Need a break from doom scrolling? Download the Google Arts & Culture app and try its “Art Selfie” feature, which Google describes as “a playful way to discover art.” Upload a photo and the app searches thousands of artworks to find your classic-art doppelgängers. The app launched in 2018 but remains popular. I spent an evening finding my matches and learning about the art. Teen Vogue explains how it works:
Here’s how it works: Snap a photo of yourself and let the app do the rest. Unfortunately, the platform doesn’t support photo uploads from your camera roll, so you have to be selfie-ready (and in good lighting, of course.)
After your photo is taken, the app shows you your artistic twins — along with a percentage that denotes how good the match is. You’re then presented with side-by-side images: you and your portrait doppelgänger, just ready to be Instagrammed.
I’m embarrassed to show my classic art doppelgängers — the artworks featured many titles with phrases like “old woman” or “old lady,” which honestly made me laugh. But the app has another cool feature called “Pet Portraits” that finds your “pet’s match in art.” Here’s what the app found for my dog Henry Rollins.
Turns out he had lots of accurate matches. Small, short-snouted, scruffy-textured terrier mixes were apparently all the rage in Renaissance paintings. I’ve posted my favorite match as the cover image — a dog from “The Theological Virtues: Faith, Charity, Hope” by an Italian (Umbrian) Painter around 1500. The app provides each artwork’s title, artist (if known), timeframe, dimensions, type, medium, and more. It also links to the art’s repository for additional details. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website revealed that my dog’s doppelgänger is Faith’s companion and symbolizes fidelity. The painting features allegorical figures of Faith, Charity, and Hope, each with an attribute (Faith has a dog, Charity has a pelican, Hope has a phoenix) against a sprawling landscape. It would have originally decorated a high-backed bench, day-bed, or wainscotting.
The Met also included the painting’s exhibition history: it appeared in Siena’s “Antica arte senese” exhibit (April-August 1904) and The Met’s “Painting in Renaissance Siena: 1420-1500” exhibit (December 1988-March 1989). Getting a mini art history lesson from a fun doppelgänger game is seriously cool!
Go here to download Art Selfie and find your classic art doppelgänger or your pet’s! Use the original Art Selfie, not the updated “Art Selfie 2,” which uses generative AI to insert your image into artworks. I’m not a fan of generative AI, so I won’t recommend version 2. The original version is amusing enough already. Enjoy!
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Previously:
• A Renaissance painting found in an elderly woman’s home
• Comedian provides hilarious commentary for Renaissance paintings
• Run a Renaissance art guild in this Leonardo da Vinci simulator
