Wood Stock – “The Night Watch” in Wood

While every wood floor is a work of art, Jakko Woudenberg has taken it to another level by recreating Rembrandt’s famous painting, “The Night Watch,” entirely out of wood.

The idea first came to Woudenberg, who is based in the Netherlands and is known as the Dutch Wood Artist, 25 years ago, while he was still an apprentice parquet craftsman. For almost 20 years, he wondered if the concept was even possible. Eventually, he decided to explore his creative side and embark on the adventure. Initially, he planned to execute the project part-time while continuing his parquet work, but soon realized that at that rate, it might take 10 more years to complete. He then found sponsors for the project, including Bona, which allowed him to focus on the work full-time.

Figuring out how to tackle such an ambitious project was no easy feat. Woudenberg spent two years coming up with a plan before he even started. The pressure for perfection is high when one of the most important paintings in Dutch history.

While the original art was completed in 1642, hundreds of years before computers were invented, technology played a key role in creating “The Night Watch” in wood in 2025. Woudenberg needed a blueprint showing exactly where to put each wooden pixel. Senne Weda, who at the time was studying programming, helped him develop a computer program.

“It is a bit like those paint-by-number kits from years ago,” explains Woudenberg. “The program measures the red, green, and blue (RGB) values. We photographed all the wood species available and entered their RGB values. The system then matches the colors and indicates which wood species comes closest to a particular part of the painting.”

More than 50 species of wood were used in the project. Pieces of the wood were sawn into 1 cm by 1 cm pixels, totaling 195,000 pieces.

“But it’s not just 195,000 pixels; you have to cut more. Including replacements, I think I cut between 250,000 and 270,000 pixels. Most of them I cut myself, and the problem is that you cannot cut them all exactly the same size. That’s impossible. A difference of a tenth or a hundredth of a millimeter doesn’t matter on one pixel, but over 195,000 pixels it becomes a problem,” he notes.

The replacements Woudenberg refers to are 17,000 pixels that had to be removed late in the process because the color or grain weren’t right.

“I was essentially doing something that shouldn’t be possible. We had assigned an RGB value to each wood species, but that’s asking for trouble. Wood has grain and many variations. I knew there would be issues at the end,” he says. “Many people think I used end grain or small, ready-made parquet blocks of 1 cm by 1 cm that I could simply lay down. But because I created a diagonal wood grain, you don’t see end grain but diagonal lines, and because they are placed alternately, it gives depth. If I had used end grain, it would have been a completely different painting.”

After conducting tests with Bona at their headquarters in Sweden, Woudenberg went with Bona Craft Oil 2K for its maintenance properties and resistance to potential wear. He applied the oil at the end to make the colors pop.

During the project, Woudenberg also worked at Regius College Schagen to show students that it’s possible to be creative with craftsmanship. He was there for two years, and says if they wanted to, students were able to help with certain tasks as he created “The Night Watch.”

“I think it’s important because craftsmanship is under pressure everywhere. People still say, ‘no way, you don’t want to work with your hands, do you?’” says Woudenberg. “I find parquet craftsmen are incredibly creative people. We constantly solve problems and take pride in what we make. That’s true not just here in the Netherlands, but worldwide. What we do is special – we literally lay the world under people’s feet.”

At 390 cm high by 500 cm wide, the finished product ended up larger than the original Rembrandt and shows sections that were once cut off the painting. The entire process took Woudenberg four years to complete, and it was unveiled in the spring of 2025 at Amsterdam Amstel Station.

“This version of ‘The Night Watch’ is a stage. People stand on it and share something with the world,” he explains. “Some people are afraid to stand on it. They ask me how I will hang it on the wall. It’s a floor, so it lies on the ground. You may stand on it, you may touch it. This is not about Rembrandt or ‘The Night Watch.’ It’s about connection, craftsmanship, creativity, youth, adventure, and being seen.”

So far, “The Night Watch” has only been shown in Dutch locations. Woudenberg’s goal is to take it international and find a way to bring it to the United States for wood flooring professionals to see and be inspired.

“If I can encourage my colleagues worldwide to think more outside of the box and create more beautiful floors, I will gladly do so,” says Woudenberg. “We have an amazing craft, and anything is possible. That’s what I want to show.”

A masterpiece first dreamed of 25 years ago is now a reality.