Holland «reconstructs» the voice of maestro Rembrandt from his paintings

Source: The World

The Rijksmuseum today presented the «reconstruction» of Rembrandt’s voice, with the application of data technology to his paintings, letters and other details of his life, and with which six «tutorials» have been prepared in which the Baroque master He teaches his art with his «own voice».

The use of biometrics, an identification method based on the unique physical characteristics of each person, is a recurrent technique in recent years that has allowed recreating faces from voice recordings.

In this case, «technology was invested to recreate Rembrandt’s voice from his face,» Rita Singh, a scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh (USA), explained Thursday.

There are no photographs of the master of the Golden Age, but he was responsible for self-portraying multiple times, almost every year of his life, leaving a legacy that allows conservators of his art to discover a little more with each investigation.

«This is the first time that a voice is reconstructed using self-portraits and data of this type, and this is thanks to the advances in artificial intelligence,» said Singh, who is part of a group of Dutch experts who has carried out this research. financed by the banking entity ING.

The technological applied to art has shown no borders and in recent years has allowed discovering previously unthinkable details about this painter: in January it was learned that plumbonacrite, a material with lead, was the mysterious ingredient that Rembrandt used in his technique of filling to create the 3D effect that impresses in his works.

On this occasion, using voice and data technology, the artist’s artistic techniques, personality, language, pronunciation and language were recreated.

Correspondence
Rembrandt’s technique and character were analyzed by experts at the Rijksmuseum, led by the artist’s biographer Jonathan Bikker, while the Dutch Language Institute translated the tutorials into the Nieuwnederlands (the new Dutch), the language spoken at the time of the painter.

As the way of writing differs from that of speaking, the University of Leiden helped with the pronunciation of the language spoken four centuries ago, while the language used by Rembrandt was obtained mainly from the correspondences he had shared at that time.

Carnegie Mellon University shaped the result, combining all the data obtained to finally recreate Rembrandt’s voice.

The result of this study allowed the elaboration of ‘Rembrandt’s tutorials’, videos about the master’s paintings in which the painter speaks in what would be his own words, with the sound reconstructed, using an original seventeenth century Dutchman and a form of expression of the time.

These videos, with the deep, serious and somewhat robotic imaginary voice of Rembrandt, are a kind of painting lessons in 10 minutes, a recreation of an artist who was also a teacher of painting and who never lacked pupils of all ages who came to his native Leiden to learn his technique.

«He taught his students how to make art, how to compose a work and develop a distinctive style, the image he has left us is of an unconventional artist», analyzed Bikker, who defines the painter as stubborn, rebellious, confident, ambitious, entrepreneur and stingy.

The series, which consists of six tutorials, highlights various themes, such as drawing and painting portraits, painting techniques and materials, the use of light and the composition of color.

«Rembrandt returns to teach people to paint 350 years after his death,» said the Rijkmuseum, referring to the commemorations of the ‘Rembrandt Year’ celebrated by many Dutch art galleries this 201