PARIS, Feb 1 — Every day, some 30,000 people flock to the Louvre in Paris to admire the Mona Lisa. Some of them might even wonder what they would look like painted by the hand of Leonardo da Vinci. Now, they can find out, thanks to the Da Vinci Face platform, which generates portraits in the style of the Italian painter thanks to artificial intelligence.
Simply sign up to Da Vinci Face by entering your email address to upload the photograph you would like to see transformed into a Renaissance portrait. However, users should be careful not to pick just any photograph! The platform recommends choosing one where you are posing alone, in front of a neutral coloured background.
Also, for maximum authenticity, be sure not to smile too much in the picture. Choose one where you have an expression as enigmatic as that of the real Mona Lisa. In 2005, researchers at the University of Amsterdam determined that her smile was 83 per cent happy, 9 per cent disgusted, 6 per cent fearful and 2 per cent angry.
The Da Vinci Face platform then transforms your selfie into a portrait worthy of Leonardo da Vinci. To achieve this feat, it relies on deep learning, a technology based on artificial neural networks. Algorithms analyse 500 million parameters to identify the main characteristics of the person posing. These are then regenerated, matching as closely as possible the techniques used by Leonardo da Vinci during the Renaissance.
The platform was created by Mathema, a technology start-up based in Florence. “We decided to revive the splendor of the Italian Renaissance, recreating portraits in the style of the Grand Masters of the past through the most recent and sophisticated AI technologies. We decided to start with [the] most famous polymath genius in history: Leonardo DaVinci,” Massimiliano Bellini, spokesperson for Mathema, told The Art Newspaper.
The company recently received funding from certain cultural associations in Vinci, the Tuscan town where Leonardo da Vinci was born. It is looking for other sources of funding to perfect its algorithms and continue to offer art lovers the opportunity to transform their snapshots into masterpieces in just a few clicks. — ETX Studio
