AkzoNobel and Rijksmuseum Paint a Clearer Picture for Operation Night Watch

AkzoNobel and Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum are advancing the next phase of their groundbreaking Operation Night Watch partnership, which centers on scientific research into color, light and paint. Rembrandt's masterpiece is undergoing the largest and most innovative conservation effort in its history. The two partners are combining their knowledge and expertise to preserve and restore the painting in the best possible manner. As the collaboration gains momentum, AkzoNobel and Rijksmuseum have identified three key areas of focus. [caption id="attachment_99527" align="aligncenter"] Operation Night Watch. Photo: Rijksmuseum[/caption] Klaas Kruithof, Chief Technology Officer at AkzoNobel, says: "We are thrilled to work with Rijksmuseum on such a groundbreaking project. "By blending the old with the new, we can think differently, act differently and use our innovative technical knowledge to go beyond expectations, helping to bring entirely new possibilities to painting conservation." Robert van Langh, Head of Conservation and Science at Rijksmuseum, adds: "From the outset we knew that the partnership with AkzoNobel in Operation Night Watch made perfect sense. Now we are beginning to delve into the fine details of how we can move forward from a scientific perspective. We share a particular interest in color and paint aging, and we are confident that the projects we will work on will bring Night Watch to a new perspective and level of understanding." [caption id="attachment_99537" align="aligncenter"] Experts from Rijksmuseum and AkzoNobel gathered at the company's facility in Sassenheim, Netherlands, to discuss the exciting opportunities of the Operation Night Watch partnership.[/caption]  

Scientists from both partners plan to work on the following projects over the next two years:

• Recreating Rembrandt's impastos to better understand how he created his unique paint formulations (impasto is the technique or process of applying paint to a surface so thickly—often in dark tones—that it can create an almost three-dimensional effect). The exact formula remains a mystery.
• Designing special color calibration to advance the photographing and digitization of paintings. The system will also be fine-tuned to the specific colors used in Night Watch, which has a particularly distinctive dark color palette.
• Improving the viewing experience of Night Watch by utilizing AkzoNobel's latest virtual color display technologies, taking into account the effects of lighting conditions and the environment on color perception.

Recreating Rembrandt's impastos

Understanding how Rembrandt created his famous impastos will involve gaining a better understanding of the relationship between rheology and practical paint application behavior (rheology is the study of the flow of matter, primarily in liquid form, but also as soft solids). Three different pigmented impasto paints found in Rembrandt's work will be selected and examined from various angles.

Designing special color calibration

Color calibration is the focus of the second project, which aims to overcome a common problem in professionally shot photographs of Night Watch and other 17th-century Dutch paintings. These photographs tend to consistently overexpose the dark areas of the paintings. This has resulted in photographs in museum catalogs and other publications misrepresenting these paintings. The goal here is to design a special color calibration target for photographing 17th-century Dutch paintings in order to achieve significant improvement.

Improving the viewing experience

This project will draw on AkzoNobel's expertise in color and light reflection. Night Watch's paint is aged and many details are difficult to discern. To help improve the viewing experience, the plan is to use physics-based simulations to analyze hyperspectral and spectroradiometer data and propose modifications that could be used to improve the visibility of the image under local lighting. Eric Kirchner, Senior Color Scientist at AkzoNobel, says: "This is an incredible opportunity for us to contribute to a historical project with our color expertise. Night Watch is an iconic painting not only in Dutch culture, but in all of art history. Being involved demonstrates our standing as a reference in the sector." Launched in July 2019, Operation Night Watch uses a series of groundbreaking tools and techniques to conduct large-scale research and conservation of Rembrandt's famous painting, which has been placed in a specially constructed glass chamber. A project team consisting of specialist researchers, conservators and restorers at Rijksmuseum works in close collaboration with museums and universities in the Netherlands and abroad, including color specialists from AkzoNobel.