Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ Now In 717 Gigapixels, Sharpest View Of An Artwork Yet
Although it’s been well over three centuries since Rembrandt van Rijn painted his beloved The Night Watch masterpiece, there is no other time in history that it has been as detailed up close as now.
Back in 2020, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where the painting is held, amazed art enthusiasts with a 44.8-gigapixel photograph of the iconic artwork. This time, it’s been shot in “ultra high resolution” and is clearer than ever at a formidable 717 gigapixels.
That’s a total of 717,000,000,000 pixels of the 12 x 14-foot painting. Each pixel is smaller than a red blood cell, and it is so intricate, “this is the largest and most detailed photo ever taken of a work of art,” notes the museum.
In the comfort of their own homes, viewers will be able to scrutinize every element of the 1642 artwork, down to the cracks and catchlights in the subjects’ eyes. Rembrandt is remembered for his mastery in portraying light and shadows, and it’s a treat to watch how much he’d poured into shading and color 380 years later.
The museum created the incredibly high-res view by capturing the artwork with a 100-megapixel Hasselblad H6D 400 MS-camera, which took 8,430 photos. Then, artificial intelligence stitched the images to form a mega masterpiece spanning 5.6 terabytes, developing “pin-sharp particles of pigment in The Night Watch.” Admire it like it’s never been seen before here.
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[via DutchNews.nl and Associated Press, cover image via Dennis Jarvis / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)]
