The digital Rembrandt: a new way to mock art, made by fools | Jonathan Jones

So an app has come up with a ‘Rembrandt’ portrait – and it’s a travesty of surface trickery. No computer art could match the emotional heft of a human original

I’ve been away for a few days and missed the April Fool stories in Friday’s papers – until I spotted the one about a team of Dutch “data analysts, developers, engineers and art historians” creating a new painting using digital technology: a virtual Rembrandt painted by a Rembrandt app. Hilarious! But wait, this was too late to be an April Fool’s joke. This is a real thing that is actually happening.

Rembrandt's art has meaning as a historical record of his encounters with the people, beliefs and anguishes of his time

Can a computer replicate the humanity of Rembrandt’s portrait of his lover​?​ It would have to go to bed with her first

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