In a word: creepy. In another word: beautiful.

What would a Van Gogh painting look like as a life-like image? What would Van Gogh himself look like -- not as a series of impressionistic swirls, but as a common photograph? Lithuanian architect and photographer Tadao Cern wanted to find out -- so he digitally recreated one of the artist's most iconic self-portraits as a modern portrait. The result is haunting:

Compare that to the artist's actual self-portrait:

So, basically: The architect took one of the most rare things in the world -- a Van Gogh painting -- and "converted" it into one of the most banal: a selfie. But in the process, using contemporary tools, Cern also created a new form of art, one that takes the work of human hands and transforms it into something that could exist only in the digital realm. Here is -- generally -- how he did it:

Via Design Taxi