Google?s Art Project 

Opening the doors of acclaimed museums around the world to anyone with Internet access

After 18 months of collaborating with some of the world’s most highly acclaimed art museums, the search engine giant Google unveiled Art Project yesterday. Not only does this new website allow visitors to view more than a thousand artworks in high resolution, but it allows them to take virtual tours of the participating museums, as well. 

Art lovers will no longer have to travel to New York City to peruse the halls of its Metropolitan Museum of Art; they will no longer need to plan an excursion to Europe to see the Palace of Versailles or Amsterdam’s van Gogh Museum. With the click of a mouse and an Internet connection, anyone can admire the classic, famous, and awe-inspiring works of art contained within the walls of these museums.

Guests can travel from room to room inside the 17 featured museums and galleries using Google’s Street View technology. Unfortunately, some of the works of art are blurred for copyright reasons, and images of other works are less than clear, even when the virtual guest is “standing” right in front of them. 

But use the site’s View Artwork option, and many of the works can be viewed in high resolution, with the ability to zoom in to see fine details—even brush strokes. With another click of the mouse, a visitor can learn the history behind and media used to create any particular piece, along with viewing notes, size, and other important specifications.

Is zooming in and out of a high-resolution image of a painting on your computer screen any match to physically standing before it and taking it in? Maybe not. But some may argue that it’s better than never seeing it at all.

Art Project Head, Amit Sood, stated in a press release that the collaborators hope the new site “will be a fascinating resource for art-lovers, students, and casual museum goers alike—inspiring them to one day visit the real thing.”Visit: http://www.googleartproject.com/