Obscenely detailed scan allows you to peer at Rembrandt’s Night Watch masterpiece on-line

The Rijksmuseum has launched what it claims is the “largest and most detailed photograph of any artwork,” and it’s viewable for free on its website. The scan is of Rembrandt van Rijn’s 1642 masterpiece The Night Watch, a roughly 12 by 14 foot portray which is at the moment the main focus of a large analysis and restoration venture referred to as “Operation Night Watch.”

The technical particulars of the scan are staggering. In a press release, the Rijksmuseum explains that it’s made up of 8,439 particular person pictures taken with a 100 megapixel Hasselblad H6D 400 MS digital camera. Neural networks have been reportedly used to examine every picture for shade and sharpness, and an AI system helped sew these images collectively right into a single picture.

The result’s a 717 gigapixel picture that’s 5.6 terabytes in measurement, the place every of its pixels reveals an space simply 5 micrometers in measurement on the unique portray. The museum notes that it’s 4 occasions sharper than the final scan that was put out by the museum, which was solely 44.8 gigapixels large, and the place every pixel represented a relatively huge 20 micrometers.

The impression is just a little mind-boggling, permitting you to zoom in to see the cracks which have appeared within the particular person brush strokes of this masterpiece. Arguably it’s a fair higher expertise than seeing the portray within the flesh, since this software program permits you to actually press your nostril up towards it in a method that may get you thrown out of most museums.

If you’re keen to sacrifice a little bit of decision, then the web site additionally has an alternative version of The Night Watch with the lacking cropped sides restored. These sections have been stripped from the portray in 1715, permitting it to slot in a extra cramped location in Amsterdam’s City Hall. These lacking segments have been restored final yr primarily based on a Seventeenth-century copy of the unique portray made by Gerrit Lundens. This work was additionally accomplished as a part of the identical Operation Night Watch venture.

The Rijksmuseum’s press launch notes that this scan will assist with analysis of the portray, particularly remotely. It also needs to permit researchers to trace how the portray ages going ahead with extra accuracy. With the scan full, the museum notes that it now plans to mount The Night Watch onto a brand new stretcher to right deformities within the canvas which have appeared, and that it’s going to take into account different “conservation treatments.”

The excessive decision scan of The Night Watch is viewable here and the version with its missing sides is here. If that’s acquired you within the temper for extra high-resolution scans of traditional artistic endeavors, take a look at this 10 gigapixel scan of Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.