Materials scientist Robert Erdmann is working on image processing of paintings by artist Jheronimus Bosch. He developed a website which reveals Bosch’s paintings in intimate detail using new synced viewer technology.
Current NIAS Fellow, and ‘computer wizard’ Robert Erdmann is a member of the Bosch Research and Conservation Project (BRCP). As part of his work for this art historical project, Erdmann designed and built a website to showcase the different elements of image processing that he has been working on this semester at NIAS. It features ultra-high resolutions of the paintings of Bosch in Venice, for which the project received a Getty grant to undertake conservation/restoration.
About the Website
On the website http://boschproject.org/ one can discover Jheronimus Bosch’s paintings in intimate detail using new synced viewer technology to reveal the paintings and what lies beneath.The website was created with multiple goals in mind. First and foremost, the innovative synchronized image viewers will serve as practical tools during the conservation interventions for the Bosch panels in Venice. X-radiographs will be added when they become available. These image viewers are a significant advance for the fields of conservation/restoration and technical art history. This site also serves as a pilot for a much larger web application that will be launched in December 2015 for the opening of the Jheronimus Bosch exhibition in ’s-Hertogenbosch.
About the Bosch Research and Conservation Project
Jheronimus Bosch’s artistic heritage consists of about 45 paintings and drawings spread across 2 continents, 10 countries, 18 cities, and 20 collections. In 2016 it will be 500 years since Bosch died, and to commemorate this, his hometown of ’s-Hertogenbosch will hold an exhibition of his works. Since 2010, the Bosch Research and Conservation Project (BRCP) has been studying and documenting these works, using modern, standardized methods. In a collaborative effort and with many participating museums, an international, interdisciplinary group of scholars and scientists has been scrutinizing his paintings and drawings minutely.
The project was on the Dutch eight o’clock news, and in the national newspaper (NRC Handelsblad) too.