Digital painting analysis: Het Lam Gods

"Adoration of the Mystic Lamb", Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, 1432.

We are developing methods for virtual restoration and analysis of digitized paintings. In this project, we are focusing on the famous polyptych "Adoration of the Mystic Lamb", also known as the "Ghent Altarpiece" or "Het Lam Gods" in Dutch, painted by brothres Van Eyck in the 15th century and located in the beautiful Sint-Baafs cathedral in Ghent. This ongoing work is since 2009 in close collaboration with

• Prof. Ingrid Daubechies, Duke University

• Em. Prof. Marc De Mey, the Flemish Academic Centre for Science and Arts (VLAC) of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium – KVAB

• Prof. Maximiliaan Martens , Department for Art, Music and Theatre, Ghent University and GICAS centre

• Prof. Ann Dooms and ir Bruno Cornelis, Vrije UNiversiteit Brussel, ETRO-VUB

Related talks

TEDxGent 2012 talk

• "Virtual restoration and analysis of digitized paintings", IEICE ICTF 2013

• Digitazition and Mathematical Analysis of Pearls and Material Representation in “Het Lam Gods”. Het Lam Gods Series of Lectures organized by the Centre for Studying Christian Traditions, Nov 8, 2011, Ghent, Belgium.

Related publications

• A. Pižurica, L. Platisa, T. Ružic, B. Cornelis, A. Dooms, M. Martens, H. Dubois, B. Devolder, M. De Mey and I. Daubechies, “Digital Image Processing of the Ghent Altarpiece", IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 112-122, July 2015.

• A. Latic and A. Pizurica, “Dictionary learning techniques for painter style identification: case study on the Ghent Altarpiece,” IEICE International Conference Information and Communication Technology Forum ICTF, 2014, May 28-30, Poznan, Poland

• T. Ružic, A. Pižurica, “Context aware image inpainting with application to virtual restoration of old paintings,” IEICE International Conference Information and Communication Technology Forum ICTF, 2013, 29-31 May, Sarajevo, Bosnia (accepted).

• A. Pižurica, LJ. Platiša, T. Ružic, B. Cornelis, A. Dooms, M. Martens, M. De Mey, I. Daubechies, “Virtual Restoration and Mathematical Analysis of Pearls In Van Eyck’s Adoration of The Mystic Lamb,” in Het Lam Gods Series of Lectures, D. Praet and M. Martens, Eds, to appear.

• B. Cornelis, T. Ružic, E. Gezels, A. Dooms, A. Pižurica, L. Platiša, J. Cornelis, M. Martens, M. De Mey and I. Daubechies, “Crack detection and inpainting for virtual restoration of paintings: the case of the Ghent Altarpiece,” Signal Processing, vol. 93, no. 3, pp. 605-619, March, 2013.

• L. Platiša, B. Cornelis, T. Ružic, A. Pižurica, A. Dooms, M. Martens, M. De Mey, I. Daubechies, “Spatiogram features to characterize pearls and beads and other small ball-shaped objects in paintings,” in Vision and Material, M. De Mey, M. Martens, and C. Stroo, Eds, Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium, 2012.

• M. De Mey, M. Martens, A. Pižurica, A. Dooms, I. Daubechies, L. Platiša, T. Ružic and B. Cornelis, “Highlights as Anchor Points in Jan van Eyck’s Inverse Optics,” Van Eyck Studies Colloquim, Sept 19-21, 2012, Brussels, Belgium

• LJ. Platiša, B. Cornelis, T. Ružic, A. Pižurica, A. Dooms, M. Martens, M. De Mey, I. Daubechies, “Spatiogram Features to Characterize Pearls in the Ghent Altarpiece,” Van Eyck Studies Colloquim, Sept 19-21, 2012, Brussels, Belgium

• T. Ružic, B. Cornelis, L. Platiša, A. Pižurica, A. Dooms, W. Philips, M. Martens, M. De Mey, I. Daubechies, Virtual restoration of the Ghent Altarpiece using crack detection and inpainting, in Proc. Advanced Concepts for Intelligent Vision Systems (ACIVS 2011), Ghent, Belgium, pp. 417-428.

• L. Platiša, B. Cornelis, T. Ružic, A. Pižurica, A. Dooms, M. Martens, M. De Mey, I. Daubechies, “Spatiogram features to characterize pearls in paintings,” In 18th IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP 2011), 11-14 Sept. 2011, pp. 801-804.

Some examples and illustrations

Original image with cracks	Virtual restoration result

A selection of painted pearls (top) and their digital signatures presented as spatiogram plots (bottom).