Travel back in time and interact with the famous painter.
We already know VR has the stunning ability to teleport you to new locations from the comfort of your home, letting you drop into worlds you can only dream of visiting. But aside from teleportation, VR can also be a time machine, taking you back into the past to experience key moments with historic figures—like hanging with master painter Rembrandt.
Oculus Studios has teamed up with VR studio Force Field to bring us a Gear VR experience that lets you travel back in time to meet one of the world’s most iconic artists himself.
Now available to download for free, you’ll find yourself in 17th century Amsterdam immersed in the stunning scenic home environment of the Dutch master painter. The experience places you right in the middle of key events in the life of Rembrandt, including the creation of one of the most valuable paintings of all time: “The Night Watch”.
“One of the cool things about VR is that we can bring history to life in a very immersive way.” says Arthur Houtman, CEO of Force Field. “It’s as if you are actually there, up-close with Rembrandt, in his atelier, in his house, as he interacts with you and lets you understand why his work was so controversial in that day and age.”
Oculus approached Force Field to develop an experience which shows how lifelike VR can look on a mobile device. By merging live actors with computer generated environments, the studio created an intriguing new spin on a historical artist experience. The experience stars Dutch TV and theatre actor, Reinout Bussemaker as Rembrandt and Derek de Lint, (Poltergeist the Legacy) as Jakob, one of the militia men portrayed in Rembrandt’s famous ‘Night Watch’ painting.
Meeting Rembrandt: Master of Reality is much different from the VR artist experiences we’ve covered in the past like Dali, Bosch, and Bruegel. This Rembrandt Gear VR app lets you meet the artist instead of jumping into the painting themselves.
The experience is free and can be downloaded from the Oculus Gear VR store.
Love master painters in VR? Check out our mixed reality series created in collaboration with SoulPancake below where we show Tilt Brush artists recreating famous works of art from start to finish.
