Google app matches your face to a famous painting


Save Story

Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SAN FRANCISCO (CNNMoney) — Are you more of a Botticelli or a Van Gogh?

A new feature in the Google Arts & Culture app reveals how your selfie may resemble a historical painting.

The app went viral this weekend after users discovered the entertaining feature that analyzes your face and matches it to historical artwork. The app pulls from Google's digital collection of artworks from museums around the world.

The feature rolled out to the app on iOS and Android last month. But users — even some big names such as Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, musician Pete Wentz, and actors Felicia Day and Kumail Nanjiani — shared their results on news feeds.

The app became the top downloaded iPhone app over the weekend, and landed in the top 10 on Android, according to analytics firm App Annie.

To find your fine art doppelganger, open the Google Arts & Culture app and scroll until you see the "Is your portrait in a museum?" feature. Tap "get started," and you'll be guided through the process.

It's currently only available in the U.S.

Google said the experimental feature uses computer vision technology to scan facial features and extract data to match with paintings. The company said it won't use data from photos for any other purpose but to match it with images in its catalog. It only stores selfies for the time it takes to find matches, Google said.

The selfie feature is similar to other apps that use matching technology to find lookalikes. Microsoft's What Dog app can identify and classify dogs based on photos uploaded to the app.

The Google Arts & Culture app is part of the Google Cultural Institute, which provides information about artists, scientists and historical figures from 1,000 institutions worldwide.

Copyright 2018 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Most recent Science stories

Related topics

Selena Larson

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
    Newsletter Signup

    KSL Weather Forecast

    KSL Weather Forecast
    Play button