This app adds wigs and make-up to art history

“Mm, girl! You’ve seen better days. Maybe a bit of eyeshadow and some contouring could liven up those cheeks?” Artnet took a different angle on art restoration by putting some famous portraits through a new glamourising app, Perfect365. The app allows users to add make-up and wigs to images, effectively bringing these art history touchstones into the 21st century.

The result is comical: Rembrandt is improved with some cherry lipstick. Van Gogh is stunning in peroxide blonde tresses. While they’re fun to make and laugh at, this is another valid attempt to enlist interest in principal works from youth. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is taking its offerings to Snapchat to wonderous effect. What were once impenetrable portraits for the attention deficit generation are now hysterical memes. Now you’re talking my language.

So whether or not this is trivial fun, glamming up stuffy portraits could be harnessed as a serious educational tool. Or just the perfect time-waster.

See the rest of the art history selfies at Artnet