect.

THE ‘NEW’ OLD MASTER

A height map allowed the team to add

texture and brushstrokes to the

3D-printed Rembrandt

IN NUMBERS

14.53

million km

2

The size of the Arctic

ice cap recorded by

NASA’s National Snow

and Ice Data Centre. It’s

the lowest since records

began in 1979.

18 4

The age of Jonathan, a

Seychelles giant tortoise

living on the island of St

Helena in the southern

Atlantic Ocean. He’s

thought to be the oldest

living terrestrial animal

on the planet.

10

trillion degrees

That’s one followed

by 13 zeroes. The

temperature of quasar 3C

273, a mysterious disc of

matter swirling around a

supermassive black hole

in the Virgo constellation.

A new Rembrandt masterpiece has been created by

a computer – and it looks just like the real thing

TECHNOLOGY