Watching Common Council meetings is a must for reporters covering city government. But democracy takes time, and meetings frequently drag into the wee hours of the morning. Such was the case this Tuesday, when the council debated whether to hire eight more police officers. Before the final vote came in (17-2 in favor of hiring the cops), there was plenty of time for this millennial to mess around with a new feature in Google’s Arts & Culture app.
The app allows users to “take a selfie and discover if your portrait is in a museum.” Google collaborated with more than 1,200 international museums, galleries and institutions to find people’s fine art doppelgängers. Some interesting results came back when analyzing photos — taken live off Madison City Channel during Tuesday’s meeting — of council members and other city officials.
Mayor Paul Soglin bears quite a resemblance to 19th century Danish scholar Georg Brandes, at least in the Impressionist style of painter Peder Severin Krøyer. The match is made even better as Brandes is shown “lecturing,” which the mayor is known to do at council meetings.
Whoa. Didn’t expect this one for Ald. Paul Skidmore. Evidently, Google accounted for the veteran alder’s facial hair when matching him with this untitled portrait of a Korean scholar.
Police chief Mike Koval sure looks a lot like 19th century organ builder Benjamin Flight. Even their ears look eerily similar.
We’re hoping downtown Ald. Mike Verveer starts sporting a bright blue bow after seeing how fetching it looks on this 18th century aristocrat.
Ald. Sara Eskrich may be a time traveler. Her red hair is just as fiery as this portrait of Mary Clopton of Kentwell Hall, Suffolk, from around the year 1600.
We’re guessing Ald. Maurice Cheeks won’t object to Google matching his face to civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as depicted by artist Robert Vickery’s portrait of King for Time magazine’s 1963 “Man of the Year” cover.
Ald. Rebecca Kemble’s doppelgänger is the most well-known portrait of the bunch: Grant Wood’s American Gothic. Those piercing eyes could well reflect Kemble’s dismay at being one of just two council members to vote against hiring more police officers — despite several of her colleagues questioning whether the additional cops were needed.
It’s all about the eyebrows in Ald. David Ahrens’ match. His likeness, Guilherme de Almeida, popularized the haiku in Brazil and fought in the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932.
Who knew Ald. Denise DeMarb is the spitting image of former First Lady Bess Truman? We live in a golden age, that’s for sure.
Again, the eyebrows! It seemed only fair to include my own fine art doppelgänger. Not sure I can pull off a waxed mustache as well as Frida Kahlo’s father Wilhelm, though.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated to clarify that the Google Arts and Culture app is not new, though the selfie feature is. The app itself has been available since 2016, with the lookalike feature added in mid-December 2017.
