Decode the Mona Lisa smile with photo technology

British digital artist builds classic portraits in a modern "selfie" style to decipher Mona Lisa's emotions.

Yesterday's UK TV channel has just made a digital art project to build classic portrait paintings in the modern "selfie" style, Mirror yesterday reported.

The painting "Mona Lisa" is reproduced in a realistic photo style.(Photo: Tim Steward).

Digital artist Quentin Devine is in charge of a group of photographers, stylists and makeup artists, working on four classic paintings, including Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" .

First, the stylists and makeup artists create models for the model, then take photos of them with the same pose as the most original portrait. Finally, the digital artist will complete the picture.

The team focused on simulating the way of shaping, lighting, texture and overall layout of the painting to create the most detailed copy possible compared to the original painting but still retaining a realistic image style. Each portrait takes a total of 36 hours to complete.

Thomas Gainsborough's "Blue Boy" painting is one of four paintings rehabilitated by the project.(Photo: Tim Steward).

" Selfie is the most common form of portraits today. Therefore, we choose this modern method to explain historical masterpieces. It took us centuries to identify expressions. Mona Lisa's vague face is smiling and scowling, however, the restored work shows that it is really a smile and perhaps the Mona Lisa is even more beautiful than what is shown in the painting " , Adrian Wills, general manager of Yesterday TV channel, shared.