In 1945, fire claimed three of Gustav Klimt's most controversial paintings. Commissioned in 1894 for the University of Vienna, "the Faculty Paintings"--as they became known--were unlike any of the Austrian symbolist's previous work. As soon as he presented them, critics were in an uproar over their dramatic departure from the aesthetics of the time. Professors at the university rejected them immediately, and Klimt withdrew from the project. Soon thereafter, the works found their way into other collections.

In 1945, fire claimed three of Gustav Klimt's most controversial paintings. Commissioned in 1894 for the University of Vienna, "the Faculty Paintings"--as they became known--were unlike any of the Austrian symbolist's previous work. As soon as he presented them, critics were in an uproar over their dramatic departure from the aesthetics of the time. Professors at the university rejected them immediately, and Klimt withdrew from the project. Soon thereafter, the works found their way into other collections.

Does your pooch look like a Picasso or your gerbil a Gauguin? Well, you can find out thanks to a Google feature that reveals which famous artwork your pet resembles. Part of the Google Arts & Culture app, Pet Portraits uses machine learning algorithms to scan a photo of your pet and find the best matches from hundreds of years of art. The system works with various animals including cats, dogs birds, fish, horses, rabbits and reptiles, and is available on Android and iOS. It builds upon the success of Art Selfie, a similar feature launched in 2018 that let us humans find our eerie doppelgängers from the world of fine art.

Few artists enjoy such worldwide fame as Gustav Klimt. The new Google Arts & Culture online retrospective "Klimt vs. Klimt - The Man of Contradictions" puts the spotlight on the artist's eclectic work and life. A Machine Learning experiment recolored photographs of lost Klimt paintings, while a "Pocket Gallery" brings some of his most iconic works into your living room in augmented reality and 3D. Together with more than 120 stories about his art and personality, a virtual tour of his studio, and many more highlights from the collections of over 30 cultural institutions around the world, "Klimt vs. Klimt" forms one of the most comprehensive online experiences about the artist. Klimt's legacy poses many unsolved questions, not least due to the fact that approximately 20% of his artworks were lost over the course of history.

Art has long been considered the exclusive domain of human creativity. But turns out machines can do a lot more in the creative realm than we humans can imagine. In October 2018, Christie's sold first AI-generated painting for $432,500. Titled Edmond de Belamy, the artwork was expected to sell for $10,000. Obvious art created this masterpiece using Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) algorithm by feeding the system with 15,000 portraits created between the 14th and 20th century.

As part of Google's ongoing commitment to support ambitious computer science research and the arts, Google Arts & Culture, in collaboration with Google AI, invite proposals from contemporary artists working with machine learning in their art practices. Artists Machine Intelligence (AMI) grants will support six artists with technical mentorship, core Google research, and funding. Artists will have the opportunity to work with Google creative technologists to develop and produce artworks over the course of a five-month period. Mentorship may cover technical processes like data collection and analysis, to pipeline design, and model deployment, and includes access to core Google U/X and technical research in generative and decentralized machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing. Apart from any Google background IP (if relevant), artists will own IP of their artwork.

A popular Google app that shows you your'art doppelganger' has sparked concerns that the firm is secretly collecting data on people's faces. The feature on Google's Arts & Culture app reads facial features from uploaded selfies and matches them with faces in famous works of art. The software has unleashed a frenzy of activity online as users post images of their painting lookalikes, but some have dubbed it a'facial recognition database'. A popular Google app that lets you find your'art doppelganger' by uploading a selfie (pictured) has sparked concerns that Google is secretly collecting data on people's faces Selfie fans have become obsessed with the new Google Arts & Culture app feature, which was introduced as part of a recent update. The software reads facial features from uploaded selfies and matches them with faces in famous works of art. Some have expressed concerns that Google is using the feature to store images of people for its photo recognition database.