Flanders, a virtual reality project lets you walk inside a Bouts painting

Who has never dreamed of stepping inside a painting? In Belgium they have managed to make the dream a reality: it happens in Leuven, where through a virtual reality project it allows users to enter theLast Supper, a work from 1464-1468 by Dieric Bouts (Haarlem, c. 1415 - Leuven, 1475), preserved in St. Peter’s Church in Leuven, Flanders, where an augmented reality project was launched back in May to help explore the painting in depth. Now, however, it is possible to walk inside it, and this is thanks to HoloLens 2 lenses.

This is a helmet equipped with a miniature computer, which projects 3-D images onto the lenses of the glasses paired with it. The visitor continues to see the surroundings, but the 3D image is superimposed on the real one, becoming an integral part of the experience. The HoloLens 2 thus make it possible to walk through theLast Supper and see it as if one were in the painting itself, analyzing it in minute detail. One thus appreciates small glimpses of a 15th-century city, probably Leuven, in an almost familiar, everyday dimension. This is the first time that a cultural attraction in Belgium has used this kind of device: it is a project with which Leuven, European Capital of Innovation 2020, reconfirms itself as a city in the vanguard.

A gem of Brabant Gothic, St. Peter’s Church(more on the building here) holds a second masterpiece by Bouts, the Triptych of the Martyrdom of St. Erasmus, commissioned at the same time for the same location as theLast Supper, as well as masterpieces by Jan Borman and Rogier van der Weyden. All these works are now enhanced thanks to the restoration of the interior of the church (which is what they were made for), and thanks to HoloLens 2 technology.

Ph. Credit Dirk Leemans

Flanders, a virtual reality project lets you walk inside a Bouts painting

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