Thread: What is art?
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Old 09-26-2016, 01:05 PM   #80
Carruthers
Junior Master Dwellar
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Buckinghamshire UK
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Name:  The next Rembrandt.jpg
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It's a Rembrandt isn't it? Well, only up to a point.
ING, the Dutch bank, and Microsoft joined forces to produce 'The Next Rembrandt' by computer analysis of a number of his paintings.

From the Daily Telegraph:

Quote:
The team behind the painting insisted it was not an attempt to to mimic, copy or reproduce what Rembrandt painted. Bas Korsten, a creative director who came up with the project idea, said they used "technological advances" including "big data", facial recognition and 3D printing techniques "to predict, on the basis of analysis, what the Great Master might have painted next." The painting was created through a complicated process using software that interpreted Rembrandt’s use of geometry and composition – qualities that marked him out as one of the finest Dutch painters of the 17th century.

A height map was then used to determine how to mimic his brushstrokes, and recreate the texture typical of his paintings. The final painting was then printed, made up of 13 layers of paint-based UV ink.

“We looked at a number of Rembrandt paintings, and we scanned their surface texture, their elemental composition, and what kinds of pigments were used. That’s the kind of information you need if you want to generate a painting by Rembrandt virtually”, said Joris Dik from the team at the Technical University Delft, which also contributed to the project.
Unfortunately, as is often the case with art, not everyone was impressed.

This particularly splenetic piece is from The Guardian:

Quote:
What a horrible, tasteless, insensitive and soulless travesty of all that is creative in human nature. What a vile product of our strange time when the best brains dedicate themselves to the stupidest “challenges”, when technology is used for things it should never be used for and everybody feels obliged to applaud the heartless results because we so revere everything digital.

Hey, they’ve replaced the most poetic and searching portrait painter in history with a machine. When are we going to get Shakespeare’s plays and Bach’s St Matthew Passion rebooted by computers? I cannot wait for Love’s Labours Have Been Successfully Functionalised by William Shakesbot.

You cannot, I repeat, cannot, replicate the genius of Rembrandt van Rijn. His art is not a set of algorithms or stylistic tics that can be recreated by a human or mechanical imitator. He can only be faked – and a fake is a dead, dull thing with none of the life of the original. What these silly people have done is to invent a new way to mock art. Bravo to them! But the Dutch art historians and museums who appear to have lent their authority to such a venture are fools.
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