The Google Art Project view of a room in the National Gallery Musuem, London.
The art projects in the works for some time offer some great new ways to look at museums and the life works of artists.
The Google Art Project
I had not heard of The Google Art Project until a couple of weeks ago and it is very fun to play with. Google is using their Street View technology to allow you to virtually visits parts of select musuems all over the world. In the image above you can see a room in the National Gallery in London.
Here's a description from Google:
The Art Project is a unique collaboration with some of the world’s most acclaimed art museums to enable people to discover and view artworks online in extraordinary detail. Working with 17 museums, we have put thousands of works of art from more than 400 artists online. This involved taking a selection of super high resolution images of famous artworks, as well as collating more than a thousand other images into one place. It also included building 360 degree tours of individual galleries using Street View ‘indoor’ technology. Works of art included in the project range from Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ to Chris Ofili’s ‘No Woman, No Cry’, Cezanne’s post impressionist works to Byzantine iconography. From the ceilings of Versailles to ancient Egyptian temples, a collection of Whistlers to Rembrandts all over the globe. In total, 486 artists from around the world have been included.
You can zoom in and get amazing detail on images like this Van Gogh self portrait:
Here's a great video that gives you a good idea of how it works:
And they have just added 134 new Museums to the project. Here's the full list.
WikiPaintings
WikiPaintings is the largest collection of works I've come across on the internet. Here is what they are about: