Bringing art and science together to inspire innovation
Combining expertise and infrastructure, the Center unites academic researchers and students from Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering, Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences, and the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, with conservators, curators, and conservation scientists from the Art Institute of Chicago. Together we conduct scholarly inquiry and advance conservation practices.
A semi-portable CT scanner for analyzing objects’ geometry and density.
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Non-invasively visualize the internal and external geometries, measure the size, and calculate the density.
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Visualize the 3D parallax of holograms and analysis of materials properties. Collaboration: MIT Museum
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Capture the light field of the hologram to visualize the dynamic parallax effect of holograms. Combine multiple non-invasive techniques to better understand the chemical and physical structure of holograms.
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Identify and visualize the palette of pigments used in a work of art
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Imaging technique producing elemental distribution images for each chemical element present in the entire object analyzed.
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Were two version of the same painting created using similar materials?
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Pentimenti or no pentimenti? In depth scientific investigation of the pigments used in the second version of Orazio Gentileschi’s Danaë to understand variations in the Italian master’s painting technique.
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A study about the materials used by Puerto Rican artists, the provenance of these materials and influence of the political transition in the artists' creation process.
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External Project Collaboration: Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico Date: February 2020
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Examine and analyze a large corpus of Tissot’s paintings using state-of-the-art scientific analysis at both the macro- and micro- scale to rediscover James Tissot’s paint technique.
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A collaborative multidisciplinary approach on how materials and techniques used by James Tissot fit between his academic training and the more avant-garde movements of his time.
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Study of plant gums used as paint binders in cultural heritage: gum arabic, tragacanth and fruit tree gums.
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Methodology based on partial enzymatic digestion followed by MALDI-MS analysis : glycomic approach
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Why do soap bubbles form on O'Keefe's paintings?
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The study soap formation on oil paintings produced by Georgia O’Keeffe will enable scientists to make the best decisions for conservation of O’Keeffe’s work.
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Discover what is hidden underneath Picasso's famous Blue Period painting.
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Using various techniques, another painting hidden beneath the visible surface of La miséreuse accroupie by Pablo Picasso was revealed.
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How were portraits painted on mummies and what is inside the mummies?
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Tracing the use of Egyptian blue led to new insights into ancient painting techniques during the Roman period.
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Comparing bronze alloys to trace sculptures to foundries.
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A better understanding of sculptural editions and of the role of different foundries in artists’ practice was achieved and shared as a result of this study.
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Roman Law text was discovered by fusing visible hyperspectral and x-ray fluorescence imaging
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By fusing visible hyperspectral imaging with x-ray fluorescence, researchers safely reveal Roman Law code hidden inside of a 16th century bookbinding.
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A study comparing the palette of this enigmatic composition with that of a recently discovered underlying landscape.
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A clearer understanding of what role this painting may have played in Gauguin's oeuvre will be achieved using non-invasive analytical techniques.
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XRF images are fused with high resolution RGB images to obtain a high resolution XRF image.
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In this project, we propose a new XRF image super-resolution scanning method to obtain a high spatial resolution scan with a high Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR).
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3D hyperspectral data cube contains that open new opportunities to apply powerful multivariate analysis for data evaluation
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Learn how we are expanding our research toolkit by constructing low-cost, multimodal hyperspectral microscopy instruments.
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An attractive molecular characterization tool to use at low light levels suitable for artwork and directly in a museum laboratory.
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We design software and optimal conditions of capture to image watermarks and internal structure in archival paper.
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Our novel watermark imaging method uses visible light photographs and requires only a camera, a computer, and a light table to implement. We hope to generate images that rival those produced with the standard technique of beta-radiography in terms of efficiency of capture and accuracy.
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A ground-breaking interactive augmented reality (AR) visualization was created for the exhibition "Paint the Eyes Softer at the Block Museum"
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To our knowledge, the Block Museum was the first museum in the country to make use of this new open source tool. The result is a mobile application that can be downloaded to an Apple smartphone or tablet. Viewers are able to use the device to “scan” the mummy in real time and in motion, walking around the mummy display case to see on their devices various internal details revealed by the CT scan.
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Using a mobile device camera to capture dense surface normal vector maps of objects
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SfS can greatly benefit the conservation community by providing a user-friendly and cost-effective solution for 3D surface scanning.
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In this project we develop a streamlined framework for 3D capture of cultural heritage using photometric stereo and photogrammetric information.
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We have shown a significant improvement in both light source position estimation and normal map recovery compared to previous uncalibrated photometric stereo techniques.
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Learn more about our near-light illumination model for image relighting and 3D shape recovery.
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We correct the near-light distance effect to provide much more uniformly lit images that yield more appealing image for relighting applications. Furthermore, we use our near-light model for more accurate photometric stereo calculations of surface normals, eliminating the “potato-chip” shaped surface reconstruction error that results from violating the far-light assumption.
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Is this lamp an original medieval work or a 19th century imitation?
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A study of this enameled glass mosque lamp confirmed its authentic Medieval origins.
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Gauguin's previously unknown printing techniques identified and duplicated.
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Thanks to computational imaging and photometric stereo techniques, Gauguin’s printmaking and transfer processes have been understood and replicated.
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Surprising materials and why they were used.
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We discovered the intimate link between the material properties and the expressive content in the paintings of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, an innovative and influential Bauhaus artist.
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Archaeological materials from the site of Tadmekka in northern Mali are investigated to better understand the use of precious metals in pre-modern West Africa.
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The combination of chemical, imaging and experimental archaeology studies will provide major advances in our research understanding of precious metals extraction, use and trade, and monetary cultures of pre-modern West Africa.
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