FaceApp changes old world art models from stoic to stoked

Forcing history to smile is fun.

It's such an obvious idea, but it took a professional artist to think of it: use the FaceApp to give old world art portraits the smiles they deserve.

UK-based designer Olly Gibbs decided to take the app to the museum and apply its effects to classic paintings and sculptures and the results are sometimes hilarious and other times just a bit creepy.

Gibbs says the idea was actually his girlfriend's, but the seamless perfection of the initial attempts were so good he couldn't stop, and soon had a long Twitter-based gallery of transformed old world characters.

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Aside from how amazingly realistic the smiles look, the images also give us a lens into just how somber portrait models were ask to be when sitting for a painting versus the ubiquitous smiles found in photos of today.

On the other hand, maybe Kanye had a point about not smiling being the path to creating a historic face for the public. Would we take some of these works as seriously if they were all cheesing as hard as the FaceApp forces them to?

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The series even inspired Gibbs to try using the tool for a bit of gif-power comedy.

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

And luckily for Gibbs, the museum housing the works took it all in good humor.

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