Photo-real portraits of Roman emperors

[Maciamo]

Using the neural-net tool Artbreeder, Photoshop and historical references, Daniel Voshart have created photoreal portraits of Roman Emperors. For this project, I have transformed, or restored (cracks, noses, ears etc.) 800 images of busts to make the 54 emperors of The Principate (27 BC to 285 AD). He posted about it on Medium and explained in detail how he recreated the face of each emperor one by one. The realism is absolutely amazing!

[Ygorcs]

Amazing work! Very realistic features and hair and eye colors. Really life-like. I just wondered if some of them were really as darker-skinned as he depicted them, some also have a brownish skin tone that I don't think is very realistic, I mean, it's a sort of pale grey-ish brown that you just don't see (usually) in Mediterranean people nor in Near Eastern and North African people, who even when very tanned or even brown-skinned have more "reddish" or bronze-like tones, not that kind of pale grey-ish brown of his depiction of Numerian (for example). I'd also like to know why he depicted Numerians' father Carus so dark when he was probably from Gaul, along with some other emperors. Is there any evidence that they had ancestry from other parts of the empire?

Btw did Hostilian (what a name...) really have such Hollywood looks?

[real expert]

Amazing work! Very realistic features and hair and eye colors. Really life-like. I just wondered if some of them were really as darker-skinned as he depicted them, some also have a brownish skin tone that I don't think is very realistic, I mean, it's a sort of pale grey-ish brown that you just don't see (usually) in Mediterranean people nor in Near Eastern and North African people, who even when very tanned or even brown-skinned have more "reddish" or bronze-like tones, not that kind of pale grey-ish brown of his depiction of Numerian (for example). I'd also like to know why he depicted Numerians' father Carus so dark when he was probably from Gaul, along with some other emperors. Is there any evidence that they had ancestry from other parts of the empire?

Btw did Hostilian (what a name...) really have such Hollywood looks?

Believe it or not there will be no shortage of people that will complain about the photo- real portraits depicting Romans as Anglo-Saxon-like instead of proper olive -skinned Mediterraneans.

Many insist that ancient Romans looked like the very swarthy Italo- Americans from the Mafia movies and that real Italians are never pale-rosy pink skinned people. So probably the artist who made these portraits didn't want them to appear too pale. However, I think the creation of the photo-real reconstruction is very nicely done. Besides, the ethnic Roman emperors on the portraits are very Italian looking.

[Jovialis]

Believe it or not there will be no shortage of people that will complain about the photo- real portraits depicting Romans as Anglo-Saxon-like instead of proper olive -skinned Mediterraneans.

Many insist that ancient Romans looked like the very swarthy Italo- Americans from the Mafia movies and that real Italians are never pale-rosy pink skinned people. So probably the artist who made these portraits didn't want them to appear too pale. However, I think the creation of the photo-real reconstruction is very nicely done. Besides, the ethnic Roman emperors on the portraits are very Italian looking.

Italians are heterogenous in terms of phenotype, even those from the same region, and even family. My brother looks different from me, and my sisters. But genetically, we are the same. Ironically, he is the most "northern", yet is the darkest. But so are many other groups, example of two brothers that look different:

Donald Trump Jr. has more of a "Roman" look, compared to Eric:

[Dimanto Ruben]

Italians are heterogenous in terms of phenotype, even those from the same region, and even family. My brother looks different from me, and my sisters. But genetically, we are the same. Ironically, he is the most "northern", yet is the darkest. But so are many other groups, example of two brothers that look different:

Donald Trump Jr. has more of a "Roman" look, compared to Eric:

That is true indeed, though I think this is true in every family except extremely endogamous ones. I look a lot like my Italian father actually, even though my head-shape is longer and more similar to his father and he's a bit darker than me. My other full Italian half siblings look much more like their mom actually and usually people would think I'm fully Italian even though I'm half Dutch.

By the way these two guys look German.

[Archetype0ne]

Italians are heterogenous in terms of phenotype, even those from the same region, and even family. My brother looks different from me, and my sisters. But genetically, we are the same. Ironically, he is the most "northern", yet is the darkest. But so are many other groups, example of two brothers that look different:

Donald Trump Jr. has more of a "Roman" look, compared to Eric:

Do we know their haplogroup?

I can see a similarity between Edit: Eric Trump ( Its obvious I dont know their names xD) nose and mine. Although we differ on the forehead, hairline, cheekbones and chin.

[Angela]

Do we know their haplogroup?

I can see a similarity between Edit: Eric Trump ( Its obvious I dont know their names xD) nose and mine. Although we differ on the forehead, hairline, cheekbones and chin.

I believe I read somewhere that Trump is I1. Makes sense given his father's family came from Germany. The mother's line is from Scotland, I believe.

Interesting how both of them came out with certain "Roman" looking noses, but that doesn't come from Trump. Their mother is Czech.

[Salento]

Is it just my impression, but did they make Augustus look like James Bond (Daniel Craig)?

[Ygorcs]

Is it just my impression, but did they make Augustus look like James Bond (Daniel Craig)?

Well, I ALWAYS thought Daniel Craig looked like some Roman busts (probably I even thought so because I had the busts of Augustus in mind subconsciously). lol

[Salento]

... imho:

[real expert]

... imho:

In my opinion that is based on how Sueton described Augustus, he had most likely sandy blond hair. Hence, this hair color is a bit too dark.

[Salento]

In my opinion that is based on how Sueton described Augustus, he had most likely sandy blond hair. Hence, this hair color is a bit too dark.

Suetonius never met Augustus!

... older:

[halfalp]

Suetonius never met Augustus!

... older:

He has in both photos an extremely Frenchy face. I can imagine it with a right earring. Looking like a french rockstar. Like a fusion between Alain Delon and Bertrand Cantat.

[Angela]

He has in both photos an extremely Frenchy face. I can imagine it with a right earring. Looking like a french rockstar. Like a fusion between Alain Delon and Bertrand Cantat.

Well, Alain Delon had a Corsican grandmother...

I still don't really see it though.



Maybe an uglier version of Stefano Casiraghi?



The skull shape and face shape is right but the nose is wrong.


One of the sons have a bit of it too.



I agree with Carlos. All of the recreations of Hadrian are terrible. They all make him look like an Arab, which he didn't.

[Angela]

... imho:

That's much better. I have no idea how the four busts shown above could produce Daniel Craig. :)

The artist didn't get the memo, I guess, that Republican Era Romans looked like Spaniards and North/Central Italians, not like Scandinavians. :)

Now, this baker from Bagnone isn't all that far off, imo. He would be called "biondo" btw. Different definitions in different places.

[Jovialis]

Interesting comments made by the artist on his twitter page.

Turns out he wasn't trying to make Augustus blonde, but rather dirty-blonde leaning towards brown. He was actually trying to gray his hair due to his age, but the filter he used made it look blonder than it was supposed to be:

Some of the confusion may stem from the fact that I aged the busts in an effort not to romanticize history. I grayed Augustus' hair.The mosaic filter may have made it look blond by blending the pixels. Dirty-blond leaning brown with blue eyes. That was my goal.

https://twitter.com/dvoshart/status/1288465640966291462

[Dimanto Ruben]

Interesting comments made by the artist on his twitter page.

Turns out he wasn't trying to make Augustus blonde, but rather dirty-blonde leaning towards brown. He was actually trying to gray his hair due to his age, but the filter he used made it look blonder than it was supposed to be:

Augustus looks Italian imho.

[Joey37]

Is it just me, or does Nero have an incredibly punchable face?

[Jovialis]

Here is Augustus' haircolor according to the retored version of his painted statue. It looks like a light brown to me:

[Jovialis]

Here is Augustus' haircolor according to the retored version of his painted statue. It looks like a light brown to me:

My hair color, back when I had longer hair. It looks darker when it is shorter. Either that, or the genes switched off, I was 19 in this photo, and haven't had long hair since.

[Dimanto Ruben]

Here is Augustus' haircolor according to the retored version of his painted statue. It looks like a light brown to me:

Going by Pompeii's depictions of Roman men, they were much darker in complexion than their women

[Carlos]

I have felt identified with Dacio or Decio when enlarging the photo it is blurred. I'll see who it is.


That of different skin tones does not mean anything to me in any sense but well I see that in more modern or multiracial countries that take it very up to date or give it more importance, here it is difficult to fit and export.

If everyone had the same skin tone it would be weird and abnormal, I would suspect them, mmmm

[Dimanto Ruben]

Using the neural-net tool Artbreeder, Photoshop and historical references, Daniel Voshart have created photoreal portraits of Roman Emperors. For this project, I have transformed, or restored (cracks, noses, ears etc.) 800 images of busts to make the 54 emperors of The Principate (27 BC to 285 AD). He posted about it on Medium and explained in detail how he recreated the face of each emperor one by one. The realism is absolutely amazing!

This one is very badly done. He looks more British now instead of Italian. Especially the mouth region is off as well as the eyes and ears.

[Stuvanè]

Appreciable attempt and rather realistic results in my opinion. You can see very current and common "Italian" faces among the ranks. Especially between Claudius and Nerva there are physiognomic traits found especially in central/northern Italy, from internal Lazio to go back to Umbria, Marche and Tuscany up to Romagna

[Angela]

Appreciable attempt and rather realistic results in my opinion. You can see very current and common "Italian" faces among the ranks. Especially between Claudius and Nerva there are physiognomic traits found especially in central/northern Italy, from internal Lazio to go back to Umbria, Marche and Tuscany up to Romagna

I recognized that stretch of the emperors too; the remains of the heartland, perhaps. :)

There's definitely something subjective about what's going on. There's nothing written about the coloring of the hair of some of them, so I don't know why he chose to make them blonde. Also don't know how Vespasian, having seen numerous busts of him, turned out looking a bit too much like our American president LBJ. :)

Also, why on earth would he make Marcus Aurelius look admixed with Moor or something? Just because he was born in Spain? He came from a family of colonists; even if he had a bit of Spanish admixture he wouldn't turn out looking like that.

Part of it, perhaps, is the very nature of a program which "averages" the features. You're going to get a very "neutral", bland, not necessarily "real" look. When they average out the faces of Europeans by region you can barely tell them apart minus some of the East Europeans.

Still, generally on the right track I think, and fun to look at...