How Art And Algorithm Came Together To Create "The Next Rembrandt"

A "new" Rembrandt has been unveiled in Amsterdam, but it's not a long lost dusty relic that was found in someone's loft--it was created by data analysts and computers. The portrait of a man in a black hat is the result of 18 months work by art historians, data scientists, developers, 3-D print technicians, and organizations like Microsoft, Delft University of Technology, the Mauritshuis in The Hague, and Amsterdam's Rembrandt House Museum. It consists of more than 148 million pixels, based on 168,263 painting fragments from Rembrandt's output. The initiative is the brainchild of Bas Korsten, executive creative director at ad agency JWT Amsterdam, and was created for Dutch financial services giant ING. Korsten says ING approached the agency with a brief to "find a way to bring their innovative spirit to their sponsorship of Dutch art and culture in a way that would get people thinking."