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Google App Matches Your Face To A Famous Painting

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Google's Art and Culture app is transforming the art world.

It connects your selfie with a famous portrait in a museum, anywhere in the world.

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Last week, developers added a feature to the app that matches your selfie with a historical piece of art.

And museums love this because it also links the portraits to their collections.

The WJZ newsroom decided to give the popular Google Arts and Culture app a try.

Reactions varied as people saw their matches. Some were disappointed, while others were pleased.

The app is driven by curiosity in a selfie society, connecting people with famous artwork dating back centuries.

The program allows users to find their art form doppelganger by simply taking a selfie.

This app is really boosting museums' visibility around the world. Right here at the Baltimore Museum of Art, they've had 11,000 matches just in the last week.

"The match may be surprising and provocative, on one hand, and maybe they are so compelled by the match, they make plans to go to the museum, and if that travel plan took them to Baltimore, that would be fabulous," said Christopher Bedford, Baltimore Museum of Art director.

Bedford is thrilled to see this app drive attention to museums' galleries.

"The idea behind Google's involvement is much more than we have been able to muster as a museum community, so I think we should be very grateful to them," he said.

The app is grabbing a whole new generation to create a new dialogue.

"Rather than try and teach the value of art through an antiquated language, we are using the language of right now," Bedford said.

A language connecting audiences to art around the world, inviting them to explore and discover different periods and cultures.

This free app has been around since 2016, but just this past week, when they added the selfie matching option, it became the most popular app.

From using it here at WJZ, we can see why.

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