The following is a Google press release dated Tuesday April 3 2012:
Google today announced a major global expansion of the Art Project, signing new partnerships with 151 partners in 40 countries. From now on, with a few simple clicks of their fingers, art lovers will be able to discover not just paintings, but also sculpture, street art, and photographs. Creations from a wide variety of cultures and civilizations are represented, including Brazilian street graffiti, Islamic decorative arts, and ancient African rock art.
The project has expanded dramatically. More than 30,000 objects are available to view in high resolution, up from 1,000 in the first version. Street View images now cover 46 museums, with more on the way. A wide range of institutions, large and small, traditional art museums as well as less traditional settings for great art, are represented in the expanded Art Project. Click here and take a look at the White House in Washington D.C. Explore the collection of the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar. Continue the journey in India, exploring the Santiniketan Triptych in the halls of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi.
Key features of the new Art Project:
- Users may browse the content by the artist’s name, the artwork, the type of art, the museum, the country, the city and the collection. Google+ and video hangouts are integrated on the site, allowing viewers to create even more engaging personal galleries.
- A specially designed Street View ‘trolley’ took 360 degree images of the interior of selected galleries which were then stitched together, enabling smooth navigation of over hundreds of rooms within the museums. The gallery interiors can also be explored directly from within Street View in Google Maps.
- More than 30,000 artworks are featured in high resolution. Some have been photographed in extraordinary detail using super high resolution or ‘gigapixel’ photo capturing technology, enabling the viewer to study details of the brushwork and patina beyond that possible with the naked eye.
- An enhanced My Gallery feature allows users to select any of the 30,000 artworks – along with their favorite details – and ‘build’ their own personalized gallery. Comments can be added to each painting, and the whole collection can then be shared with friends and family. It’s an ideal tool for students.
- The new Art Project includes other completely new tools called Explore and Discover. Users can find artworks by period, artist, or type of artwork, displaying works from different museums around the world.
Nelson Mattos, VP Engineering, Google: “Google is committed to bringing all types of culture online and making it accessible. The Art Project demonstrates how the Internet helps spread knowledge.” Amit Sood, Head of Art Project, Google: “The Art Project is going global, thanks to our new partners from around the entire world. It’s no longer just about the Indian student wanting to visit Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is now also about the American student wanting to visit the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi.”
The Art Project illustrates Google’s commitment to bringing culture online and making it accessible the widest possible audience. Under the auspices of the Cultural Institute, Google is producing high resolution images of the Dead Sea Scrolls, digitizing the archives of famous figures such as Nelson Mandela, and creating 3D models of 18th century French cities. Find out even more about Art Project on our new YouTube channel and explore the project at www.googleartproject.com.
Editor’s note: Many thanks to Bernadette Weinberg, Academic Personnel Analyst for the UCSB Department of Geography, for suggesting this article.
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