Google Art Project
Encyclopedia
Google Art Project is an online compilation of high-resolution images of artworks from galleries worldwide, as well as a virtual tour of the galleries in which they are housed. The project was launched on 1 February 2011 by Google
, and includes works in the Tate Gallery
, London
; the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, New York City
; and the Uffizi
, Florence
.
The "walk-through" feature of the project uses Google's Street View
technology. The project includes 16 images over one gigapixel
in size (over 1 billion pixel
s); the largest, Ivanov's The Appartition of Christ to the People, is over 12 gigapixels. By comparison, a typical digital camera
takes pictures at 10 megapixels, or about 1000 times smaller in area.
Google described the inclusion of Holbein
's The Ambassadors
as "tough". This was due to the anamorphic
techniques used in a portion of the artwork. Google stated that the effect was still apparent in the gigapixel version of the painting, but was less pronounced in the "walk-through" function.
, expressed a belief that rather than stopping a person viewing artwork in galleries, the project increases the person's desire to view the actual artwork. This view was shared by Brian Kennedy, director of the Toledo Museum of Art
, who believed that academics would still want to view artwork in three dimensions, even if the gigapixel images provided better clarity than viewing the artwork in the gallery. Similarly, Amit Sood—the Google project leader—said that "nothing beats the first-person experience".
Romania: Virtual tours for Bucharest Natural History Museum Grigore Antipa
and for Museum of the Romanian Peasant.
Already in January 2009 Google had launched its The Prado in Google Earth project, containing photos of 14 Prado paintings with the largest having 14 gigapixels.
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, and includes works in the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
; the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
; and the Uffizi
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...
, Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
.
The "walk-through" feature of the project uses Google's Street View
Google Street View
Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from various positions along many streets in the world...
technology. The project includes 16 images over one gigapixel
Gigapixel image
A gigapixel image is a digital image bitmap composed of one billion pixels , 1000 times the information captured by a 1 megapixel digital camera...
in size (over 1 billion pixel
Pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
s); the largest, Ivanov's The Appartition of Christ to the People, is over 12 gigapixels. By comparison, a typical digital camera
Digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. It is the main device used in the field of digital photography...
takes pictures at 10 megapixels, or about 1000 times smaller in area.
Institutions and works
Seventeen galleries and museums were included in the launch of the project. The 1,061 high-resolution images (by 486 different artists) are shown in 385 virtual gallery rooms, with 6,000 Street View-style panoramas. Each institute contributed one item of gigapixel artwork (all images shown are actual images from Google Art Project):| Alte Nationalgalerie Alte Nationalgalerie The Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin is a gallery showing a collection of Classical, Romantic, Biedermeier, Impressionist and early Modernist artwork, all of which belong to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The museum is situated on Museum Island, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site.- Founding... , Berlin |
In the Conservatory, Edouard Manet Édouard Manet Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.... (1878–1879) |
|
| Freer Gallery of Art Freer Gallery of Art The Freer Gallery of Art joins the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery to form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art. The Freer contains art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of... , Smithsonian, Washington, DC |
The Princess from the Land of Porcelain, James McNeill Whistler James McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger... (1863–1865) |
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| Frick Collection Frick Collection The Frick Collection is an art museum located in Manhattan, New York City, United States.- History :It is housed in the former Henry Clay Frick House, which was designed by Thomas Hastings and constructed in 1913-1914. John Russell Pope altered and enlarged the building in the early 1930s to adapt... , New York |
St Francis in the Desert, Giovanni Bellini Giovanni Bellini Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it... (started around 1480) |
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| Gemäldegalerie, Berlin | The Merchant Georg Gisze Georg Giese Georg Giese Georg Giese (Gisze according to the title of the Holbein painting) Georg Giese (Gisze according to the title of the Holbein painting) (2 April 1497 in Danzig (now Gdańsk) - died on 3 February 1562 in Danzig, was a Hanse merchant.... , Hans Holbein the Younger Hans Holbein the Younger Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history... (1497–1562) |
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| Museum Kampa Museum Kampa Museum Kampa is a modern art gallery in Prague, Czech Republic, showing central European work. The pieces are from the private collection of Meda Mladek, wife of Jan V... , Prague |
The Cathedral, František Kupka František Kupka František Kupka was a Czech painter and graphic artist. He was a pioneer and co-founder of the early phases of the abstract art movement and Orphic cubism... (1912–1913) |
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| Metropolitan Museum of Art Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the... , New York |
The Harvesters The Harvesters The Harvesters is an oil on wood painting by Pieter Bruegel in 1565. The painting is one in a series of six works, five of which are still extant, that depict different times of the year. As in many of his paintings, the focus is on peasants and their work... , Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1565) |
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| Museum of Modern Art Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world... , New York |
The Starry Night The Starry Night The Starry Night is a painting by Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. The painting depicts the view outside his sanitarium room window at night, although it was painted from memory during the day. Since 1941 it has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New... , Vincent van Gogh Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is... (1889) |
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| Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid | The Bottle of Anís del Mono, Juan Gris Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life... (1914) (technically only 283 megapixels) |
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| Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid | Young Knight in a Landscape Portrait of a Knight (Carpaccio) Portrait of a Knight is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Vittore Carpaccio. It is housed in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection of Madrid; it was put up for sale by heirs of the American collector Otto Kahn after his death and sold to Heinrich Thyssen in 1935.Dated 1510, this is the... , Vittore Carpaccio Vittore Carpaccio Vittore Carpaccio was an Italian painter of the Venetian school, who studied under Gentile Bellini. He is best known for a cycle of nine paintings, The Legend of Saint Ursula. His style was somewhat conservative, showing little influence from the Humanist trends that transformed Italian... (1510) |
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| National Gallery National gallery The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra... , London |
The Ambassadors The Ambassadors (Holbein) The Ambassadors is a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger in the National Gallery, London. As well as being a double portrait, the painting contains a still life of several meticulously rendered objects, the meaning of which is the cause of much debate... , Hans Holbein the Younger Hans Holbein the Younger Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history... (1533) |
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| Palace of Versailles Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles.... , Versailles |
Marie-Antoinette de Lorraine-Habsbourg, Queen of France, and her children, Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1787) | |
| Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam | Night Watch Night Watch (painting) Night Watch or The Night Watch or The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq is the common name of one of the most famous works by Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn.... , Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1642) |
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| State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg | The Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1663–1665) http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/hermitage/return-of-the-prodigal-son | |
| State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow | The Apparition of Christ to the People (The Apparition of the Messiah), Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov , 1806 – July 15 , 1858) was a Russian painter who adhered to the waning tradition of Neoclassicism but found little sympathy with his contemporaries.... (1837–1857) |
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| Tate Britain Tate Britain Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It... , London |
No Woman No Cry No Woman No Cry (painting) No Woman No Cry is a painting created by Chris Ofili in 1998. It was one of the works included in the exhibition which won him the Turner Prize that year . The Financial Times has described it as "[h]is masterpiece".The painting is in mixed media, including acrylic paint, oil paint, and polyester... , Chris Ofili Chris Ofili Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a... (1998) |
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| Uffizi Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:... , Florence |
The Birth of Venus The Birth of Venus (Botticelli) The Birth of Venus is a painting by Sandro Botticelli. It depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as a fully grown woman, arriving at the sea-shore... , Sandro Botticelli Sandro Botticelli Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance... (1483–1485) |
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| Van Gogh Museum Van Gogh Museum The Van Gogh Museum is an art museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, featuring the works of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries. It has the largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and drawings in the world.-Background:... , Amsterdam |
The Bedroom Bedroom in Arles Bedroom in Arles is the title given to each of three similar paintings by 19th-century Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.Van Gogh's own title for this composition was simply The Bedroom... , Vincent van Gogh Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is... (1888) |
Google described the inclusion of Holbein
Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...
's The Ambassadors
The Ambassadors (Holbein)
The Ambassadors is a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger in the National Gallery, London. As well as being a double portrait, the painting contains a still life of several meticulously rendered objects, the meaning of which is the cause of much debate...
as "tough". This was due to the anamorphic
Anamorphosis
Anamorphosis or anamorphism may refer to any of the following:*Anamorphosis, in art, the representation of an object as seen, for instance, altered by reflection in a mirror...
techniques used in a portion of the artwork. Google stated that the effect was still apparent in the gigapixel version of the painting, but was less pronounced in the "walk-through" function.
Reception
Director of the Center for the Future of Museums, Elizabeth Merritt, described the project as an "interesting experiment" but was sceptical as to its intended audience. Julian Raby, director of the Freer Gallery of ArtFreer Gallery of Art
The Freer Gallery of Art joins the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery to form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art. The Freer contains art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of...
, expressed a belief that rather than stopping a person viewing artwork in galleries, the project increases the person's desire to view the actual artwork. This view was shared by Brian Kennedy, director of the Toledo Museum of Art
Toledo Museum of Art
The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio, United States. The museum was founded by Toledo glassmaker Edward Drummond Libbey in 1901, and moved to its present location, a Greek revival building designed by Edward B....
, who believed that academics would still want to view artwork in three dimensions, even if the gigapixel images provided better clarity than viewing the artwork in the gallery. Similarly, Amit Sood—the Google project leader—said that "nothing beats the first-person experience".
Similar services
Beyond Google Art Project, other high definition digitalization programs exist, such as the ressources of the French Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France, with Mona Lisa, by Leonardo, and other paintings by Raphael, Watteau or Van Gogh, etc.Romania: Virtual tours for Bucharest Natural History Museum Grigore Antipa
Grigore Antipa
Grigore Antipa was a Romanian Darwinist biologist who studied the fauna of the Danube Delta and the Black Sea. Between 1892 and 1944 he was the director of the Bucharest Natural History Museum, which now bears his name....
and for Museum of the Romanian Peasant.
Already in January 2009 Google had launched its The Prado in Google Earth project, containing photos of 14 Prado paintings with the largest having 14 gigapixels.