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Being born in the modern age, we often forget how different things were before us. People could only know what someone looked like based on an artist's subjective vision or a grainy black-and-white photo. Despite the efforts of the artists, paintings can rarely achieve the level of realism that pictures can. And thus, people often wonder how some of the most famous historical figures really looked with all of the subjectiveness removed from the image. Bas Uterwijk, a photographer from Amsterdam who has a background in computer graphics, 3D animation, and special effects, slowly but surely tries to provide the answer to this aching question.

More info: basuterwijk.com | Instagram | twitter.com

#1

Statue Of Liberty

Statue Of Liberty

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He started in 2019. After experimenting with Billy the Kid's photograph and seeing positive results, Uterwijk decided to try and recreate someone who lived in an era where there were no photographs. He tried Napoleon, but didn't want to share the results because they were "nice, but not perfect." About a few months ago, he came back to Napoleon and tried it once again. "The software I work with is developing fast," he thought, so he figured trying it at a later time might bring better results. You can see how his "current" Napoleon turned out in the picture below.

#2

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh

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Here's what he told Bored Panda: "I think the human face hasn't changed dramatically over thousands of years and apart from hairstyles and makeup, people that lived long ago probably looked very much like us, but we are used to seeing them in the often distorted styles of ancient art forms that existed long before the invention of photography."

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#5

Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ

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Avriel Schwartz
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This reconstruction looks far too European. Genetically he would have looked closer to a Sephardi Jew from the Middle East.

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He started experimenting with creating images by using generative adversarial neural networks, because he thinks it will one day be the "successor to photography." "These 'Deep Learning' networks are trained with thousands of photographs of human faces and are able to create near-photorealistic people from scratch or fit uploaded faces in a 'Latent Space' of a total of everything the model has learned."

#6

Napoleon

Napoleon

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Artbreeder, Bas's program of choice, uses artificial intelligence and neural networks to create near-photorealistic images based on his input combined with what it knows about how faces look and how light behaves in photography. "I try to do everything as procedural as possible and let the AI do the most work, but sometimes I need to cheat a little in Photoshop because these GANs don't do clothes or classical hairstyles yet."

#9

Frankenstein's Monster

Frankenstein's Monster

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#10

Sandro Botticelli

Sandro Botticelli

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"Although I see my creations more as artistic impressions than as scientifically justified, in some cases, the results for me feel much closer to reality than most other methods that are used in reconstructions of people so far," Bas expressed. They say that a portrait artist's main goal isn't getting the little details right, but capturing the "essence" of the person's character. Do you think Bas has managed to achieve that? Tell us in the comments!

#13

George Washington

George Washington

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#14

Fayum Mummy Portraits

Fayum Mummy Portraits

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Eulalie Grace
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I love Fayum Mummy portraits. Very Romanesque - because they were. So much like the portraits found in Pompeii

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#15

Fayum Mummy Portraits

Fayum Mummy Portraits

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#17

Elizabeth I, Queen Of England

Elizabeth I, Queen Of England

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jordanwestall avatar
Jordan Westall
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It doesn’t look like the artist did anything different from the original painting

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Titas Burinskas
BoredPanda Staff
Verified
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Here's a comparison. It might be so because Queen Elizabeth I era paintings have just discovered stereoscopic methods. Paintings from that era are known to look really flat. The information that the neural networks drew from was sort of 'flawed.' Untitled-5...a1-png.jpg Untitled-5-5efae00b1dca1-png.jpg

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klerandre avatar
Randy Klefbeck
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Henry the VIII's daughter. Looks just like him but a little thinner and no beard.

bagladyele avatar
EA
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Spitting image of her father, would be interesting to see more royal portraits

rhodabike6 avatar
Seabeast
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

She had terrible skin from applying white lead and red mercury cosmetics to it for years. So she should be pockmarked from that.

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Lark
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

She had smallpox at 30, so nope. Wore heavy lead makeup to cover the pox marks.

jpop00 avatar
Nez Rueada
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My, hair face and chin s really long, but she a very smart

barb-braun1 avatar
Barb Braun
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I read that important women of that time plucked the hair on their forehead because a high hairline was considered attractive.

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Jonathan M
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Perhaps, but smallpox left her facially scarred and half bald. She relied on makeup and wigs thereafter.

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MacDudu
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Her mouth was like that because her teeth had rotted away, she had to pad her cheeks with leather towards the end. Hygiene was unheard of in Europe during her time.

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lauralee63 avatar
Laura Rudgers
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

She could not have been - her mother, Anne Boleyn, was one of the most beautiful women at court, and her father, Henry VIII in his youth was athletic (fit) and handsome. At least, Elizabeth was probably very attractive, or pretty, until she was marred by pox scars. I think she was prettier than this painting portrayed her.

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