New computer painted "Rembrandt" unveiled in Amsterdam

A new Rembrandt, painted nearly four centuries after the famous Dutch artist's death, was unveiled in Amsterdam art gallery Looiersgracht 60 on Tuesday. The portrait of a Caucasian man with a white collar and a hat was not painted by an understudy or fan, but by a computer based on Rembrandt's complete works.

The project is a collaboration between ING, advertising agency J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam, Microsoft and advisers from TU Delft, the Mauritshuis and the Rembrandthuis.

Using deep learning-algorithms and face recognition technologies, a total of 346 Rembrandt paintings were analyzed over an 18 month period.

After analyzing Rembrandt's paintings, paying attention to the type, gender of the subject, age of the subject etc., the makers came to the following conclusion: The Next Rembrandt should be a portrait of a Caucasian male with facial hair between the ages of 30 and 40. He should be wearing dark clothing, a collar and a hat and facing to the right.

The end result is a 3D printed painting consisting of 148 million pixels and based on 168,263 parts of portraits of Caucasian males, facing to the right, painted by Rembrandt's own hand. "You can say we used technology and data like Rembrandt used his paints and brushes to create something new", according to the makers.