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