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Artist Lets Us Get A Glimpse Of What These 20 Famous Historical And Popular Figures ‘Really’ Looked Like
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.
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Statue Of Liberty
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.
Vincent Van Gogh
Fayum Mummy Portraits
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."
David (Michelangelo)
Jesus Christ
This reconstruction looks far too European. Genetically he would have looked closer to a Sephardi Jew from the Middle East.
I was told by my mother that Jesus looks different in everyone's eyes
Looks like what a European Renaissance painter would have used for a model. But Jesus was thoroughly Jewish. Probably of more diminutive stature, darker complected, and with a longer beard... probably jet-black hair. And those eyes... nope. He had snap. He freed all the animals and threw the cheatin' money-changers out of the temple and overthrew their tables, remember?
Quite the contrary, Jesus was not as ugly as you appear here .. There are several accounts describing Jesus' physical beauty, he was white in color, with golden hair, azure eyes, broad forehead, and strong stature .. Leave you from those frivolous people who want to offend the Lord of Glory
Load More Replies...there was a little girl named Akiane Kramarik who went to heaven, saw Jesus, and came back and painted him at age 4. Both her parents were athiests jesus-5f02...2baac3.jpg
But he is not, of course, as in this picture that you put in your comment, that Jesus is more beautiful and splendid than this image. Look for the description of Jesus in a letter to the governor of Judaism to Caesar of Rome.
Load More Replies...I picture him with darker skin with more middle eastern features (sorry if I offend)
There is a mistaken belief among Westerners that the Easterners are all dark-skinned! On the contrary, there are many of them white, blond and blue-eyed, David and Joseph were white and blonde ..
Load More Replies...Looks... ordinary for that part of the world. Which is the point, arguably. You are not supposed to recognise the Maker of Heaven and Earth unless you pay very close attention.
Y’all are arguing and all I can do is wipe my tears. I was raised to know Jesus, but not the judgmental one others preach of. Jesus has the kindest eyes and this man’s eyes speaks volumes to me. Jesus loved ALL: gays, orphans, widows, adulterers, outcasts, no one was shunned. Stop listening to the evangelicals, GOD AND JESUS LOVES THE GAYS.
My grandparents were from Lebanon and had clear eyes and skin. It is difficult to say what the face of Jesus was.
Still WAY too European. That cognitive dissonance is a bitch, ain't it.
Jesus was an ethnic Jew, not Arab or Black or Egyptian. I think this portrait is very good.
Thankfully, NO blue eyes since he likely had a brown, "searching" smile. I agree with Avriel Schwartz's comment, below. Still, an amazing rendition.
The artist used something as the basis - a sculpture or a picture, interesting what was used here?
My best guess is Eastern orthodox icon - Christ Pantocrator 387810581-...20ad58.jpg
Load More Replies...ur insulting christ yeh didnt even know wat he looks like unless, your 2,023 yrs old the spectres come again.
Pleasant. kind, reassuring to those who believe, a comfort a painting done by showing emotion instead of opinion. I love it.
This ( as a Catholic) is so amazing. This looks like a photo of the lord! 😃
The reason all the paintings looked so feminine is that almost all of the men of the time were either working their asses off elsewhere, or were off to war. They had women posing for the paintings.
Thought he was supposed to have darker skin. This white girl thinks Jesus was dark skinned/black.
...looks middle eastern-ish to me, definitely the large beautiful middle eastern eyes & the a larger distinctly shaped middle eastern nose, looks impressively believable for sure, good job !
Excellent likeness. This compares favorably with the actual photos of Jesus from the Vatican’s archives. Of course, they only had monochrome emulsions way back then, so the colorizing is subject to some spirited Theological debate. (But seriously, yeah, this looks a lot like LMM.)
"actual" photos of Jesus? the camera must've been invented way earlier than I thought...
Load More Replies...https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-general/reconstructing-jesus-using-science-flesh-out-face-religion-004942
I do wonder what he based this one on, aside from possible genetics (Jesus was born Jewish, yes it says so in the Bible). However there are few, if any, accounts of his actual appearance, and there are a LOT of different artists images
I do like this, the kind and patient facial expression is a good representation of Jesus' character
Load More Replies...At least he doesn’t have blue eyes like usually portrayed in evangelical American (read white) churches.
Except for his lips, he strongly resembles my former son-in-law, from Morocco.
The Bible said he was a rather ugly man that no one where look at twice. And yes he was a Jew.
I just hate it when they paint Jesus with long hair. It was impossible for him to have long hair AND drink or touch wine. And he did drink. Sorry, not historical. But I love men with long hair in real life.
Why would it be impossible for him to have long hair and drink or touch wine?
Load More Replies...An anthropology team did a reconstruction of what Jesus would have looked like and it was nothing like that..He probably had short hair and was likely to have been clean shaven for a start. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35120965
Almost all representations of Jesus "mysteriously" resemble the artist's sponsor or ruler. In 2001 forensic anthropologist Richard Neave created a model of a Galilean man for a BBC documentary, Son of God, working on the basis of an actual skull found in the region. He did not claim it was Jesus's face. It was simply meant to prompt people to consider Jesus as being a man of his time and place, since we are never told he looked distinctive. https://images.app.goo.gl/hwBjdtxbWGoapHCV7 87264971_j...fd1b0d.jpg
there is scientific proof that he existed. He's an actual historical figure, search it up if u want to.
Load More Replies...He looks Middle Eastern in this picture, he just doesn’t fit your stereotypes.
Load More Replies...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."
Napoleon
Rembrandt
Billy The Kid
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."
Frankenstein's Monster
Sandro Botticelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
"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!
Fayum Mummy Portraits
George Washington
Fayum Mummy Portraits
I love Fayum Mummy portraits. Very Romanesque - because they were. So much like the portraits found in Pompeii
Fayum Mummy Portraits
Doomguy
Elizabeth I, Queen Of England
It doesn’t look like the artist did anything different from the original painting
Jan Van Eyck
Sandro Botticelli
Alfred E. Newman (Mad Magazine)
I love how real faces aren't symmetrical, there's so much character in faces and in these portrayals.
This foolish designer deliberately drew the face of Christ ugly while Christ was handsome and majestic, white in complexion and with golden hair and heavenly eyes, as described by the governor of Judaism in a letter to Caesar of Rome.
I'm a Muslim from Malaysia, I don't know about the golden hair, but I agree with you on the white in complexion, majestic, and handsome Levantine man. Prophet Isa A.S (Jesus), Peace be Upon Him.
Load More Replies...I loved this!! Scientifically, Jesus wouldn't look like that, but taking he based his work in the "classical" image of him, it looks very similar!! Nice job!!
Love the idea of what they really look like, but Alfred E Newman looks like..... welll A.E.M.!!
These are amazing, and really quite believable. I liked Napoleon and George Washington. The mummy portraits were incredible, and looked very Arabic.
These were all incredibly well done and really fascinating. I love how the artists still kept some of elements from the original paintings (the Mad magazine kid was the stuff of nightmares though).
I love how real faces aren't symmetrical, there's so much character in faces and in these portrayals.
This foolish designer deliberately drew the face of Christ ugly while Christ was handsome and majestic, white in complexion and with golden hair and heavenly eyes, as described by the governor of Judaism in a letter to Caesar of Rome.
I'm a Muslim from Malaysia, I don't know about the golden hair, but I agree with you on the white in complexion, majestic, and handsome Levantine man. Prophet Isa A.S (Jesus), Peace be Upon Him.
Load More Replies...I loved this!! Scientifically, Jesus wouldn't look like that, but taking he based his work in the "classical" image of him, it looks very similar!! Nice job!!
Love the idea of what they really look like, but Alfred E Newman looks like..... welll A.E.M.!!
These are amazing, and really quite believable. I liked Napoleon and George Washington. The mummy portraits were incredible, and looked very Arabic.
These were all incredibly well done and really fascinating. I love how the artists still kept some of elements from the original paintings (the Mad magazine kid was the stuff of nightmares though).