Is Your Face A Work of Fine Art?

People are going crazy for Google’s Art & Culture App That Matches Your Face to a Painting.

You may have noticed the deluge of images on social media of your friends posing side-by-side with a painted portrait. The trend is the convergence of machine learning, facial recognition and art that come together in a new feature Google’s Art & Culture app.

The feature allows a user to compare a selfie against a database of fine art and return side-by-side matches.

Google’s Art and Culture app has been around since 2016, but this new experimental selfie feature has skyrocketed the app to the most download free app on the App Store according to AppAnnie, an app metrics site.

People love sharing selfies and “What ____ am I?” quizzes and tests on social media. The Art & Culture app answers both of these viral requirements and also makes us look smart and cultured—a social media perfect storm!

How does Google’s Art & Culture Facial Recognition Work?

The app relies on facial recognition technology, a biometric identification system that analyzes features of faces to differentiate them from one another.

After submitting a selfie, Google’s Art & Culture app scans the photo to detect a face and identify the unique facial features that distinguish one person from another. This “faceprint” could include facial proportions such as the distance between someone’s eyes, shapes or sizes of mouths, noses, hair lines and more.

The faceprint is then verified against the Google Cultural Institute database, which is comprised of more than 70,000 works of art hanging in museums. The app then returns values with percentage of likeness to the faceprint created.