Google Art Project Overview
The Google Art Project is an effort to bring some of the world’s great art museums into the homes of web users everywhere and allow them to get closer to fantastic artwork than they ever could before.
Over 150 museums have teamed up with Google to put high-resolution scans of pieces from their collections online to be viewed at no cost to the user. Museums included in the Art Project include the National Gallery and Tate Britain in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Each participating museum performs full-colour high-resolution scans of selected pieces in their collection. Included in each selection is one featured piece of artwork scanned at one gigapixel, allowing the user to view the painting at a level of detail down to the brush stroke. Paintings, historic artifacts, and sculptures are included in the collection, as are other types of artwork. In addition to displaying these historic pieces of art, the Google Art Project also seeks to educate users by providing audio and video clips explaining several of the Project’s more popular or interesting pieces.
The project is arranged in a way that allows a user to search for artwork across museums by a specific artist or by a certain style. A user can also take a virtual walk through each of the museums by using the same system that powers the Google Maps “Street View” function. Visitors to the Project can also create their own virtual galleries of their favorite pieces.
This partnership between the world’s art museums and Google has made bringing history’s most influential pieces of art home easier than ever before.
Relevant Links:
Link to this page
