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Bach’s face revealed in artist’s extraordinary 3D sculptures

16 December 2020, 11:48 | Updated: 16 December 2020, 13:16

This 3D colourised portrait of Bach is incredibly lifelike. Picture: Hadi Karimi

By Sian Moore

Is this how the great Baroque composer could have looked in the flesh?

Johann Sebastian Bach is the latest composer to be depicted in a sculpted, 3D colourised portrait by visual artist Hadi Karimi.

Karimi’s collection of lifelike renderings show a modern take on the German composer’s only verifiably authentic portrait, revealing what he could look like if he was alive today.

The artist based his remarkable reconstruction on Elias Gottlob Haussmann’s 1746 painting and an unverified skeleton, which was exhumed from a graveyard in Leipzig in 1894 and is said to have belonged to the Baroque composer.

Artist Hadi Karimi has created a lifelike portrait of Bach. Picture: Hadi Karimi

Using a programme called ZBrush, and adding colour texture through Substance Painter, Hadi was able to create his realistic portrait.

Speaking to Classic FM, Karimi revealed his motivation behind the project: “We grew up with all these beautiful symphonies and memorable melodies, but do we know the minds behind them?

“Sometimes we remember them by just a name and if we’re lucky there’s a painting or a black and white photo from centuries ago that could barely show us what they actually looked like.”

By using a programme called ZBrush, and adding colour texture through Substance Painter, artist Hadi was able to create the portrait. Picture: Hadi Karimi

The artist added: “In this series of facial reconstructions, not only did I gather the references like photographs, paintings, and life and death masks, but also took a step further to study their personality so that I could reflect that in their facial expressions.

“I hope that I did them justice.”