If you always wanted to see the painting The Last Supper - one of Leonard da Vinci’s masterpieces - but never had time to go to Italy or you did not get through the queue at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, you now have the possibility to please your art desires online.
Since last night (site is sometimes not reachable) the Italian group HAL9000 has a giga-pixel version of the painting online.
The image size is 16,118,035,591 pixels, 172,181 pixels wide and 93,611 pixels high.
Click on the image below to enlarge
From the press release:
“…The online visualisation system of the highest definition photograph ever in the world (16
billion pixels) will in fact let viewers enlarge and observe any portion of the painting, giving them a clear view of sections down to as little as one millimetre square.
The project started at the beginning of 2007, as a result of the meeting between the Ministry of Cultural Assets and Activities - Milan Landscape and Architectural Assets Office, De Agostini and HAL9000, a worldwide leader in the high-definition photography sector. This photographic technique has two benefits: on one hand, it is a unique instrument of its kind for “monitoring” the state of the painting and, on the other hand, it allows anyone on the Internet, from any part of the world, to observe all the parts and details of the work. Thanks to this technology, HAL9000 can also create large high-quality fine art prints of The Last Supper which offer an overall and detailed visual perception never possible before.
The photograph of The Last Supper, one of the most delicate and protected works in the world, is the result of many months of work and research, during which specific lighting and photography techniques were developed. The protection of the painting was, right from the start, the main concern of the HAL9000 technicians and the Architectural Assets Office; the photography system designed and implemented by HAL9000 was subject to technical inspection at the Environmental Control and Physics Laboratory at the Central Restoration Institute in Rome, which decided the system was totally suitable in accordance with current standards for the safeguarding of artistic works…“
Conspiracy theorists from around the world: Test your stories online now!
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